Arthur Marshall

If anyone's found a GoWindlass by Aston lock or thereabouts on the T&M, I'd be grateful if you'd drop it off if you pass Lord Byron's Maggot , where we are currently mourning its loss...

The OP has stated in the past that he doesn't have a boat, but was intending to purchase a hull and fit it out while being an expert due to watching YT videos. Now it appears he has miraculously had a boat for over two years. There is a distinct smell of rat.

I had a really nice run up there a couple of weeks ago. All very pleasant, no speeding boats, plenty of room on the online moorings at Llangollen as we decided against the crowded basin. Only downside was the 2nd hand bookshop was closed due to illness on our second day.

"It comes after people connected to the Old Time Sailors were understood to have been among those arrested by Devon and Cornwall Police last week for possible exploitation and modern day slavery, following a crash involving a van and a lorry in Tavistock" It's nice to know that you approve of, presumably, people trafficking, illegal immigration etc etc and never, ever, suffer a knee jerk reaction without looking for more information. You lefties are all the same. There's a bit of a difference between volunteering and forced labour. Let's hope you never find it out. Mind you, as a folkie of many years standing, I have no real objection to the banging up of people jumping on the sea shanty bandwagon...

Open again with temporary repair.

Me too. I've given up on planning this year, I'm just going to see what's open when I get anywhere.

So they are. Maybe the driver's had another go.

Due to a possible culvert collapse concern on culvert 16 LA-007-004 Llangollen canal (edited to add: not far from the junction with the Shroppie), the canal is being close off to stop any further impact damage from the boats that are travelling over it. We will have a further update on 23/6/25. Information You can view this notice and its map online here: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices/019796d8-71fd-7a34-be12-91b760f14700

Due to a road traffic accident at Dimmingsdale Bridge on 22.06.2025, there is significant debris in the canal, preventing boat passage. Sections of one bridge parapet are unstable and the towpath is also closed under the bridge as a result. The remaining brickwork of the bridge parapet needs to be made safe before the towpath can be reopened and the brickwork debris in the canal must be removed before the canal can be reopened. There is currently no known timescale for this work, so the canal and towpath are closed until further notice. Due to the location of the incident, the nearest turning points for boats are some distance away (at Aldersley Junction and at The Bratch). Customers are advised to avoid this area as recovery work will be required before the canal can reopen

As the "friends" scheme appears to have cost more than it has contributed, a boaters licence will be increased by 5% for each person recruited...

Is there a physical reason why the boat cannot be moved? If not, I'd just take it out one night and move it elsewhere. If there are genuine reasons why the boat should not have changed hands, which seems unlikely if the marina has taken your money, any dispute over ownership or money owed by a previous owner then ceases to be your problem and becomes theirs.

Many years ago on a farm mooring we were told all sheds had to be dismantled by council order. I think it was something to do with change of use of farmland. Small boxes were allowed.

You forgot: 13. The Boat Safety Certificate should be an annual test and incorporate an out of water hull survey at an officially designated yard. There will be at least one such yard per region.

Might have been an idea to have a chair who already knew something about boating and boaters...

No I don't. Someone who parks their boat on the towpath purely to avoid paying for a mooring, can be legitimately described as a mooring dodger. If their boat is still in the same vicinity a year later, which is often the case, then they aren't even trying to cruise. Hovering, maybe. Cruising, no. Getting a mooring at CRTs expense rather than paying for it oneself might certainly enable people to get on the canal who otherwise would be unable to. That's not much of an argument - not paying road tax or insurance may well allow me to run a car, but it aint particularly appreciated by society.

I think the dodgy side is from Stoke to Middlewich. There seem to be more water sources going south, at least, I hope so as that's the way I'm going next week.

The Caldon is being shut for a day due to low water. There are a stack of boats each side of the Macclesfield breaches ready to charge up and down Bosley at the end of next week which will probably empty the Macc. T&M was already low in places last week and this could finish it off. Could be an interesting season.

True, with the added proviso "at the moment". It's fairly obvious to any disinterested observer that nipping down to a boat once a fortnight and shifting it a bit is not a cruise by any logical definition. Neither is a liveaboard drifting off to another bit of the towpath within easy reach if a particular town. Neither situation has bothered either BW or CRT much in the past, but as finances squeeze, they may. Someone who lives on board has no option but to pay whatever is asked, and someone who can afford a toy boat they visit a dozen times a year in order to avoid marina fees certainly can. Whether CRT can afford to enforce anything is moot. I suspect they're possibly more concerned with keeping a collapsing system barely functioning. But if someone on the board thinks the mooring-dodgers are a cause of some of the problems (which they aren't, but it's an easy target for beancounters), things may change rapidly.

When I moored just north of Chester on the Shropshire Union one of the locks failed at Ellesmere Port in the early hours of the morning.. First I knew something was amiss was when I rolled out of bed and landed on the floor.

But at a boatyard you almost certainly won't be, and you've also lost a sale of coal, gas, a few boat bits that the buyer didn't realise he needed till he got in the shop. Or do you seriously think a boatyard is busy every minute of the day earning themselves a fortune? More like opportunity lost.

As opposed to sitting in a chair in the office looking out of the window. I suppose that's vat free.

I phoned CRT this morning to report a bust paddle on lock 64 on the Wheelock flight. The paired lock had already been chained off and the one remaining top paddle looked decidedly dicey. Couple of locks later I met a workboat chugging towards me and mentioned it to them, to which they replied they knew and were on their way to fix it. I thought that was pretty good...

Sometimes you don't want to "fine tune" what you do in order to appeal to the largest number. Occasionally, intelligence is better than going for the lowest common denominator, and is certainly more satisfying to the artist concerned, who may be more interested in their integrity than just plugging the latest popular codswallop to get hits - as is done in most of the YouTube vids I suspect you watch. I'm constantly amazed by the responses mine get; some I consider the best get double figures at most while others churned out to be topical for a week are still getting thousands of hits years later. You're better off satisfying yourself than pandering to the public, who, if you ask me, are pretty weird.

That "master boaters" sign always makes me wind the throttle up a notch. There's one mooring where everyone seems to have been issued with those "tickover" stickers, which does the same job. That being said if the bloke I passed at too high a speed a couple of days ago is on here, I apologise. I was so confused by going in and out of gear because of the divvy in front of me that when we had to negotiate boats going in both directions while almost at a standstill that I over compensated trying to get some steering back to avoid hitting him.

I rather liked that one.