Richard Fairhurst

I'll be popping into Banbury with camera.

<rant> And the other half is caused by idiots who unthinkingly believe what they read, refusing to engage their brains to perform even the slightest bit of critical analysis. I'm no fan of the Daily Mail or other such tripe, but it does make me cross when people blame "the media" without thinking that they, as willing purchasers and readers of said newspapers, have some responsibility. The Mail only prints such rubbish because it sells. </rant>

Believe me, compared to the hassles of protecting a wooden hull, a little corrosion from your shore supply is nothing to worry about...

Congratulations! (if anyone nicked my boat, we'd find them in the same place five days later still trying to get it to start...)

Yes, generally those with single bottom gates AIUI.

I believe GEOprojects used to offer the option, for their maps, of having them printed on sailing chart-style waterproof paper. Don't know if they still do.

Lovely boat. Owned by Colin Paillin of the IWA Leicestershire branch, I think. Way back when I used to work at Canal Boat we ran an article by Colin about the restoration of the boat.

I have a niggling suspicion that Prince might have been in Jem Bates' yard on the Aylesbury Arm (where we're restoring Hagley) a few years ago. Nothing more definite, but you could contact Jem: http://www.batesboatyard.co.uk/

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think there's a contradiction in your first two sentences. As Alec says, being "thoughtful to other users" means - where possible - pulling over if someone behind you is in a hurry. That way you get to cruise at "your own pace", they get to cruise at their own pace, and everyone's happy. (Similarly, if I'm driving carefully on an unfamiliar country lane and someone behind me wants to get past, I'll find a passing place and let them do so. It slows me down by perhaps five seconds, and could mean they get home five minutes faster!) "Seeing how far you can get each day" isn't really an error - it's just one way of doing it. Live and let live. Again, no particular comment on the Fradley episode as I wasn't there.

Don't get me started. Last year we took a hire-boat from Trevor to Great Haywood and encountered plenty of such 'attitude'. I'm convinced that some people look for the nearest bend to a hire-base and moor on it, so that they can lean out the window and shout abuse at any boat in the offending livery. We've printed several letters on this subject of late, and still it occurs. I don't like to be fatalist but I think it's probably an inevitable result of the way society is today. That said, it's worse on some canals than others. Everyone always seems friendly on the HNC and the Rochdale.

Actually, they were longboats on the Severn.

If that's the same article I'm thinking of, then no, that was before my time. Though funnily enough we've got an article in the forthcoming (September) issue setting out the opposite point of view. I wouldn't say either of them is the absolute truth for everyone. We credit our readers with enough intelligence to read both and make their own mind up. Trail is one magazine I have a great deal of time for. But I'd be a bit wary of slavishly following how it's done elsewhere. Again, if I believed the car magazines and simply followed their recommendations without doing my own research, I'd never have bought the car I have at the moment. "It leaks," they said. "It's not a driver's car" (whatever that means). "It's tricky to operate." Absolute rubbish. It's the best car I've ever owned, so much so that we bought exactly the same model for my wife, and are delighted with both. If you believe any magazine, newspaper, book or web forum unthinkingly, then you're reading them wrongly. WW is changing, just as the canals are. I can't promise it'll be perfect overnight. But I get very, very angry with claims that we're slaves to the advertising, because that's simply not true. P.S. The Sun in the 1980s? Do I look that old?

Well, exactly. To be blunt, as you have never seen an issue under my editorship, I'm not quite sure what the value would be in my replying to your comments. We are steadily increasing the amount of practical boating content in the magazine. In the last month we've started a new series on boat-handling. We've just hired a new, third technical columnist to write more equipment reviews and how-to articles. Our waterway articles are now less about all the sights you'll see, and more about the boating techniques you'll need (e.g., in recent issues, on the Thames and the Severn). But, as I said in the previous posting, some people will never have any truck with the waterway magazines, and I would far rather not spend my time arguing to no avail. I have the utmost respect for Tom Crossley who, rather than just sounding off, actually went and did something about it - i.e. Narrowboatworld. Perhaps you should consider starting a boat reviews website?

