How much longer will sales of boats with internal combustion engines be allowed?

[Pete7]

What do we think this means for boats?

It means lots of short tacking to get up to the Folly and if you miss the tide, 6 hours of kedging.

Perhaps the IOW council could put a sort of ski lift in from the entrance so you clip your spinnaker pole on and ride up to the pontoons. They now have lots of practise with marine projects so 3rd time lucky perhaps?

No idea what to do about Beaulieu, perhaps the price of overnight mooring will include a tow up the river by oar powered skiff.

 

[eddystone]

I am pretty pessimistic about the future of leisure cruising as some of us understand it. Even before Covid 19 a vanishingly small proportion of young people could contemplate boat ownership. The average age of members of my yacht club is around 70 - their approach to yachting has more in common with Maurice Griffiths "Magic of the Swatchways" than Sailing Today or Yachts and Yachting. We will just die out and our non-compliant craft will just rot away on their moorings or a corner of some boatyard. The relatively wealthy will still have access to very expensive ICE free new boats acquired on a PCP or fractional ownership, sailing between marina charge points or more likely entertaining in harbour and occasional day sails - or racing round the cans.
Avoiding a climate catastrophe will require massive changes in lifestyle rather than just decarbonising what we do now. The freedom to navigate of a few grumpy old gits with their crusty old boats (who can't even generate a Twitter storm!) doesn't even merit a footnote on a policy options paper. Most of us will be dead or incapable of sailing before 2035 anyway.