But they come at a time when there are growing pressures on the budget available for Trinity House to carry out its role in the provision of aids to navigation and a growing feeling in the shipping industry that the existing means of funding, known as Light Dues, is outdated and in need of reform.

In 2020 Vision , Trinity House has undertaken a wide-ranging review of aids to navigation used in British waters and how technology, particularly GPS and - in due course - Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), is likely to be used in future by big ships and recreational craft alike.

As Captain Duncan Glass, director of navigation requirements at Trinity House told Boating Business , if there is to be rationalisation of the fixed and floating aids to navigation, all mariners - including those using leisure craft - will need to be able to use integrated position fixing receivers.

"If visual and radar-based aids are rationalised, inevitably this will lead to mandatory carriage of position fixing equipment by all mariners and licensing and training of everyone who uses the equipment - including those on recreational craft - if safe navigation is to be ensured, " Captain Glass explained.

However, John Clarke, chief executive of the BMF, said it was "very disappointing" to see a reputable organisation such as Trinity House promoting mandatory licensing of all leisure craft and compulsory training of owners/operators.

"We can only presume that the primary motivation behind this is financial, and that little consideration has been given to the bureaucratic problems that would be created, " Clarke told BB .Enforced regulation of recreational boating will lead to increased costs and greater bureaucracy, the House of Lords was warned by Conservative spokesman on sport, Lord Moynihan, during a recent debate on maritime policy.

Dire consequences Lord Moynihan warned of "dire consequences" for boating if Whitehall gets its way. "There are worrying signs emanating from the corridors of Whitehall, " Lord Moynihan warned. "The government is finding it hard to resist requiring the sport to adopt many additional legislative measures, increased taxation and bureaucracy - for example, Automatic Identification Systems for recreational craft; light dues for pleasure boaters;

compulsory testing and regulation of all vessels."

Insisting that measures to protect health and safety should be both practical and reasonable, Lord Moynihan supported the RYA's view that this was best served by education rather than compulsory regulation.

"Britain has an outstanding recreational boating safety record, " he said. "This record is maintained, by and large, by the RYA's comparative independence and its commitment to education. Governments past and present have consistently reiterated their support for the RYA policy of education not legislation."

Speaking in the House of Lords recently, Lord Berkeley declared an interest in the debate as president of the UK Marine Pilots Association, but went on to say that, in addition to being involved in shipping, he also sails.

"The navigational aids around our coast are extremely good and are essential for the safe navigation of big ships, little ships and many other vessels. I would have no objection in principle to contributing some money to the maintenance of lighthouses, but there would be a severe difficulty in getting off the ground the registration scheme that surely would be necessary, " he said.

"I am thinking here of some of those boats that one sees in mud berths around the country. Do they ever move? If they do move, it would be like purchasing a vehicle excise duty and knowing which roads constitute highways and which roads do not."

Extremely complicated

The question of when a waterway becomes the sea and therefore covered by such a scheme would become extremely complicated, he said.

Lord Berkeley went on to say that given the amount of money, about £70 million, that is involved in the provision of these lighthouses around this country and Ireland, he suspected that setting up and enforcing a registration scheme for small boats would probably cost almost as much.

Addressing the question of a more equitable way of payment, Lord Greenway said it could be argued that yachtsmen have "just as little need for those navigational aids now as larger ships."

"They all use GPS these days if they are to go offshore, so they know where they are all the time and do not necessarily need those extra aids. Yachts are not earning money as commercial ships are. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, touched on how one can charge yachtsmen. That is probably the stumbling block.

It would be almost impossible, short of full yacht registration, which I do not believe the government wants. Finding a way of charging yachtsmen, whatever the actual method of charging, would cost more than the money that would be realised, " Lord Greenway claimed.

Many of the issues regarding Light Dues for recreational craft were highlighted in a recent Department of Transport consultation paper.

Time has moved on since the paper was produced, but few answers have been thrown up by the debate.

As the paper pointed out, the GLAs provide aids to general navigation and the majority of their aids lie outside port areas. Port authorities provide aids to local navigation within their boundaries.

The GLA will provide aids within the port boundary where a general navigation route passes through the port area.

A good example of the distribution of responsibilities lies in the Solent. Harbour authority responsibilities cover the entire width of the Solent and Spithead and the harbour authority will mark most hazards and provide all required aids to navigate into the port.

Recognised route But the main channel north of the Isle of Wight is a recognised general navigation route and the GLAs are responsible for marking that channel.

The channel buoys mark the channel that most commercial merchant vessels must use.

Recreational craft have no need to keep within this channel and are more likely to keep outside it to keep away from large vessels. The GLA aids here might be meeting a safety function for larger vessels, but it is arguable to what extent leisure craft users use and require GLA provided aids.

