After 16 years...
LIKE your other contributors are telling, we too have now finished a season on the waterways, our sixteenth, writes Holden Squires.
Not knowing how long your other contributors have been boating I cannot say of course if our efforts are average, but it has given us a good chance to note the direction the waterways are going as we have cruised the same waterways time after time, year in year out.
First to cruise
As an example we were amongst the first to cruise both the Rochdale and the Huddersfield Narrow when they were both completely restored, and doing them both again this season.
I can state without fear or favour that the Rochdale is a complete mess. Having a somewhat overloaded boat our draught is somewhat deep, so we were grounded quite often should we venture too far from the original centre line. The gates on this broad canal have obviously had little maintenance and were on the whole difficult to move as well as many leaking profusely as well as swinging open, or 'auto opening' as someone told your contributor about the Leicester Section lock gates.
Days long gone
Vegetation was rife, and allow me to mention the old NABO 'veg pledge', when it had the vegetation well cut back, but alas those days have long gone. Luckily on the Rochdale, part of the canal is above the tree line, so in those places vegetation was not a problem.
It may be, as others have written, us boaters are getting older so things must seem harder, but it does not bode well for the future, as younger boaters seem very thin on the 'ground', so who will be paying licence money in the future as us older ones give it up? In many case, surely in the working days of the canals, families that of course often included children, worked the locks, so they couldn't have been so difficult, that to me directly points to either none or not enough maintenance.
A special case
Now to the Huddersfield Narrow, which really is a special case as when it was restored it was by no means in tip-top condition, and again as others have pointed out the 70 odd locks, many of which had for years been unused, would be problematic, that I fully accept, but the many very short pounds really need dredging, as the accumulating silt results in them holding little water, resulting in constant grounding and flushing to get a boat to float.
On the positive side there is 'Fred' who has been there since the year dot, a great help when we encountered drained pounds and a mine of information in the tunnel. And it is the trip through that marvellous feat of engineering that makes it all worth while, and for all the problems, I can understand why you at narrowboatworld name it as your favourite canal. But it is not for those who take their boating haphazardly, you have to have your wits about you, which is perhaps why so many end up sinking in its locks. But as to the one who managed to sink twice, he or she, should stick to such as the Thames where they can be looked after, they certainly should not be let loose on the Huddersfield Narrow.
A dream to operate
During the year we travelled many of the canals in the Midlands, yet the same applies regarding maintenance. Admittedly there were locks that were a dream to operate, but whilst in our distant past most locks—broad or narrow—seemed a dream to operate, alas it is far from the case now.
I make no apology for being so negative, for I have tried to tell it as I saw it, and perhaps if more and more did the same it would put pressure on the authorities to do something about it and spend the money we give on the system we use, instead of such other money wasting schemes like the Waterways Partnerships and being so concerned for butterflies and the like that have more then enough societies caring for them already.
What say you, Mr Parry?