If you accept that the report is a summary of the facts and statements without passing judgement - where there is a clear difference in story the report is not attempting to deceide 'who is most accurate' but accepts the difference.
If you look at the recomendations I feel that based upon the report they are reasonable in that
1) Make clear the length at the start of shorter locks - this is only a future discussion point and in this case I think it was clear to all involved that the boat was a tight fit as fenders had been lifted, however looking ahead it may be of benefit.
2) Lock risk assement, hang-ups and emergency activity. There is no mention of basic lock operation training here, as this is deemed as ok. That does not mean that the VLK followed the trained procedures.
If the VLK was not 'told more than once' by the boater to drop the paddle (I am not passing judgement) then the VLK should have noticed the hang-up and taken action, hence the need to reinforce the risk assesment within the VLK training.
3) Reinforce in the training that the boater is in charge and VLK must follow instructions. I think this is also an acceptance that the VLK may not have followed the boaters instructions (again I am not passing judgement as to what was said and what was heard) and this will be made very clear to all lock operators in the future.
4) The bolt caused an unforseen problem so fix it.
5) Historic boat operation - I am not sure why they think that only historic boats 'ride the gate' when going down, and why this was not forseen when they made the risk assesmsnt.
So apart from point 5, from what I have read in the CRT report I think the recommendations for moving forward are reasonable. But if people were looking for a 'who is to blame' then I can understand the frustrations.