Ian Mac

Ice is a funny old stuff it can be less than a mill thick in some places and really thick in others. I would guess that going across the Moss will be bad as the canal is slightly higher than the surrounding ground, and the heat will have vanished from the water there, so it will I predict be well frozen. As to travelling in Ice I really enjoy it, but it can be a slow job. I will post here what I have written elsewhere. Just to keep the moving in ice brigade happy Well when the return button will stop posting early I will! - Twice now! I don't not know the C&RT by-laws in detail however I do know the Bridgewater ones. They make it clear that if your boat can not stand being in the canal when frozen that it is your responsibility to remove it to a safe place, be that a marina or the bank. The reason for this rule is that maintenance boats need to be able to move what ever the weather. I am aware of boats punching through 4 inch ice. see Youtube. I suspect C&RT have a similar rule. All insurance companies will go straight to this rule should you attempt to claim and point out that your boat is not fit for purpose and therefore the insurance is invalid. The most common failure is that the ice is punched into your boat and when the thaw comes your boat then sinks. This does not need a boat to come past but just the wind or water flow, can achieve this. I am aware that several owners of GRP boats have attempted to claim and all have failed, I am assuming for this reason. This is as far back as the 1960's when most pleasure boats were GRP and there was still commercial traffic, which would not stop till the ice was really really thick. That said its the really thin ice which can do the damage, all to do with point loading I'm told.

As the OP will not blow his trumpet, I will. He has been around a very long time helping the canal movement, in all sorts of ways. This is from the Stratford blitz time in 1979 where he is directly behind the cement mixer, and he like a lot of others was down there every fortnight helping to keep the Southern Stratford going. Some people on here can be very quick to criticise, rather than help the movement, maybe they are just having bad days. It is a shame that when someone sticks their head above the parapet they immediately get shot at, it is just so welcoming NOT.

He was the principle engineer North for the DWE. (Docks & Waterways Executive) Based in the Offices on Lime St Liverpool. He was given the job of closing the Llangollen Canal as it was no longer required, as there was no traffic using it. His plan to save it, so he later claimed, was to sell the water to Mid Cheshire water board , which would require the canal to be kept whole as he would sell the water from Hurleston Res on the Chester Canal, and continue to take the feed from Horseshoe falls, at the other end. To reduce costs he would only maintain the depth to 2ft, and he was also helped by the fact that Hurleston bottom has collapsed in slightly reducing the width, which meant that the deeper older boats would not be able to get up there. This lead to the requirement that boats had to be 6ft 10" wide to be able to navigate the whole system. This number had come in previously as some of Cheshire locks were really suffering from salt subsidence, which does not have the same repayments as coal, and were not being rebuilt, so they too were getting narrow, (in fact some still are) and so the later admirals were built to 6ft 10"

The longest boat I know of, (the thought police will be around with the full list later) and travelled with is the Big William the royalty Class Motor. She is 72ft 5inches I believe and the shortest Narrow lock I have been through with her is Brades Staircase , which was a swine, everything up and get the boat in just the right position and she will just fit. She may not have fitted if loaded level. Unfortunately Alan (Taff) Jones has died, so I can not consult him, as to if there was anywhere else which was no go, but I am not aware of anywhere else. The killer is going down hill and getting the single bottom gate open, around the stem.

The Mikron Research is available, upon request, by the time they did Idle Women they recorded the interviews they undertook. I believe these recordings to be in the Mikron Archive. However they only talked as far as I am aware to the southern fleet based ladies, as these were the easiest too Contact. I have to say that having met several of these ladies they were a remarkable group, definitely from the "naire be stuck" group of people. I believe that after they had see the Mikron show they all went back to Tyseley and all of them got across the top gates without problem, quite remarkable given they were all in there late 80's. I hope I'm still that fit at that age.

You need to go for Satellite broadband, which is not cheap circa £500 setup cost and £70 per month for a high data high, reliable mobile link, and that is not always possible Trees kill the signal. You will need a golf ball on the roof which is about 3ft sphere. Canals are not a high priority location of the phone companies and as they swap over to high speeds 5G 6G, etc, the reception will become worse, in rural area's.

