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Has it been a busy summer?


Philip

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19 minutes ago, Peter X said:

 On my last trip the Friday/Saturday/Sunday were busier than I'd expected, no doubt the fine weather helped, but Bank Holiday Monday was strangely quieter even though we were on the Coventry, usually quite a busy canal.

I noticed this earlier in the year at Easter and the two May bank holiday weekends (we were able to do 12 day trips then because we are relieved of the Monday school run commitment at bank holidays).

Over the Easter weekend, in the Rugby area, the Saturday and Sunday were extremely busy (as we passed we had noticed that all the Calcutt fleet and all the Clifton fleet were out, which was very much not the case a few days later) but on Monday it was dead again, relatively speaking.

I put this down to the weekend hire effect where loadsa people hired for the holiday weekend but then were back near the base by Sunday evening and handing the boat back early Monday morning. This must have a big effect in the area given the large number of hire fleets.

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15 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

Boaters taking a last chance to travel the Nene and Ouse before it is closed until further notice. As claimed by the IWA in the Waterways press that both rivers were in a poor state and were in high-risk of being closed for an indefinite time.

Is anything confirmed regarding this? A quick Google doesn't show any planned stoppages for this winter...

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On 01/09/2017 at 12:21, Dave123 said:

Is anything confirmed regarding this? A quick Google doesn't show any planned stoppages for this winter...

This is the IWA claim, But then this is all part of the IWA’s demands the EA navigations are transferred to CRT

https://www.waterways.org.uk/news_campaigns/bulletins/iwa_bulletin_20170124

 

Have a look through this thread  

https://canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/topic/89462-ea-to-close-some-navigations/&

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It's been quite busy on the L&L, Silsden Boats seem to be doing a lot of trade.

Have noticed this year that there are a lot of hirers from abroad, they all like to fly their own flags on their sterns, Germans, French, Swiss, Norway, Spanish, Dutch, Canadians, Americans and a few from Australia.

Must admit, their fleet is starting to look very battered.

 

bazza

Edited by Bazza954
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For the last 2 weeks in July (starting the 15th) we went from the Llangllen to Great Heywood & back (via Market Drayton, Penkridge etc.) and noted that it was quieter than we had expected. Dont recall having to wait at any locks etc, and when we went up the the Audlem flight - did the full flight without seeing anyone else (and yes all the locks were against us :) ).  Even when we stopped at Tixall wide - there was plenty of space, whereas on previous visits it was a case of taggin on at the end..

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18 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

Boaters taking a last chance to travel the Nene and Ouse before it is closed until further notice. As claimed by the IWA in the Waterways press that both rivers were in a poor state and were in high-risk of being closed for an indefinite time.

Having just come off the Ouse no problems for a narrowboat all the way up to Bedford. The last two bridges into Bedford were tight  after a little rain, with our 6'3" air draft. Didn't see any problems for any of the large multi hundred horse power cruisers except for some, any ability to stay below 7mph with both engines idling. 

As our last year cruising we had thought of this area as the "left overs" but the upper reaches of these rivers are stunning. Lovely towns, beautiful meadow moorings, otters etc, and very few boats.

 

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Just back from a fortnight on the K&A, Hilperton-Hungerford-Hilperton.    I would say the majority of time it was very quite and we had the pick of the VMs when we wanted them.    Saying that we where at Semingiton Thursday and it was like the M25 with hire boats from the three local fleets going in both directions! 

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17 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

Are they all heading to London?

Lots of boats going down Buckby, dire warnings from the IWA about the alleged imminent closure of the Nene, and 2+2=5.

So they'll all be turning left at Gayton to experience the Nene while they can. I hope they start filling each lock on the Northampton Arm before they open the bottom paddles of the one above, or the boats behind them could be there a while.

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For a few weeks in July we were at Baddesley Wharf in the middle of the Atherstone flight of locks on the Coventry Canal having some work done on the boat.  The folk there said they'd never known it so busy. Also, when walking my dog I spoke to many hire boaters who were boating for the first time.

The T&M in the midlands seems busier than usual this year as well.

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Busy?

