Enough is enough
WHILE the men have been 'CaRT bashing', I have thought just give it time to get their act together—but enough is enough, writes She Who Must Be Obeyed.
It came to a head when we stopped at the water point at Newbold-on-Avon. It had to be there as the water point at Rugby was 'out of order', (pictured) and had been since the last time we passed a year ago, and possibly even longer.
As you may or may not know the tap is between the tunnel and a bridge on a bend, with moored boats by the tunnel end. Not ideal but not impossible.
Another boat coming!
So picture this—we are filling with water when a very long Napton hire boat comes towards the tunnel overtaking us when the steerer sees a Black Prince hire boat coming towards her, so I shouted to the Napton boat "There's another boat coming!" . ''Oh Shit!'' says the Napton lady and puts on the brakes which swings her boat into ours.
The Black Prince hirers are Americans, and the lady jumps off the boat shouting ''Gee George, the boat is going to hit us!" But the steerer can do nothing about it in the confined space, so I helped the American lady while He helped the Napton lady, Then to make them feel better I explained that boating was a 'contact sport'.
Luckily the only boat hit was ours as the Black Prince boat took evasive action by pulling in towards the water point while the shaken Napton lady carried on.
Why blame CaRT?
So why was CaRT to blame? Well, the Napton lady said that if the overhanging trees on the offside had been cut back she would have been able to see the other boat coming, thus making the water point a lot safer. Obviously there had been no cutting back of trees on the offside for years and it is increasingly harder and harder to stop your paint-work being scratched when passing, which from a female point of view is very important!
Surely the idea is to give hirers a good time, then they will come back again; not scare them to death crashing into boats, etc. George was obviously an overseas visitors who surely won't come back again whilst the other won't either as a little later they took advantage of one of the bridges left when the Brinkley bends were straightened, reversing in and so being unable to turn their long boat to, it seems, get back to Napton.
Paddle gear
Another thing that makes it hard, especially for the ladies, is the difficult paddle gear. The top one at Hillmorton (pictured) was that hard that even He couldn't shift it. Have you noticed that when volunteers are present the paddles are very easy, but when they are not the paddles are very stiff.
Yet the paddles on the South Oxford are very well greased, so much so that some poor soul has left little sticks on them to use to save getting your hands covered in grease—must have been a woman! But don't they know that it is not just grease that makes the gears run smoothly?
What I am trying to say, is that by not maintaining the canals correctly CaRT is not making them a pleasurable leisure experience, but deterring visitors in the future. As today's users get older there will be less people to carry on as new prospective boaters have been put off by hard paddles, blind corners covered in bushes, no water taps, etc—the list goes on.
Surely if CaRT wants to promote its canals it should maintain them properly at least. Either that or buy some porta-loos, so that the volunteers are allowed to help at more locks further along flights.