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We are active members of the Canal Boatbuilders Association.
Members of the CBA are also members of the BMF (British Marine Federation) and so have access to the most recent safety legislation, and technical standards including recent work on corrosion control. They build boats to fully comply with the current requirements of the Recreational Craft Directive. And when you Buy a boat through a CBA member you can buy with the security of the BMF’s agreed form of contract which protects both the builder and the buyer.
Quality of design and build is the hallmark of the Canal Boatbuilders Association members but recently members have raised concerns about the image of the industry becoming tarnished by the numbers of poor quality and even in some case dangerous boats being produced by some of the large number of new non member companies springing up. At a rough count there are now just under 300 boat builders in the UK while CBA membership consists of less than 100 builders, these figures make for disturbing reading when you consider that this means a large percentage of builders appear to be building without any technical support to achieve the required legal standards. Conformity to the legal standards falls within the remit of Local Trading Standards Authority’s whom are largely ineffective in policing the standards.
With this in mind the members of CBA in 2006 agreed to be governed by a code of practice that would not only guarantee compliance to the legal standards but go even further to surpass these standards, to enable members to achieve this the CBA and BMF have taken a proactive approach to training of their members and action against those not observing the code of practice.
You can view the Canal Boatbuilders Association Code Of Practice 2007 HERE.
Yearly the CBA publish their free handbook entitled “How To Buy A Boat For Canal Or River” you can order it and view the online copy HERE.
You can also visit the new CBA website HERE.
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