This past bank holiday Sunday we left Braunston heading west VERY early. Except for two short spurts we travelled continuously at tick-over for an hour and a half passing tied-up boats. We must have passed 30 boats cruising in the opposite direction as we progressed towards Wigram's Turn. At Wigrams itself there was a guy winding a boat, some one pulling out of the marina, a boat coming through from Napton and as we crossed over someone else entered from the Warwick direction. We had two boats following behind us. Passed another dozen boats cruising in the opposite direction on the way to Napton -- which was completely full of boats late morning. And it took three and a half hours to get up the Napton flight. 

I've never seen anything like it. 

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33 minutes ago, Jim Batty said:

Busy?

This past bank holiday Sunday we left Braunston heading west VERY early. Except for two short spurts we travelled continuously at tick-over for an hour and a half passing tied-up boats. We must have passed 30 boats cruising in the opposite direction as we progressed towards Wigram's Turn. At Wigrams itself there was a guy winding a boat, some one pulling out of the marina, a boat coming through from Napton and as we crossed over someone else entered from the Warwick direction. We had two boats following behind us. Passed another dozen boats cruising in the opposite direction on the way to Napton -- which was completely full of boats late morning. And it took three and a half hours to get up the Napton flight. 

I've never seen anything like it. 

Did you get stuck coming down Claydon today, 16 boats waiting by the time we arrived, someone had emptied 2 pounds.

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Looks like we did the right thing getting out of the area for the last couple of weeks. Shame our trip is nearly over - we'll be doing the top end of the Oxford north today, Rugby area tomorrow and Braunston to Napton by the end of the week. 

Hopefully the area is back to it´s normal late summer/early autumn level of busy by now with the bank holiday long gone and schools about to go back.

Perhaps us old fogeys will be going back into the marina at the weekend just as loads of other old fogeys ard coming out for the start of their post school holiday cruises. 

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19 hours ago, matty40s said:

Did you get stuck coming down Claydon today, 16 boats waiting by the time we arrived, someone had emptied 2 pounds.

The second or third pound from the top of Claydon was about 18-inches lower than usual (perhaps a bit more) both going north and returning south. On our way up about five weeks ago I actually grounded the stern just in front of the lock at the top of that pound. On the way back (about five days ago) the level was down about the same ... and 3 CRT staff were holding back boats for about 20 minutes to re-flood that pound.

I just kept to the centre of the pound and travelled slowly enough so that K could get the lock gates open and I could enter directly.

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So perhaps it is the Shroppie and not the canal system as a whole which has had a quieter time of late. It seems as though a lot of people view the southern B&LJ section as a through route (and thus only an alternative to the Trent and Mersey), rather than a canal to visit in its own right, such as the Llangollen and Chester sections. A return trip from the northern end to Brewood/Autherley and back has always been one of my favourite choice of trips.

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Lots of boats were heading up Braunston locks today. The moorings in Braunston still have a few spaces though so not as busy as I've seen it in the past.

When I first started doing turn round at Alvechurch they had a small fleet and only had boats going out Saturday or Sunday, it seems most fleets now do a Monday and Friday as well, with some doing every day so there is a bigger spread rather than boats travelling the same stretches over the same days.

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3 hours ago, matty40s said:

Banbury and surrounds has been daft with hire boats. Non stop.

Below Claydon CRT are injecting the bank of the straight moorings section with foam, probably a cheap way of delaying a breach.

Yep been busy here. Soon beproper boating season though, give it six weeks or so and it will be good.

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On 31/08/2017 at 21:15, junior said:

 Maybe it's just one of those things boaters do, like blaming the wind when there is none.

Not just boaters. We came up Knowle a couple of days ago. On entering the bottom lock the volockie gave me and the parallel hire boat a lecture on how the flight suffered from crosswinds and thus when the lock was full, we should await the single descending boat in the lock above to exit the lock and move over to the side, before we left the lock. Hmmm well not bad advice in terms of suggested action, but a completely wrong reasoning. You'd think that if she was a regular on that flight as she implied, she'd know the actual problem. But maybe she was just very unobservant.

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