Travelling to Essex; Hertfordshire Police

[stranded]

Leaving aside the logical or moral question, I am perplexed why people say that staying overnight is not against the law:

6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave [F1or be outside of]the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

So when the reasonable excuse ends, being outside of your home becomes unlawful. You will find it hard to find something that might include sleeping on your boat in the reasonable excuses - we’ll I couldn’t.

 

[johnalison]

Leaving aside the logical or moral question, I am perplexed why people say that staying overnight is not against the law:

6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave [F1or be outside of]the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

So when the reasonable excuse ends, being outside of your home becomes unlawful. You will find it hard to find something that might include sleeping on your boat in the reasonable excuses - we’ll I couldn’t.

That sounds fair enough. It sometimes takes years or centuries for laws to be fine-tuned for practical use, so we shouldn't be surprised if there are some ambiguities in the current situation introduced at short notice. What we have is a country divided into those who are doing there best to comply with the law's intentions and those who are doing the opposite. As for boats, mine is uninhabitable at the moment, so it doesn't affect me.

 

[Stork_III]

I hope you are wrong Ian because either we are going to meet daughter and fam in St Albans or they will come to us. Sheila says we have a big garden so that can be our open space. I favour Monday as Sunday might be busy on the roads.

Legally your garden is defined in the Regs as included in your Home, so visiting in the garden would be illegal, though unless your neighbours dob you in who will know.

 

[bedouin]

Leaving aside the logical or moral question, I am perplexed why people say that staying overnight is not against the law:

6.—(1) During the emergency period, no person may leave [F1or be outside of]the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.

So when the reasonable excuse ends, being outside of your home becomes unlawful. You will find it hard to find something that might include sleeping on your boat in the reasonable excuses - we’ll I couldn’t.

Outdoor recreation including going to the boat is included in the reasons. The government chose not to include the "there and back in a day" in the final change to the regulations.

So there are now no limits in distance or time for how long you can go to the boat.

What is amazing is that there are so many little Hitlers here so keen to criticise others for doing things that are legal an d harmless.

 

[stranded]

Good luck arguing that being asleep in your boat is outdoor recreation. People must make their own judgement whether to obey the law, but the law is pretty clear unless some canny lawyer can shoehorn sleeping aboard into one of the ‘including’ reasonable excuses, or carve out a new one - “Bedouin said” is unlikely to cut it.

 

[Cavalierbond]

Adopt a wartime mentality .. black out windows .. sleep when the sun goes down .. awake when it rises ...

 

[Malish]

Rochester Kent to SYH and back today, no issues. A couple of police cars on the A12, hopefully nailing the racers, certainly no evidence of checks on routine traffic

 

[PilotWolf]

Well if you want to break/bend the rules you could have a tipple at lunchtime and feel unfit to continue your voyage so have to anchor or unable to safetly drive home so need to sleep aboard....

W.

 

[jon and michie]

You could Leave the marina at 23:50 on your first day.
Return 00:10 which is another day

 

[ianc1200]

Got there and back yesterday, no issues. Going again tomorrow. Planning on going Thursday-Monday next weekend if dry - a lot of diesel will be consumed in my car! Titchmarsh have a list of liveaboards in case the police come again. The Walton FB group has reports of a police rolling road block to deter "the chip eaters" this morning on the A12 - many seem to feel they should be allowed to continue in lockdown, regardless of the economic cost, as long as somebody else pays, of course.

 

[Rum Run]

If your maintainance is going to take more than one day it must be less risk overall to stay overnight on the boat rather than driving hundreds of miles to sleep in the government approved bed. It would be only polite not to breathe on any locals of course.

 

[jon and michie]

Totally agree there is more chance of a incident if you travel on the same day hundreds of miles which in turn will affect more people than you just staying on board a vessel that you have spent all day on to start off with - - total madness

 

[johnalison]

I suppose that the people who are doing their best to stretch the law to suit their own agendas in the hope of getting away with it think they are achieving something in the process. At the same time, most of the people I see are doing their best to make life tolerable for themselves and their families. I saw the grave today of one of our sailing club members who died of Covid19, probably the result of someone travelling from a Covid area abroad, knowing full well what they are doing and doing nothing about it. Getting away with something is not the same as being successful.

 

[jon and michie]

Fair comment
After seeing the bbc news this evening it wouldn't surprise me if boris doesn't revert back to lock down after seeing people on the south coast packing a beach out and using steps probably 3ft wide and no social distancing applied.
That said the comments on this thread are not for dodging the authorities just common sense everyone on the planet knows what to do with distancing its whether it is applied what is the issue

 

[Tomahawk]

If the Govenments does reimpose lockdown... how many people will comply?

 

[jon and michie]

Tomahawk - I think people would rebel, the problem is the marina's wouldn't so staying on board overnight at your berth we're still in the same predicament

 

[johnalison]

If the Govenments does reimpose lockdown... how many people will comply?

I suspect that the models take into account the likely level of non-compliance. If lockdown needs to be reimposed, which is not impossible judging from other countries current state, then I would expect policing to be more severe.

 

[Tomahawk]

If policing was intelligent in the first pace..

Staying at home is the means of controlling the virus not the objective.

 

[bedouin]

Fair comment
After seeing the bbc news this evening it wouldn't surprise me if boris doesn't revert back to lock down after seeing people on the south coast packing a beach out and using steps probably 3ft wide and no social distancing applied.
That said the comments on this thread are not for dodging the authorities just common sense everyone on the planet knows what to do with distancing its whether it is applied what is the issue

He won't - he'll be guided by the numbers. If in 3 weeks time it looks as if R is close to or above one then more measures will come in again.

Best scientific opinion (FWIW) is that there is not a risk of catching the virus from just passing someone 3ft away outside.

 

[Old Harry]

He won't - he'll be guided by the numbers. If in 3 weeks time it looks as if R is close to or above one then more measures will come in again.

Best scientific opinion (FWIW) is that there is not a risk of catching the virus from just passing someone 3ft away outside.

assuming they dont sneeze over you