Dredging for festival

THOUGH the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal is one of the deepest in the country, it is not so around Gloucester, causing the Tall Ships in the annual festival to become stuck in the mud.

To overcome this for this year's Tall Ships Festival, Canal & River Trust have spent £115,000 to have the basin at Gloucester dredged, Alan Tilbury tells us.

Grounded

The festival, that is organised by Gloucester City Council, attracts a great many spectators, but was spoilt last year when several vessels were grounded, having to be dragged off.

The area has been dredged to 14 feet, to allow the sailing ships and their keels to manœuvre around the basin.  The silt comes from the Severn when water is pumped up into the docks.

John Chard's photograph shows the new type of dredger being used,  and tells us that it is fitted with a pump. The pump is connected to a very long pipe which was supported by the yellow bouys eventualy emerging at the wall by the dry dock and the silt returning to the river.