Hi Songbird. Will you be living on your boat, or just using it when you aren’t working? If you are going to be living on your boat, do you know where you are going to moor? Residential moorings are quite hard to come by so the alternative is to find a convenient spot on the canal. Hundreds, maybe thousands of boaters do just that. They moor close to a bridge so that they can park their car nearby and stay there for as long as they can. Unfortunately, this practice is frowned upon by BW (or C & R T as it is now). It’s called “bridge hopping”. In order to moore legally on the canal, you have to be on a progressive journey so, if you need to stay in one spot in order to commute to work, you either need to find a residential mooring or risk the wrath of the authorities.

Let me know a little more about your circumstances so I know what information you need.

Sorry it’s taken me a while to reply. I’ve finished work now so before I take that ice cold can of Scrumpy Jack out of the fridge I’ll reply to your post.

If you and your boat need to be static for any length of time so that you can get to a fixed geographical location for work and you intend to live on your boat, in order to comply with waterway rules you must have a residential mooring. The only time that you don’t officially need a residential mooring when you live on your boat is if you are a continuous cruiser. Continuous cruisers must constantly travel the waterways, never staying in any one spot for longer than fourteen days (unless they are prevented from doing so by the weather, stoppages or illness).

With regard to single handed boating:

• Take an Inland Waterways Helmsman’s Course
• Make sure your boat has a centre rope. You can’t control your boat single handed without one
• If you have a boat with a cruiser stern, don’t fit one of those ridiculous pram covers. You can’t control your boat easily with one fitted
• Make friends at locks. Another helpful pair of hands when you’re in a lock is very useful

How’s that for starters? I’m off now. It’s cider time!

In theory you can stay on a residential mooring for part of the year but, as residential moorings are like hen’s teeth, and as most residential moorings are used pretty much as static homes, when boat owners find one that suits them, they tend to stay there long term. It’s more usual for someone who has secured a residential mooring to keep paying for that mooring if they are going to be away from it for a while. Of course this may not be practical if you only want the mooring for a few months a year.

Your friend who used a marina mooring while he went on holiday for a couple of weeks wouldn’t have needed a residential mooring. He would have had a leisure mooring which allowed him to leave the boat there but not to live on it.

There are plenty of moorings available over the winter, but not all of them will allow you to stay on board. You need to visit the moorings that take your fancy and talk to other moorers there. Look for signs of liveaboards like stuff stored on the roof of the boat and maybe well tended plants on or near the boat. Talk to the moorers before you talk to the owners of the mooring though. Even though there are liveaboards on the moorings, the mooring owners may not openly accept liveaboards. It maybe a case of them turning a blind eye.