stort_mark

The Ashted flight?

No....they have a T before the S.

Knew the post would wind you guys up.

Agree. Send it around the nationals, but make sure to add additional context so that his role is fuly appreciated. WW should perhaps learn a little about media convergence and that the advent of blogs, targeted keyword advertising, online forums is only half a step away from replacing traditional media. There are several sectors (GIS being one example) where online media has effectively replaced print altogether. They should count themselves lucky they are not being charged for it.

I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me before, but there was an excellent article on flash locks by Pat Jones in the April 1991 issue of Waterways World. If you have all the old issues, do check it out - it provides a lot of great information and confirms some things written in this thread but also contradicts other things. Firstly....the last working flash lock in the UK? Cropthorne Watergate on the Lower Avon, near Fladbury, which was demolished in 1961 by the Royal Engineers, but it doesn't state when it last operated. The article suggests that there were no less than 33 working flash locks in the 20th Century, and most seem to be on the Fens (27), with four on the Thames and two on the Lower Avon. "My" staunch at Bottisham Lode (separate thread) must be one of those listed for the Fens, but there were others on the Lark and Great Ouse and Little Ouse. Pat Jones' article refers to several further articles in the late 1960s and early 1970s in other magazines and journals. Now rather surprisingly, not all the flash locks were of the rymer+paddle configuration, and contrary to some of the information in this thread, some of the gates were indeed guillotine locks (WW has a photo of a guillotine flash-lock gate at Thetford). I must confess that this surprised me, but then I had not fully appreciated the whole cycle of a flash lock's operation. My perception was that when the gate was opened, the subsequent rush of water was all white water fury. But this was not the case; for the first few minutes, it was a foaming torrent, but at this stage there was no boat movement at all - either up or down stream. However, the local miller would certainly encourage the boats to get moving so as to be able to shut the gate as quickly as possible. For passing the flash lock, the boaters wanted it as level as possible, but the millers wanted to lose as little as possible from the upper pound. It seems that after a while it was quite straightforward moving boats upstream or downstream, and it wasn't all the manic rush of crashing timbers, and Sodom and Gomorrah - just a swiftly flowing stretch of water. Once through the lock, the boats heading upstream would usually wait for the pound to refill. However, downstream of the locks, the boats would shoot off hell for leather to avoid running aground in the upper reaches of the pound. Pat Jones article mentions the Piercebridge Formula book and there is certainly lots of possible exploration for archaeologists and others to discover ore of this little-studied part of our waterways history. Do contribute any memories, photographs, theories, suggestions that you might have about flash locks!

I notice that when questions are asked about GRP cruisers, there is little response and not uch general interest. Pity. How many people here own GRP cruisers (or actually anything that's not a steel narrowboat)? Hmmmm. Just noticed the appalling grammar in my header. If you're gonna mess it up, then mess it up big, eh?!

One of the nicest posts I've ever come across on this forum!

In your opinion. It's obviously considered important to some.

Do you still have the Viking 26? I'm really keen to get the answers to all the questions I asked.

There's a lot of 1970s stuff that was in every car-boot sale in the country for more tan a decade until suddenly it started to become fashionable again. Then it all disappeared, cost a fortune and was sold from shops on the Kings Road.

Not sure why it's considered political.... But how are you defining 'need'? For many, is there perhaps confusion between the words 'need' and'want'. I have a lot of sympathy for those who are struggling to get hold of a mooring, and in this area it is very difficult. However, as with anything in this world, management of the (economic) supply and demand is a logical way to manage it. There is an increasing demand for moorings and limited space (and not everyone wants every metre of canals lined with moored boats). Real estate is expensive everywhere and regardless of whether your real estate is for house, an apartment or a boat (regardless of whether its a leisure mooring or a residential one.....the space is still used up), it's a commodity. Before anyone accuses me of simply turning our canal heritage into a commodity, I am not; the use of private boats, is however, simply an economic activity: with any economic activity, you pay for it. Actually, what is iniquitous with the system is that there is no transparency, and that the system relies on people's desperation to overbid for a specific mooring. What would be much fairer is a proper market place where everyone could see the rates and so make decisions based on this.

GPS is very useful for recording the precise location of photographs. You can use software like RoboGEO which can then record the location on the EXIF headers of the images. Obviously important that the time is coordinated on camera and GPS (not difficult).

Nice point! Put in lots of formica and plastic-covered seats and orange and blue plastic and you could get it on TV.

I know that the air draught on a Viking 26 GRP cruiser is 6'8" (somewhat less on the 28 and 32) but is that the height with the windscreen up or lowered? Also, how much leeway is there in that 6'*'. Does a full fuel and water tank, passengers (including mother-in-law) reduce that height? (Keen, especially to hear from actual Viking owners)

Hmmmm. I was under the impression that the one thing the Romans were not good at was boating. Just because an army had to use boats, it doesn't necessarily mean that they were proficient or keen to use them for trade. However, clearly there would have been great incentive for the Romans (and others) to use water transport both. The extremely important salt industry was not just prominent in Droitwich but also west Cheshire, where there is also a long waterways tradition. However, the names of all of these towns - Droitwich, Nantwich and Middlewich - stem from the Viking word vik, meaning harbour. Now the Vikings certainly were well known for their boating skills. I suspect that - within reason - you will find evidence of use of our rivers for trade purposes in most periods, possibly going back before the Romans in some areas.

