The B&C board is not locked, you have to register and be manually authorised to stop spam. Believe me what happens when the spammers get in is not nice nor family friendly. It does not take long to register and authorisation is very quick normally but unsurprisingly there is a lot of traffic at the moment. The advantage of also being on an established site is that there is lots of other interesting info already there and a boating community ready to expand and welcome you all