Where is it safe to go?

Published: Thursday, 26 July 2018

WITH all these canal closures where is it safe to go with your boat? Asks Pat Jenkins.

We moor at Mercia Marina and are about to have our fortnight's holiday and like others here are worried where is safe to cruise and more importantly will we be stuck somewhere.

Also closed

With the Macclesfield now closed, that cuts out Bugsworth Basin, that I read is now also closed anyway as are most of the canals that way.  And neither can we do the Four Counties with the Middlewich breached and no information of it being repaired.

Like I should imagine most boaters we prefer to do a 'ring' and not a 'there and back' but it seems it will have to be this time, either up the Trent & Mersey and back or the Shropshire Union and back, but will this continuing dry weather affect them?

Mentioned Victor's lucky escape

We were talking to fellow moorers who are considering the Leicester Ring, but when I mentioned your Victor Swift's lucky escape last September when the Leicester Section was then closed and all winter, they are having second thoughts especially as they are cruising in September. Anyway, like us, they left Sawley to come to Mercia to rid themselves of having to work those dreadful six locks up from Derwent Mouth, so the Leicester Ring is out for us.

There have been so many tales here of problems on the Oxford so that is a definite no-no, and we were once held up on that canal for three days when it was closed owing to problems with a lock gate.

Come back British Waterways, all is forgiven!