S-david

Winter cruise

PERFECT cruising weather for the time of year. No rain to flood the river, no frost to ice the canal and not enough wind to be a nuisance, so off south to Oxford. It’s great to have the canal to myself (almost); what a contrast to summer when you consider it a bonus when there is no queue at a lock. Eerily, however, every single lock was against me, but never mind, plenty of time.

Confusion over diesel pricing still seems to reign; only one or two prices are advertised and it is not always clear on what basis they are being calculated. The best offer I saw was 66p a litre, from nb Gosty Hill; unfortunately I didn’t need any.

Indicator restored

British Waterways have restored an indicator at the foot of Nell Bridge lock—in the summer it was missing. However, although the notice refers to red, yellow and green sectors, the actual board is a height gauge for the bridge, with no colours present. Actually, this is a more useful indication at this location—if you can’t get under the bridge the river is in flood anyway.

Lockside hazards

The new lockside trip hazards (aka bollards) are now fully installed. One of the other benefits of the Minimum Safety Scheme – and a useful one – was supposed to be the installation of a means of securing the Oxford lift bridges in an open position – especially useful to the single hander. Some have been done, with a staple and ring concreted into the ground. Two bridges, however, 233 and 234, have either been missed or someone has subsequently removed the equipment and they both have to be operated.

Photographs on this page are by the author.

Mooring closed

I was not amused on reaching Oxford to find that the entire visitor mooring above Louse Lock was closed by a long stretch of Defra Rash because the bank was being reconstructed. Alright, it has to be done, but why was there no notification in the Stoppage List or any advance warning on the locks coming down?

It is ridiculous to leave Oxford with no moorings, even at this time of year—surely the work could have been done in phases to leave some available. The job has not been done with the usual steel piling, but with wooden poles and fabric. Since this is backed with soft mud, it is difficult to see how boats are actually going to tie up. There is no obvious provision for rings (and in the mud I don’t see how there can be) and you can’t tie up to this sort of piling. I wonder if the interests of boaters are being sacrificed to the tree hugging fraternity here.

Property sales

THE news that the government and British Waterways are considering selling some or all of British Waterways' property portfolio at a time when property prices are in free fall should not surprise anyone who remembers that this is the same government that sold half our gold reserves when the price of gold was at a historic low, about a quarter of what it is now.

Bollards

THE magazine Canal Boat recently included two positive pieces about the lock bollards, one from a columnist and the other from a correspondent. I wonder if this is part of a campaign by British Waterways’ PR department to try and change the overwhelmingly negative view of the bollards by just about everyone so far?

Board papers

BRITISH Waterways publish on its website the agendas, briefing papers and minutes of Board meetings—or at least, it claims it does. At the moment the last item is the agenda of the September meeting and although the next meeting was over a month ago, it still has not published the minutes and briefings for the September meeting, although the website promises it will. I wonder what it is trying to hide—issues like bollards and bonuses perhaps?

Idle Thoughts