dmr

Don't say that, the scumbags will claim that they are providing a useful service and demand that CRT pay them as professioinal water displacers. 😀,

CRT say that they walk every bit of the system once every two weeks. This is not quite true but not far off. River sections with no easy towpath are a good place to hide. I also suspect that some very remote canal sections do not get checked that often, but once CRT suspect that a boat is hiding there they will start to patrol that section. I suspect that they are aware of just about every unlicenced boat but some get away with it because they do not get to the top of the enforcement action list. Removing boats takes a lot of time and money that is better spent on canal maintainance so CRT will only remove a small number of boats each year.

The real honest answer is that the OP can get a boat with no name, no number and no licence and put it on a canal and not worry too much if he/she is that sort of person. CRT might decide its too much trouble to track him down, and if they can they will spend maybe 2 years trying to encourage him to get a licence. There is a chance that his boat will eventually be lifted out but he might even be able to avoid this by selling it to a "friend" at the last minute. This is not a decent and honourable way to behave but a few people do choose this lifestyle. About 5% of boats do not have a licence. He/she will find that many other boaters will regard him as a bit of an ar**hole and he will miss out on much of the pleasure of boating, and if he gets into difficulty some boaters might even choose not to offer help. He will also likely become bitter and twisted and turn to drink/drugs to consle himself.

It really is very good. Its cleaner in CO2 terms because it is renewable, though I think it needs quite a bit of energy to make it. It is also significantly cleaner to use, it produces much less particulates and should reduce NOx. I can't confirm the NOx but it has significantly reduced the smoke from my engine.

I still get stoppage notices for the K&A and they are much better, they apologise for the inconvenience, give frequent updates, and then announce and congratulate their staff when its fixed, especially if its on time or early. The Rochdale has just sprung a difficult leak, with overhead electric cables adding a complication, an in-house CRT team have worked hard to investigate and fix things, and except for a few locals who walk past nobody knows anything about this. This is a missed opporunity for a bit of positive publicity.

I can keep you informed as I walk the dog past the big hole most days, but unless anything goes very wrong I really think it will all be sorted by the end of next week.

There is still a very big hole at lock 35 up near the summit, though I don't think a stoppage notice was ever issued for this. If everything falls into place there might be a chance of getting it done by the middle of next week, but there will be two empty pounds to fill which will drop the summit level a fair bit.

Weekend would be better. I suspect the CRT workers would be ok but if there is a high level engineer visit we just might be in trouble. I think we are supposed to do a risk assessment, I do have one that covers working in the silt but it does not cover lifting rocks 😀

I would not say moored. We dropped down lock 34 but its a very shallow and silted pound. We have the front rope round a lock landing bollard and the back swinging free in the deeper water. The little grass triangle down the steps at the lock/bridge mouth makes a great private party spot but the "other boat" has grabbed that. You have to make the most of stoppages. I have a theory that the shorter pounds can be self scouring due to lock flows and so all the silt settles out in the longer pounds.

Sometimes CRT can be surprising, there is a lot of activity this morning. If everything falls into place I suspect the repair might be done in a week or two. Jim, do you think we should have a paddle in the silt and try to lift some of the bricks and bigger rocks out while your pound is empty?

The summit is almost full, but your pound is still very empty. The next one down (mine 😀) is also very low. CRT have now dug down to the stone floor of the aqueduct and are not totally happy about its integrity. I think they have plans but I also suspect it will be at least a few more weeks before it gets fixed

I believe they have got up to Littleborough without too much difficulty, but that little aqueduct at Warland (between lock 35 and the swingbridge) has let all the water out into the stream, it really was just like water going down the plughole, so nobody is getting over the summit for a while yet. Rochdale Summit has loads of water cus its got nowhere to go to. 😀 Which summit you on?

The waterfall opposite has not flowed for ages despite a bit of rain. There was zero flow today (walked the dog up there). I suspect its going to take a lot of rain to get the ground wet again. The Rochdale summit pound looks good and there is water all the way down to Manchester, and a couple of boats have now got up to Littleborough. We are going to stick it here for another couple of weeks then see if CRT will give us permisssion to go to the Golden Lion 😀

The Rochdale has enough water for at least some boating, but the aqueduct hole near the summit is going to need some thoughtful repair. CRT are on the job but I expect a few more weeks yet.