Your licence renewal has been refused. What now?
A refusal is a decision about whether your movement satisfied the bona fide navigation requirement. It can be challenged, and the challenge stands or falls on evidence of where the boat has actually been.
In the Trust's own licensing review, 826 continuous cruiser renewals had been refused for failing the bona fide navigation requirement. It is not a rare outcome, and it is not the end of the conversation.
What has actually been decided
The Trust has concluded that its record of your movement does not show a genuine progressive journey. That record is built from sightings by patrol officers — occasional observations, not a continuous track.
So the question is rarely whether you cruised. It is whether what the Trust saw supports the conclusion it drew.
What helps
- —Your own dated record of moorings, with positions
- —Photographs with dates and locations still in the image files
- —Receipts from boatyards, diesel, pump-outs and marinas along the route
- —Any correspondence where you told the Trust about a breakdown or a stoppage
- —Witnesses who saw the boat where you say it was
Records kept as you went carry more weight than anything assembled afterwards. That is not a technicality — it is the difference between an account and a reconstruction.
What to do first
Respond within whatever deadline the letter sets, even if only to say you are gathering evidence. Silence is read as agreement. Then get advice: the NBTA runs volunteer caseworkers who deal with exactly this, and they have seen far more of these cases than you have.
Do not stop paying or stop engaging while you dispute it. An unlicensed boat is a separate and more serious problem than a disputed renewal.
Keep a record as you go
CruiseProof logs every mooring with a date and position, counts the days from when you arrived, and produces a cruising log you can send when you are asked for one.
Start your log — free