A little while ago i corresponded with Cathy about topic indiscipline. I fully support her interjection, and this is why:

Just think about our novice skipper of the future. S/he might come here and search a topic in hope of finding useful info. Much useful info is to be found on this site, I think you will agree. The novice skipper will also learn from the on-topic argument to be found here. But if indiscipline allows the subject to stray and get diverted to non-yottie areas eg. smoking, politics, then the viewer will get fed up and move elsewhere. Thus depriving us of their future input.

Skippers who are desperate to air their views on politics and smoking will, I'm sure, find other forums more dedicated to these.

Ed, I remember you recently taking exception to my veiws and threatened to leave the forum. You were then reminded by another user that this was a forum and that is what a forum is for; expressing views.

I agree that there is much useful information on this site and I have contributed a fair bit of it, Look at the recent one about wind speeds for example.

The title of this thread is TAXATION. Is taxation not political? I didn't bring the subject of pubs and smoking into the conversation but was engaged in meaningful discussion with another legitimate poster.

The only mistake if one has been made is that this thread should have been started under the grouping of "Soap Box".

I respect and would defend your right to express your views but it seems you would rather mine and anyone else who doesn't share yours were censored.

Now, on the subject of topic discipline; my first posting on the subject of Taxation was to disagree with a previous poster who thought that marine diesel should cost as much as road diesel. He had every right to his opinion and I had a right to strongly disagree. As I said, it's a forum. Somebody then made a posting agreeing with my sentiments and I made a further one which may have wandered off topic. Cathy then made a posting to remind us of this. Fine apologies to all for going off topic!

Since then you have made two postings with no relevance what so ever to the subject of taxation of marine diesel. I actually thought for a minute that your first one was a little "tounge in cheek" banter, hence my jovial "tounge in cheek" reply but from the content of your second postong; I know was wrong.

I totally disagree with your sentiments about putting off future skippers; thats just a lame PC type cop out excuse. If there was anybody sensitive enough to be put off by the merest mention of a politically incorrect subject in just one or two of hundreds of threads then they'll never go to sea anyway.

Hello everybody-I'm a novice to this forum and this is all very interesting. Taxation isn't in reality targetted and I think we all know that. Why should I enjoy untaxed diesel for my boat but not for my motorcycle which I only use for leisure? Obviously aviation fuel should be taxed equally but while people are buying boats that use hundreds of litres an hour I say tax it ALL equally. My boat weighs 20 tons and uses 3/4 gallon/hr-happy to pay tax on it.

Ps; will I be allowed to stay....?!

Hi Gwil and welcome to the forum.

The tax you pay on on fuel for your motorcycle is both road duty and VAT. That road duty used to fund the upkeep of the roads but no longer does; so you should be firstly questioning why we all have to pay that when the money is now being diverted to things that most of us probably don't want?

Your motorcycle probably does 40 or 50 mpg so even a 200 mile weekend run will only cost you about £25.00, thats affordable, you could spend more than that on breakfast in a biker's cafe and a nice lunch.

The people who can afford the motorboats you are thinking of that use hundreds of litres per hour probably won't worry about the increase. What you do need to consider is that many of these boats will be "corporate owned" so the fuel will be a company expense and fully tax deductable like the berthing fees, crew's salaries, catering and entertainment.

The tax increase will hit the many people (probably most motor boat user's) who run boats on a budget that use up to about 10 gallons (45 litres) per hour.

Now, when you could buy fuel for about £0.45 / litre, it would work out at about £20.00 per hour and a day out fishing or diving would cost around £100.00; about the same as your bike ride if four of you chip in for the fuel.

Once the fuel goes up to around £1.20 per litre that same day out will cost over £250.00; I don't think that's funny!

So you might be "alright Jack" but I certianly ain't!

---"Ps; will I be allowed to stay....?!"--- I've never wanted anyone to leave!

It's not really a question of I'm alright jack-honest! It's a bigger question I know,but to live in a world where it's even reasonable to run boats using 10 gallons an hour will need more resources soon than we have. Shorn of its rig and deckhouse I could take say 10 people fishing comfortably on my boat at a fraction of that consumption.

Ten years back I met an american in Camaret with a very nice 50' trawler yacht.I admired it while rowing past-he responded by saying it was unusual to get a compliment from a sailboat man and invited me on board. It had crossed the Atlantic on its own bottom with minimal fuel consumption from its two 65hp diesels. I said how good it was to see such a handsome powerboat-no patio doors and huge engines! There was a silence and he said "Ah,I used to have one of those...". "What happened?" I said.Another silence,then "I guess you'd have to say I grew up...".