Much leisure craft navigation can, of course, be carried out using aids provided by the harbour authority and increasingly by GPS navigation and vessels may rely on charts when close to the coastline.

While either the GLA or the harbour authority may buoy serious hazards to navigation, neither would expect to provide sufficient aids to permit safe navigation close to the coastline, outside normal shipping channels, without reference to a chart.

As the consultation document points out, many leisure users will argue that payment of dues could begin to be justified if more inshore aids to navigation of direct benefit to them were provided. The document also points out recreational craft are more likely to make use of GLA aids outside harbour authority areas and away from the coastline.

One of the most difficult questions is whether collection of charges for recreational craft is feasible.

At present, Light Dues are charged by collecting from registered owners of vessels or by identifying a voyage into UK or Irish ports.

But there is no compulsory registration of recreational craft in either the UK or the Republic of Ireland to provide a basis for charging although a number of voluntary registers exist.

It remains unclear how many leisure users use GLA provided aids. Many leisure boat owners will clearly not use the GLA aids since the use of their boats is confined to inland waterways and lakes. Of those that go to sea, many might derive minimal benefit at best, from GLA aids.

Would it therefore be right to charge all leisure vessel users for aids even if they are never used at sea?

How to enforce?

If not, how might a scheme be devised that charges only for those which are used at sea, and how would such a scheme be enforced?

Currently, of course, there is no compulsory registration of pleasure craft in either the UK or the Republic of Ireland to provide a basis for charging, although a number of voluntary registers exist.

Some leisure craft are registered in the Registry of Shipping and Seamen, a register that provides full registration and proof of ownership, a requirement for the registration of marine mortgages.

Approximately 40,000 vessels of different types are believed to be held on this database.

Then there is the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) CG66 Safety and Identification Scheme. Approximately 100,000 recreational vessels have joined this free database that lists vessel and ownership details that may be extracted in the event of an emergency/incident.

The Small Ships Register (Part III), which was launched several years ago and run by the Registry of Shipping and Seamen, covers some 44,000 recreational craft, many of which also belong to the above Coastguard CG66 scheme.

A relatively small number of craft (believed to be around 4,000) are registered under the BMF Boatmark scheme.

Launched in 1995, and now tied to an EC Directive, the scheme requires a craft to be identified by means of a unique Hull Identification Number (HIN) in accordance with BS 10087.

Unfortunately, according to the Department for Transport, the scheme has not found favour; only about 4000 new craft and 3000 pre-owned craft have been registered.

The differing registration schemes and numbers of craft involved demonstrate the difficulty in collecting fees from the recreational craft sector and, as the consultation document made clear, decisions would be required on the classes and sizes of vessels that should contribute to aids to navigation.

Should all pay, or should a cut-off point be applied by identifying vessels that would be likely to use GLA aids?

Collection from individual vessel owners would be a massive task and would take a considerable time to establish.

Exemptions would have to be devised to cover vessels not used at sea. Any scheme would take a considerable time to establish, and the existing voluntary schemes set out above cannot be used as a basis for a statutory charge, having been set up for different purposes.

Vision 2020 does nothing to address the issue of exactly how recreational boat owners might contribute to Light Dues, or which kinds of boat might be included, and for his part, Captain Glass said he believed Trinity House's proposals had been "misunderstood, " but declined to enlarge upon exactly how they had been misunderstood.

"Once we have taken all of the responses to latest draft onboard, the final version will be produced and submitted to the Secretary of State for Transport for consideration as marine policy with respect to provision of aids to navigation, " he concluded.

Light Dues - due for review?

The ongoing debate about whether owners of recreational craft should have to pay Light Dues takes place against a wider debate about the arcane system of Light Dues for shipping, and whether the whole system ought to be modified, or abolished.

Light Dues are a tax on ships using British ports - vessels are assessed on their size and frequency of call.

While all ships have to meet pilotage, towage, mooring costs and so on, what distinguishes British ports is the additional Light Dues cost of up to £16,000 per port call. And that does not happen elsewhere in the world.

Shipping lines have the option of using other ports on the Continent and, it's claimed, continuing the system of Light Dues makes British ports uncompetitive and could damage the UK economy in the long term.

In May 2002, the Department for Transport commissioned an economic review of Light Dues.

Perhaps the most recent indictment of light dues came in Chapter 9 of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee Ports Report of 13 November 2003, which condemned light dues with these words: "The UK has historically employed a system of light dues to cover the cost of navigation aids. Such a system is inconsistent with other European countries and distorts competition.

The Government should reconsider the entire concept of light dues."