My father has a copy of the book. Sounds like I should read it.

The 1950s makes it a lot more recent than the Thames flash locks, but what about Castle Mills on the Ouse in Bedford? It was derelict when removed in 1978, but how long had it been derelict? Also, how does this type of lock differ from the lock at the entrance to the Wey Navigation?

Sorry. You completely lost me, and not for the first time.

I think a lot of Thames weirs are still used by canoeists for this!

Thanks for this Steve. I gather that many weirs on The Thames, as on many rivers, were originally constructed this way.

No Yoda. Your title for the thread was perfect when it started....but as often happens, threads take on a life of their own! The eviction of EA lockkeepers is the latest in a string of such unfortunate and probably unchangeable decisions made over the last 60 years on the waterways.

This thread is one of the most important for a long time, but one sadly hidden by a slightly misleading title. It is clear that there is a crisis in the waterways, and one that is only partly created or sustained by the government and its myriad agencies. As the waterways community, we are - many of us - guilty of wanting more for less, and if at all possible more for nothing at all. We all want someone else to pay for our pleasures, and we are all utterly convinced - beyond all reasonable doubt - that we personally pay much more than we should for our share: "Everyone one else pay more; me pay less!!" After the Second World War, the IWA was set up and played a huge role in preserving the waterways, preventing closures and raising awareness of the canals among journalists, politicians, local authorities and the public. Their success spawned a huge number of restoration groups and the restoration workshorse groups such as the hardy folks of the WRG. But the waterways were never safe from the vagaries of government spending allocations: they were not alone though - Christian Wolmar has detailed how the London Underground was also starved of funds and then suddenly had too much to spend appropriately then it all disappeared again. It wasn't one government: it was all of them, every single one of them since before the war. To compound the situation, there was a fatal flaw in most of the restoration schemes: the fund-raising simply ended with the ceremonial ribbon-cutting. The expectation was that BWB - or the EA or its predecessors - would be delighted to receive another 10, 20 or 30 miles of barely functioning canal and associated Victorian engineering with no extra budget. Of course, there might be a few more boats and their licence fees and some mooring fees, but these don't really add up to much when you have to pay for significant engineering work. No matter how much passion there is in all the restoration programmes (and I am a member of a number of them), you have to ask whether we and BWB are going to end up with a few more miles of canals and a lot more liabilities. Are we increasingly ending up with lots of canals that have barely enough water to stay afloat and barely enough working equipment to navigate through them? All those years ago, the IWA campaigned for the waterways, but now they are very sensitive to any criticism that they don't do that any more: yet they don't. The IWA makes much of its 'engagement' (itself very much a statement of modern-day politics) and behind-the-scenes work with politicians, officials and authorities. There is also a tendency for the IWA to suggest that if you don't like what they are doing, then there is nothing to stop anyone taking up the mantle within the IWA; "put your money where your mouth is", so to speak, citing the fact that IWA is extremely democratic. The great heros of the waterways campaigns have all now long-retired to be replaced by the well-intentioned but rather urbane who will earnestly volunteer at every festival and event, but would not be the types to test the BWB or EA over rights of navigation or actively campaign for future change. We are actually all complicit in this: today we write of the eviction of lockkeepers or moan about lack of dredging, but do remarkably little about it. We genuinely believe that writing a blog or contributing to online forums actually makes some kind of difference. We forget that the ability to reach a huge audience does not mean that we have anything lucid to say. Sadly, the politically astute - in the IWA - do little to create any waves, while the frustration in the online forums mainly manifests itself as grunting and home-spun country wisdom: might make you feel better, but usually totally witless. Positive, viable alternatives - the absolute essential ingredient for any succesful campain for change or difference - are remarkable by their total absence. A recent thread which had the temerity to suggest something different was shouted down within a few posts, and one outsider interest in environmental issues was simply hounded out within hours. Rather than trying to build common ground and forge a common interest with other user groups, we seem to marvel in our innate ability to present a united Neanderthal front. It's worth remembering: if you pay less, then someone else (individually or as a group) has to pay more carping on about injustice gets you nowhere unless you can suggest something that can be done that is legal, logical and with some likelihood of success don't just whinge on about the general uselessness of politicians; recognise the unique position they are in and make strategic use of it have, as Baldrick might suggest, a cunning plan Our waterways need us. They need our ideas and they need our money. Most of all, the waterways need a community that can fights its corner more successfully than is being done right now. This means getting together with government agencies, with anglers, cyclists, historians, developers, residents, landowners, waterways businesses and waterways staff to strengthen that community.

Errrr...the original poster clearly was.