We all have to grow up-there won't be cheap oil again regardless of taxation regimes.Americans will have to stop making 8ltr V10 pickup trucks and driving to work in them,stop-astonishingly-using two and a half times more of the world's energy supply than even us europeans. I remember being heartened a few years ago to see that Beneteau had produced a rather handsome trawler yacht-then depressed to discover under the waterline a planing hull and engine options up to something like 2x450Hp......

Sorry £1-20 a litre??????-its already nearly £1-40 a litre here in the Highlands!!!!!!!-over 70p a litre for red and keroscene-and rising several pence a week!!!!-you will not get it for lessthan £1-25 a litre at Tescos.

Phil

Two w/e's on the trot I've been coming back into Portsmouth harbour small boats channel,  when we have been overtaken by motorboats doing around 12-15 knots with a huge bow wave. This is something i have had a moan about in a previous blog.

Result on the 1st day, we got soaked as we had nowhere we could steer to prevent it.               2nd day we had to turn sharply into the wash to prevent being thrown around violently and from getting a soaking from the broadside waves. 

It is probably more convenient for them to be going at these speed to gain some stability themselves, but to do it at others expense leaves me a bit cross and wanting to treble the tax on their fuel.

Whilst I respect your environmental concerns Gwil and you probably feel smug that your boat only uses 3 to 4 gallons per hour; I bet that will only give you 6 to 8 knots which in turn, equates to about 2 nautical miles per gallon. Ok fine! the big trawler type yachts such as Nordhavn's will do about the same. (check out their 50ft job on their web site) and many of the sub 40ft motor boats will also give you about 2 miles per gallon or more. My 33ft semi displacement boat (which I think qualifies as a man's or grown up's boat) also does about 2 miles to the gallon and more if I keep the revs down.

You may also not realise that, it doesn't matter what could be "shorn" from your boat; you can only comfortably fish four anglers on any size of boat. That is; if you seriously want to catch fish and not other peoples lines all day long. 

Now, all the time that, by your own admission you continue to use fossil fuels for non essential reasons (motor bike remember) you are still guilty. Maybe not quite as guilty as some but certianly not innocent so the old saying of not throwing stones when you live in glass houses comes to mind.

Hi Phil, yikes; it's getting worse by the minute.

Hi Scotty, I was talking to some of very nice yachtsmen who were doing some sort of race event and came into our marina on Saturday evening as a stop over. One even said he thought mine was a lovely boat and would make a superb yacht racing comittee boat. Aw shucks!

I go in and out of harbours all the time at about 6 to 8 knots and never have problems from being overtaken by motor boats going much faster. Do sometimes have problems caused by sailing boats all around me that are only doing about 3 or 4 knots because I cant' steer at that speed but hey, even a bad day on the boat is still better than a good day at work!

Are you sure your're not enticing the motor boats to pick on you? You haven't painted a big slogan on your boat saying something like I HATE STINKPOTS have you?

Cheers and all the best

Chas

Hi Chas (27/05/08)

Having sailed for the best part of 50 years, I thought your article completely true and absolutely FIRST CLASS!

If Viv' lived in the real world and didn't hide abroad for six months of the year he'd be able to make sensible comments!

All the Best

George

 Sorry Chas! For 3/4 read three quarters-this is I admit for only 5knots.About 6.5 knots takes 1.3 gallons more or less, thats with a 45 yr old 75HP diesel. When-all to soon probably!-I'm to old to sail I'd be happy with a displacement powerboat that produced the same figures.

    My ignorance of fishing is you guessed profound. My record? UK-Portugal: 4 fish. Portugal-Madeira-Azores-Portugal-TWO fish....good thing some bright spark invented the canned sardine.

Cheers George, appreciated! You seem quite new to the forum so welcome by the way.

Hi Gwil, years ago I a 25ft clinker built boat with a Perkins 4108 that gave about the same mpg as yours. The trouble was that it took so long to get anywhere and even longer to get back (sometimes 5 or 6 hours) I can even remember the tide coming out of Portsmouth Harbour faster than I could go so that wasn't much fun either.

