Victor asks—is the system closing down?

I REALLY PITY boaters who are expecting a decent cruise this week-end.

For the present state of the system is in the worst condition it has ever been since it became used for pleasure.

Even the Brag Rag, (the Boaters' Update) admits to 20 waterways with restrictions, and this is short of the 25 stoppages that Allan Richards discovered had stoppages and they have been piling up.

This last week alone it started with 10 new stoppages on the Monday and Tuesday.  Then there were six more on the Friday morning, but stoppages were coming so fast that for the first time to my knowledge a further eight stoppages were announced a few hours later!

So it was 14 announced, that can be added to the 20 already admitted. Though some of course are on the same canals that are listed.

One thing is for sure—our boat stays where it is!

12 years

Back again to the Brag Rag, Richard Parry reflects on 12 years at the tiller, telling that these are challenging times.

But surely what brought the challenges was getting rid of lock keepers and lengthsmen—who kept their eyes on the infrastructure and reported any problems that would then be attended to before they caused bigger, and much more costly, problems.

Then there was the sale of so much—all the equipment and even the tools of the trade, so then instead of the 'quick fix' by those who knew, came the contractors, who didn't. But certainly knew how to make a job last from to Monday to Friday, at often extortionate—and unnecessary—cost. As we plainly saw on the Leicester Section when it took a week to attach two new strips to the bottom gates. The strips are pictured.

The difference

After 30 years of boating and only one stoppage under British Waterway with a broken  cill on a lock on the Atherstone Flight, that took its men just two days to repair—here's a picture (you could have seen before!) with the fella showing that the middle of the canal is not the deepest, but nearer the towpath. 

Nowadays it takes contractors up to two months to do the same and at what must be a colossal cost.

The last five years under Canal & River Trust have shown we can no longer cruise the waterways we would prefer, and even then have all too often come to a sudden halt at a stoppage.

With John Coxon telling—No water because they sold the reservoirs, no maintenance because they sacked all the experienced staff, no money because they've employed too many directors and solicitors...the list goes on and on!

And from Allan Richards—who tells that the trust admits to 40 stoppages on Thursday, 37 on Friday and 35 on Saturday.  So there is an attempt to get them down.  But the Blag Rag with its 20 stoppages is a bit out!

A bad idea

I can well understand visitors and traders being ‘disappointed’ by the Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival being moved to the fields of a farm away from the town. (The picture shows the event in 'happier' times by the side of the canal.)

For, of course, this meant it was away from the side of the Trent & Mersey Canal where boat traders could offer their services.

It finished up being split with traders by the canal in the town and other traders in the field one and a half miles away, and complaints galore. The organisers even having to scrap its £3.50 parking charge.

Split as it was there were few visitors to either due to the confusion.  Perhaps it is a lesson learnt?

Hot and cold

It was a couple of years ago that newspapers everywhere latched on to boat living, with many describing how much cheaper and handy it was to live on a narrowboat either moored on canal banks or in a marina.

And even the top paper The Times eventually catching on and doing an extensive feature concerning living on a narrowboat in the top marina—Mercia.

But I just wonder how these people liked the past week, when one of them, contributor Helen Cripps, told us her boat 'baking' in the sun reached exactly 41 degrees centigrade inside and she and her child had to vacate and stay with friends...  The picture shows one way of keeping cool—but you can't shut the doors!   And where to keep it?

Or, of course, freeze in the depth of winter when no really sufficient heating?

You won't hear a word from them.  For boating is for the hardy if you want to live in one.

It can be done

It was way back in February that the Oxford Canal had problems with a gate on Lock 27 at Little Bourton it having a 'significant defect'. Then time went by.

Until recently when the Rothen Group, a waterways and marine engineering specialist, was at last called in by Canal & River Trust to carry out what really were urgent repairs.

A snapped collar and heel that secure the gate to the lock meant the gate was at risk of falling off, and not able to fabricate a new replacement, the trust took measurements of the existing structure and contacted the Rothen Group.

The Rothen Group’s fabrication team modified an existing metal collar and heel at their Mancetter Wharf headquarters to fit the lock, then its crane boat lifted the gate out, allowing the damaged components to be replaced. Then back in it went, and the navigation was reopened. 

With the entire process taking just one working week from start to completion. But why on earth didn't Canal & River Trust do this back in February?

Victor Swift—telling tales for 25 years