Goodbye red diesel!

... if you make the most of a couple of trips over to the CI's fuelling up its not to bad.

That poses the sticky question of being caught with red diesel in your tanks and facing the same penalty as motorists caught doing so.

4 % for you maybe. A lot more for myself. It could push my costs up closer to 15%
 
With that question in mind Bruce, does anyone know the position of the EU/UK governments on fuelling up in Guernsey/Jersey at the moment because as far as I'm aware its ok.
 
With that question in mind Bruce, does anyone know the position of the EU/UK governments on fuelling up in Guernsey/Jersey at the moment because as far as I'm aware its ok.

No. But one of the clauses is if you have a dual leisure and commercial boat before you can use it for leisure you will be required to drain and scrub the tanks before filling with white. By inference if you get caught with red in your tanks for any reason other than commercial you will need to jump through hoops to explain why.
 
Berthing has gone up, insurance has gone up and maintenance has gone up. Diesel prices have varied over the last few years, up and down, and after a quick fag packet calculation I reckon I will be paying an extra 4% overall total running costs for the potential increase in duty. Prices in LYH are not bad anyway with volume discount and berth holder discount and if you make the most of a couple of trips over to the CI's fuelling up its not to bad.

AIUI CI marine fuel is marked (and will remain so), thus that option is likely to disappear,
 
Get ready for fuel price rises over the next 10-15 years. The government are pushing for cleaner vehicles and every major city in the UK will have a wide scale clean air zone by 2025. I personally think the net result will be much less fuel being consumed which in turn means less duty for HMRC. As such they will have to massage prices upwards to try and maintain the flow of duty.

Secondly, given the severity at which the government are going after Euro 5 or lower goods vehicles and taxis and vans I fully expect their next target to be pleasure craft of all types. Especially diesels.

I would not be shocked to see some kind of air tax come in for commercial and pleasure boats. Also aircraft and things like power tools with internal combustion engines. Lawn mowers etc.

Maybe not in the next few years, but give them time and they will chase every penny. Think of the children, etc.

A friend of mine works in London and just had to spend £12,000 on a Euro 6 generator because he cant use a Euro 5 generator now due to the air zone laws. ?!?
 
Bugger!, but if that's the case I would guess that a lot of visiting leisure boat visits will disappear as well. Even the yachties (inc the French) fill there boots there. (replying to Elecglitch)
 
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With that question in mind Bruce, does anyone know the position of the EU/UK governments on fuelling up in Guernsey/Jersey at the moment because as far as I'm aware its ok.

I think that the current position is a bit ill-defined. The UK government does not care too much - they have been selling us marked fuel themselves. It's only really Belgium and, to a lesser extent, Holland and Germany that have been taking much notice of marked fuel in UK boats - and I guess that relatively few of the boats filling up in the Channel Islands end up in that part of the world.

The theory is that if the fuel was legal where you bought it, then you should not be penalised for having it in your tanks, but that did not stop Germany from fining an American boat that arrived with a lot of legally purchased red in its tanks. I think that fine was quashed on appeal, but I don't think the situation is clear cut under international law - a US citizen arriving at Heathrow with a machine gun in his luggage could expect to be penalised even though it was legally purchased in the USA, so legality at the point of origin is not a defence.
 
I think that the current position is a bit ill-defined. The UK government does not care too much - they have been selling us marked fuel themselves. ............

I think that's a bit wishful. They have a habit of policing these sorts of changes rather well.
 
Not that I would condone this, but has any boater been prosecuted for declaring and paying the commercial rate for red diesel when they aren't a legitimate commercial business?
 
What I don't get is why the Irish, and their green marked fuel, haven't come under the same scrutiny.
 
Thing is - if this does happen obviously this will affect leisure users not on the fuel costs but value of your boat will drop etc.
How will this affect the RNLI as they are a charity so not commercial nor leisure?
Jon
As a very very cash rich charity, they will be able to shoulder the burden & with fewer boaters about = fewer "shouts"
 
I suppose that an enterprising owner of a small tanker lorry could arrange to visit marinas at agreed times & fill MOBOS straight from the lorry. I have seen this done in Ostend years ago when a number of boats wanted large quantities of fuel straight from the dockside.
Perhaps a marina operator would allow this for a small percentage.
 
I suppose that an enterprising owner of a small tanker lorry could arrange to visit marinas at agreed times & fill MOBOS straight from the lorry. I have seen this done in Ostend years ago when a number of boats wanted large quantities of fuel straight from the dockside.
Perhaps a marina operator would allow this for a small percentage.
40 years ago farmer MoBo owners, did much the same> i assume this was declared as private use to HMRC in the Farm Accounts
 
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