You have been to some good fishing spots but obviously not in a fishing boat. There is, for example, an area about 50 miles south of Fial that would have been another volcanic island if it been about 50 feet higher called The Princess Alice Bank. It is (or was last time I was there) absolutely magic. Fantastic, wildlife in abundance. I once saw some big fins in the water and thought it was either a pod of orca or big sharks, we motored towards them then realised that they were manta rays about twenty feet across and as they were turning their wing tips were just coming out of the water. The water was gin clear and as we got close we could see them descending in the water in formation and looking like a giant escalator. Wonderful place but rather difficult in a 5 knot boat.

Cheers

Chas

What a brilliant description! Thanks, Chas.

Going back to the cost of diesel: A month ago we filled up our tank at home marina: 80p a litre, before heading to South Coast. Little wind so lots of motoring. Refilled at Cowes on the way home: 71p a litre. Made some comment about it being cheaper than at home and the guy said: 'Oh, but the next delivery won't be!'

Just refilled at home marina again (after motoring all the way back from Ostend on Sunday). They too have had another delivery. Cost now: 91p/litre. Remember all those dire warnings about it being 90p in November when the duty changes? It's going to be a lot more by then. And in the meantime every time the price goes up, and the Government blames the fuel companies, the tax take, in VAT and duty, goes up too. So they are already getting billions more income than they budgetted for.

Cheers Cathy!

It really is goint to hit all of us and as you say with duty and VAT being a percentage rather than a flat rate; the government are rubbing their hands with glee every time it goes up.

There will be a good market for fuel flow metering systems! Just think, the technology is already there to do it, measure fuel flow and speed and it would be easy to compute MPG!

I'll probably find myself travelling around at abouit 6 knots in future.

All the best

Chas

Chas-I do need fishing lessons!

 Off Faial I was followed very closely by a fin whale-bigger than my 45' boat-for an hour or more. An astonishing thing to see so close. Equally astonishing to think there are people who could drive an explosive harpoon into something so extraordinary about which we know so little. It took 10yrs of my spare time to build that boat-almost worth it just for that hour.

Hi Gwil

The Azores used to be a big whaling port but I don't think they have done any for many years.

I'd quite happily send a gun boat out to any whaler still operating; there is no justification for it what so ever. Add that to the decimation of resources caused by many commercial fisherman and the future doesn't look that good.

I'll give you a typical example of mismanagement of natural resources closer to home.

Padstow used to be a prime angling area for porbeagle sharks, the season went from about March to November and people were clamouring to book up the charter boats there. The charter skipper's were virtually guaranteed a full work load from sport fishing but unfortunatley many were greedy and rather than tag and release the sharks; they would bring them back and sell them. Some people were even longlining the sharks so eventually there were no sharks left or at least not enough to make it worth fishing for them so people stopped chartering the boats. The skippers may have made big money for a few seasons but they could have made good money every season and probably, still be doing it! 

Fortunately, whales still seem to be quite abundant around the Azores, I've seen sperm whales there as well.

So you built your own 45 footer; I'm impressed, very impressed. How about starting another thread and giving us the details and some pictures!!!

  Hi Chas, I'll dig out some pictures-if my filing system can find the disc. Word of warning-I've made it my life's work to dissuade people from doing the same! I did it in the garden with a workshop 10' away and half a lifetime of rebuilding cars/motorbikes/houses etc. behind me-it was still a hard row to hoe.

I admit I made everything myself-right down to the marinising gear and almost all the metalwork. Sadly I've seen too many half finished projects for sale after huge expense,broken relationships etc.-if in doubt don't do it.Free counselling on offer if you still want to go ahead!

 Of course it's a great feeling to be in mid-Atlantic with a fair wind in something you crafted with your bare hands, but I'd have had 10 yrs more sailing and spent not much more if I'd compromised a little on size and taken out a bank loan.....

With the escalating fuel costs would it be wiser and perhaps more environmentally and ethically responsible, to put all the energy into building a yacht?

A friend of mine built his own yacht in South africa some 25yrs ago and sailed his young family back to the U.K. where he sold up and has never sailed since. His daughter did however carry on and is a professional sailor doing deliveries etc.

It would be too much for me to take on Gwil. I'm restoring a 31year old Lochin33 during winter months and using her form April to about November - that's enough for me! See the thread "Mission Impossible" I've posted some details in there.

I don't do environmetally and ethically responsible Scotty, at least, not unless I'm charging fees for advising someone else how to do it!