I would suggest that one of the biggest problems which does not occur as much on the continent is that design of the boats on the canals. As C&RT do not have rules for the Design & Construction of boats which use their waterways there are some out there which are really poorly designed. They have flat base plates which protrudes further than the hull sides. These boats tend to cause huge damage to lock gates. It can also easily happen if the boat is not level, something which the old carrying boats would not do as it made steering so much harder, they would always trim their boats to be level. If you look at a set of gates which have been brought out over the winter you can clearly see where they have really dug into the timber of the gates and the seals. Most boats on the continent are not flat bottomed, but round chined so this damage does not happen the same.

That is interesting graph from Ploto. It shows the refilling of Barrowford is almost in sync with Winterburn. Barrowford is normally filled with surplus water from the Summit so it actually has a very wide catchment area, where as that for Foulridge is a lot more limited.

What is often forgotten is that there were more than one group of Idle Women. The ones who wrote up their experiences were all based with the southern GU fleet and worked out of London. I have since discovered that a lady I knew, was also an Idle Woman, but only found out after her death, she never ever mentioned it, in all the years I knew her, but it would explain her love of canals, and why she also married into them, not a boater but an office worker. She it would appear, was based out of Chester. There was also at least one group of IW based on the L&L

Somewhere Hadfield states the the Coventry, the Oxford, and the Trent and Mersey, Canal Co's got together in the 1790's (may be earlier - see canals of the West Midlands) and formally agreed the gauge to be Seven & one quarter feet, ie 7ft 3Inches. Over the years to reduce maintenance this has slowly been pulled in to the current figure of 6ft 10" brought about by Mr North and his grand plan to save the Llangollen canal from closure. Having said that C&RT are well aware the a good number of the boats in the National Historic fleet are built to 7ft 1" - thus the rebuild of lock 4 at Hurlesdon, shame lock 3 is also narrow. Interestingly at a similar time the last working boats built the mkII admirals where also built to 6ft10" as D&WE were concerned about the effects that brine pumping was having on Cheshire locks. As for depth the Deepest original lock on the system now is Antonys Lock 77 on The Rochdale the three deeper locks are all replacement locks for two locks, Tuel, Bath & Middlewood. Not sure which lock would have been the deepest as built, as Antonys Lock is this size due to the same subsidence as Vinegar Lock 10 on the Ashton. Both canals have similar shallow locks Lock 80 on the Rochdale and Lock 4 on the Ashton, which is where the coal fields run out into the Manchester Sandstone Bluff.

We started our BCN Challenge from there many years ago, and found the residents really helpful and friendly. They lent us a key to get out to the Waggon & Horses just up the hill.

Thank You - I thought it was just me doing something silly with my preferences, not a real bug. -- Cheers

I predicted this was going to happen a long time ago, DEFRA will want to kick this as far as they can, down the road. It would not surprise me to see it go past the next general election. Given this activists should be already badgering their MP's about it, however the IWA NABO etc do not appear to be doing so. As far as DEFRA are concerned they are winning, as inflation is getting rid of the problem, for them, we have effectively lost 18% in real term already, and we have 3 more years of high inflation to cope with.

Which proves the point, of calling things the Old main line, is purely by agreement, as this map clearly shows, that the length between the top of Smethwick and Spon Lane which we now refer to as the old main line, is not the old main line at all, but a newer old main line, as original old main went up and down a further 6 locks, 3 each side, to the top summit which was got rid of soon after this map was produced! The same applies to straightening out, which happen around Oldbury, which interestingly was referred to, using a different name when C&RT released a stoppage note some time ago about works on the m5. They used the name (old main line) bracketed to refer to it. Although we did not loose the Oldbury loops until relatively recently. I suspect the C&RT database has to use correct names as they have to be able to prove ownership of the land, and refer back to other historic records which they hold.

I thought this happened when the Ashton & Lower Peak happened, however they are not in the list, so in practice it has not happened. Need to reread the canal press to see why we think this. Anyone any clues?