I've been keeping out of this one, because some people will never have any truck with the waterway magazines (or, often, "the media" in general) and I'd rather spend my time producing a decent magazine than arguing endlessly. But there are a few things here that need pointing out. I'll apologise in advance if this post seems a bit over-combative, but this is my job and I take it very seriously! "Do they get anything for testing boats? Is it oh yes come and hava an expensive lunch and a lot of booze and a short cruise and here is a nice freebie?" No. Simply no. Both of the boat reviewers I've worked with (Emrhys at Canal Boat a few years ago, Graham here at WW) will only review good boats. They look at the boats (often at boat shows) before deciding to review that particular boat. If it's a bad boat then we don't waste six pages on it. "I can give you mag title, month and page number for the semi trad that is really a trad". So do. If we've made a mistake I will hold my hands up to it and try to make sure it doesn't happen again. If it's one of the other three magazines, fine, then I don't want to be guilty by association. "I have never seen articles on how to go about buying a boat, pitfalls to avoid, things to check". We ran exactly that in our June issue. We will be repeating the article (slightly shortened) every month from now on. We also publish, and publicise, the WW Annual and the Inland Boat-Owner's Book, both of which contain a lot of this advice. "it will be interesting how they react to the latest rumours speculating about who's going to be the next two to go pop while still spending vast sums on advertising." I've not heard those rumours. I think it's possible to overstate how much we hear! If you're confident in them, post them here. "short of carrying out credit checks and references on all advertisers I don't see they have much option." As mentioned in WW a few months ago, we do now actually request references for all new boat-building advertisers. We ask for: company registration number and registered address; details of all directors of the company; a bank reference; three trade references; and a draft copy of the contract they use. "It is probably rapidly approaching the time where the methods involved in purchasing boats need to be overhauled and either a new voluntary industry wide code providing protection similar to that operated in the tourism industry by the way of ABTA or legislation under law is introduced like in some other countries." Agreed 100%. We have been lobbying behind the scenes for action for a while, and have a meeting arranged with some of the relevant authorities in the next month. I think we are probably doing as much as anyone to push this issue up the agenda. "The procedure for getting a boat reviewed varies from magazine to magazine in some cases it is very related to advertising in effect book the adverts and they will look at a feature". Whether this is true for the other magazines I can't say, but it is certainly not the case at WW. (It also wasn't the case when I worked for Canal Boat a few years back.) "I did once approach the biggest waterways magazine to get a review of a community boat we built with lottery funding for a Leeds based charity also with the intention of getting some publicity for the charity itself. I was told rather abruptly 'That this wasn't the kind of boat they would review because it was of no interest to their readers!'" If anyone here has been unnecessarily abrupt I can only apologise. I don't think that happened under my watch and I'd hope it wouldn't. That said, it's correct that we generally wouldn't do a standard review for such a boat - our readers are generally interested in buying new cruising boats, not community boats, and six pages on such a craft would be of little use to them. Where it would be relevant would be in the news pages or in our Boats & Pieces section. If you do anything like that again, let me know, and I'd be more than happy to consider it. "we used to advertise with that magazine quite heavily but that stopped very quickly!" That should show you something. I wasn't aware (until now) that Ledgard Bridge didn't advertise with WW, never mind any reason for that. Whether or not you choose to advertise simply doesn't have any effect on what we write. (At present, it's financially immaterial anyway: we physically can't get any more advertising, or editorial, into the magazine. 180 pages is the maximum that our printers can handle for a saddle-stitched magazine.) Obviously, I can only speak for WW editorial during the time I've been here (since last winter) - not for anything earlier, not for our advertising department, and not for any of the other magazines. cheers Richard editor, WW

Have a look at the Eureauweb project. I'm sure there's a lot of potential in the concept. The 'georeferenced' data present on Waterscape and on Nick Atty's excellent Canalplan is essentially the foundation of such a system. As for the map background, well, either you get out your cheque book and licence Ordnance Survey maps, or you take a look at Openstreetmap. Copyright and licencing is hugely, hugely tricky though.

Bit surprised that a hire company would hire out a boat to a single-handed boater. Wonder if it was 'legit' or if she had turned up at the base with a fictitious crew?

The website in question is called Google! I occasionally search its News section to see what local papers are printing about the canals. See for yourself.

And let's not support this pair: http://www.bnp.org.uk/reg_showarticle.php?contentID=1041