Practical Boat Owner October 2021

with the editor To receive the editor’s monthly email newsletter, go to our website: www.pbo.co.uk Waste water gets more column inches in PBO than in any other boating magazine I can think of. Discharging black water from leisure boats in the UK is very lightly regulated, but promoting best practice among readers even above and beyond the legal requirements has always felt like the right thing to do. Toxic Southern Water felt differently for decades and has been fined over £90m for its crimes against the rivers and coastal areas of the South and South East. See page 8 of News for the gory details, while on page 18 Sam Llewellyn suggests, satirically, that maybe it’s time to just privatise the sea completely. But it’s clear where Southern Water’s priorities lie: the image below…

SEND US YOUR STORIES Email news editor Laura Hodgetts at pbo@futurenet.com, tel: 0330 390 6738 The youngest sailor ever to circumnavigate Great Britain single-handed and an octogenarian undertaking a similar feat in the opposite direction were due to complete their journeys on the same weekend at opposite ends of the country. Murdoch McGregor, aged 82, met up with 14-year-old Katie McCabe and her family in Scotland on 30 July, saying it was “a privilege” and a “totally special day.” At the time of going to press, both Katie and Murdoch were due to complete their circumnavigations on the weekend of 21-22 August. Murdoch, who had travelled clockwise on his Hunter Horizon 232, Artemis, was returning to his home port of Alloa on the upper river Forth, on 22 August, from where he departed on 5…

Inland boat owners of East Anglia claim the Environment Agency (EA) has launched a massive price hike on their boats that is not reflected across all of its waterways. A consultation on the new pricing structure closes on 16 September and boating organisations in the Nene and Great Ouse rivers have vowed to make their voices heard. In the proposal the EA claims its change in payment calculations will yield an increase in revenue of 6% in 2022, 4% in 2023, 0% in 2024 and that of 3,946 boaters: 1,080 will see a reduction, and 1,183 an increase of under £50. But campaigner Ben Jones, a boatyard owner in the area, warns, “Having studied the figures in the 90-page document more closely, the real picture for boats on the Great Ouse and Nene…

The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has outlined its plans for the recreational boating sector to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050. The ambitious ‘Pathways to Zero: The RYA’s Vision for a Zero Carbon Recreational Boating Sector by 2050’ outlines the key actions and milestones the RYA and the wider sector need to reach to achieve the vision and respond to the climate emergency. Interim solutions for sailing yachts and inland waterways craft include HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) biofuel and the conversion of engines to hybrid electric through to 2035, before moving to fully electric drive. For small high speed craft: new-builds becoming battery electric for shorter range personal watercraft; and from 2030s onwards, potentially hydrogen direct burn in modified engines for longer range or high power requirements. For larger motorboats, first HVO…

Twelve-year-old Ruthie Gawley has written a powerful letter to Southern Water – in light of the water company deliberately dumping sewage into the sea. Southern Water was fined a record £90million on 9 July at Canterbury Crown Court after pleading guilty to causing thousands of illegal discharges of sewage lasting a total of 61,704 hours into rivers and coastal waters in Kent, Hampshire and Sussex between 2010 and 2015. In giving his sentence, the Honourable Mr Justice Johnson said: “Each of the 51 offences seen in isolation shows a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for the precious and delicate ecosystems along the North Kent and Solent coastlines, for human health, and for the fisheries and other legitimate businesses that depend on the vitality of the coastal waters.” During a Final Straw…

Meet BeBot, a beach-cleaning robot that specialises in sifting small pieces of coastal plastic debris from sand. The agile, remote-operated and electric-powered machine uses 1cm x 1cm sifting grids, and can be controlled from up to approximately 950ft away. BeBot can cover up to 3,000m2 of beach per hour, which is 20 to 30 times more effective than collecting rubbish by hand. This cutting-edge technology was developed in Italy and launched in the United States by 4ocean, a business that is ‘on a mission to end the plastic crisis’, in partnership with Poralu Marine. While the wheels of traditional beachcleaners degrade the shoreline, BeBot’s track system distributes equal and minimum pressure on the sand – reducing erosion and avoiding disruptions to local habitats. 4ocean.com…