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Content Count
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Joined
Community Reputation
155 GoodAbout Richard Fairhurst
- Birthday 09/05/1974
Profile Information
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Gender
Male
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Location
Charlbury, Oxon
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Interests
Boating, waterway restoration (especially the Cotswold Canals and Melton Mowbray Navigation), cartography, church organs, walking, and the odd magazine.
Previous Fields
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Boat Name
Hagley / Iago Prytherch
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Boat Location
Aylesbury Arm / Diglis Basin
Contact Methods
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Website URL
http://www.systemeD.net/
Recent Profile Visitors
7193 profile views
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Richard Fairhurst started following C&RT Spend £1 million on Leicester Canal, Associated Cruisers Wolverhampton , NB Victoria, Mobike and 6 others
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Associated Cruisers Wolverhampton , NB Victoria
Richard Fairhurst replied to Toe Rag's topic in History & Heritage
Did that end up at Ron Lloyd's Boatyard at the bottom of the 21 (now Oxley Marine)? They certainly had a Victoria - we hired it once to do the BCN Challenge. It made it about 500 yards into the Wyrley & Essington and gave up. The eponymous Ron said "if I'd known you were going that way I wouldn't have let you hire the boat", which struck me as an interesting attitude for a hire base in that location. -
There's two different models of Mobike. The Mobike Lite is actually quite decent. The earlier model is really only good for paved city riding - I rode one around the cobbled streets of Milan a couple of years ago and suffice it to say I'm never going to have any more kids.
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Nationalisation - why were some left out?
Richard Fairhurst replied to magpie patrick's topic in History & Heritage
Yes, I remember that one. I think that's probably in a David Bolton piece too, whether 'Race Against Time' or one of his WW articles. The BTC basically appears to have been run as a cushy retirement home for former WWII Generals. -
Nationalisation - why were some left out?
Richard Fairhurst replied to magpie patrick's topic in History & Heritage
– David Bolton, Race Against Time, p43. -
It won't be an economy thing, just that the designer liked that typeface. Do email the WW office and let them know, citing particular pages if you can (because different typefaces are used for different articles) - reader feedback like this is always helpful.
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The best list of pinch points and dimensions I've ever seen was put together by British Waterways c.2000 with a lot of input from HNBOC. Unfortunately BW/CRT have a habit of deciding "we must do something about dimensions!" every three years, at which point they withdraw the previous list, start a new project to compile information, and... that's it. I lose track of the number of times it's happened. The Waterways World Annual map differentiates between broad and narrow waterways, plus a special category for navigations with shorter locks.
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The BD&D always struck me as a bit "restoring for the sake of it". Sure, there was a canal there once; but if you were choosing to build a leisure-focused network from scratch, it's hardly somewhere you'd choose. Prothero and Clark said it was unexpectedly lovely, but that was 125 years ago, and the area hasn't fared well since. Maybe you can play the regeneration card, but (as @magpie patrick alludes) the engineering challenges are so vast that I can't see any remotely favourable cost/benefit ratio. So it's not necessarily symptomatic of wider problems for restoration. It was
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This is probably the best study I've seen: https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/onlineatlas/ and in particular https://www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/transport/onlineatlas/waterways.pdf It says 4000 miles by 1835 (i.e. B&LJ main line open). That's for England & Wales, not Scotland. Later on it cites 4060 miles for 1906 (from parliamentary papers). There'd been a few openings in the intervening period (MSC, New Junction, Slough Arm, Droitwich Junction) but numerous closures, too. Ultimately it's an imperfect art - h
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I wouldn't choose to do the tidal Trent in a newly purchased boat where you're not yet familiar with its foibles. If you break down on the L&L, you just call someone out. If you break down on the tideway, that's a whole other kettle of fish. The Rochdale and HNC are both fabulous canals, but yes, the L&L is probably more suitable for a first cruise.
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C&RT Spend £1 million on Leicester Canal
Richard Fairhurst replied to Alan de Enfield's topic in General Boating
Towpath improvements to urban canals go a long way to making a waterway safer for boaters - look at the Ashton for an example. -
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This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
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User Name = Email Address
Richard Fairhurst replied to Jen-in-Wellies's topic in Suggestions & Feedback
Spam from email addresses posted on the web is a problem from 10 years ago. It isn't really an issue now. There are so many leaked user databases around (check haveibeenpwned.com to see if your address is on one) that no spammer is going to go through the hassle of crawling the web. Email providers' spam detection is also vastly better than it used to be, particularly if you use one of the big providers. -
If I could upvote @dor's posting 20 times I'd do so. Whale Gulpers are so much more reliable and less finicky than sump-type pumps.