Excuse number two

Published: Wednesday, 19 July 2017

THOUGH it was a protruding bolt on the lock gate that caused the problem with Hawkesbury Lock on the Oxford Canal, Canal & River Trust blamed 'vandalism', but has now produced excuse number two!

It was on Monday when a narrowboat progressing through Hawksbury Lock at Sutton Stop at the junction of the Oxford with the Coventry canal inadvertently caught a protruding bolt on a gate of the narrow lock, that being firmly attached to the timber by metal, pulled it out as it was caught by the boat.

Boat collision

At the time the Trust blamed vandalism, though how was not explained.  But now it tells us that the damage was  'due to an accidental boat collision'.  Of course not admitting that the protruding bolt had actually caused the damage.

The outcome is that the lock is having to be drained, and the navigation closed so the damage can be assessed by engineers, though the metalwork will have to be replaced.

Reported problems

We are told by many boaters that they have reported problems with locks, getting the standard reply, but later seeing that nothing had been done to rectify the problems.  Perhaps this was a case in point.

[Going out on our last cruise we reported two problems with paddles, one also referred to by Victor, but coming back—in one case over two weeks later—nothing had been done.]