True, however there was(is) a winding hole at the top and a pub on the far side of the spine Rd. It made a nice destination. I also remember the branch (WOC mainline) being dredged back in the late 80's And Yes I know it is not technically the Ridgeacre now, but I am old enough to have boated on the Ridgeacre before we lost it, and old names stick. I use to like around there when the eight locks pub was open, it was a nice place to spend the night. I also note that contrary to what I thought, the Ashton & Lower Peak Forest are not now Cruising waterways, which is interesting.

These two waterways are still subject to being paid for by the appropriate local authorities, I am not sure of the details, but I seem to remember that the agreement which was reached for the Rochdale was that the Local authorities would pay some of the maintenance costs until 2050. Of course in Manchester City it is more complex as C&RT are only responsible for the water part, as the city council have the lease for the towpath. I seem to think that the HVNC had a different structure for how it was funded, which is why the HCS still exist as they were part of the formula. As to other canals I believe that there are a good number of waterways in the West Midlands which are still remaindered The Walsall canal springs to mind, as being one which is still open for navigation, and I believe receives LA support. Bradely locks is another which is currently closed, but subject to a campaign to re-open. Then there is the problem of the Ridgeacre Branch, which is currently being ignored by all, as it is very heavy polluted, so would cost a mega fortune to dredge. I last used it was over 20 years ago.

It would appear the neighbouring land owner has been doing some digging in order to improve the drainage on his land, and has disturbed some old land drains, one of which was connected to the culvert which passes under the canal, which no one had any knowledge of. As with the breach on the Rochdale canal in Ancoats, Manchester, three years ago, once the exit of the culvert had been opened this allowed water to start to flow, thus then causing the culvert to fail. Unlike the one in Ancoats a plastic sheet appears to be holding this one for now!

Someone mentioned earlier that they were the first steel purpose built leisure boats, from 1970. I think the Ice cream carts where a lot earlier than that. I remember going on holiday in one in the mid 1960's all the way from Nantwich to Oxford and back in a fortnight, called Trace Anne, which had wheel steerage and a centre cockpit. I also remember the disappointment my father had that we could not stop in Oxford for a couple of nights but had to leave later the same day, the middle Saturday, as he point out to me only the other day. Somolda built the boats if they got slack with orders for Ice Cream vans, which was the Cummins family main business, at their works in Crewe. Having built them at their Crewe works they then had them brought to the basin at Nantwich and launched there. At one time they had quite a large fleet, not sure what happened to the company. Their original hire boat was named Ethel Mary after the wife of the founder, Sid Cummins, I believe originally it was there own personal boat, before they started their hire boat business.

There is a famous story from PFCS days when the working party was getting ready for the 100 boat Rally in Manchester Piccadilly. The WP had retired to the pub (The Crown Hotel on Deansgate, central Manchester) for the evening, the landlady approached my sister (aged 14 at the time) and asked her to keep young Kelly (aged 11) in the back room rather than chatting with the customers at the bar. This happened when she had gone to the bar to get the round in. She duly came back with Chris and the beers, and told us grown ups? (I was just 18) in the back room the story. - how times have changed. He had gone to help carry the beers back.

I suspect the waiting boats do not wish to go up to inspect the bottom gates of lock 45 and come back, as that is where it is locked off. This may be possible if you ask, as this is where the last winding place is. There is a small stream feeder which comes into the canals below lock 44, however there is nowhere to wind on that pound, thus the locks on 45. This small feeder is what is currently keeping the pounds below 44 full, with limited movements up to 45 to allow boats to access the facilities block below 46. The Manchester side has been open for a while as this is feed off Hollingworth lake which enters on the long Littleborough pound some way below 48, and this feed has not been compromised as badly as the summit feed from Chelburn which has very tight limits on the supply it can provide. The only long term solution will be back pumping of the summit flight, this has been looked at and would be very expensive to install/reinstate, I guess over £1M so we will need either a very philanthropic person or a far better settlement from DEFRA to be able to even think about doing this. My guess is the Defra are going to attempt to pull the grant which they currently pay C&RT so that the Tory rich can have their bonuses, so maybe we will get a donor, a rich Tory - Trickle down economy.

See this - things are really move on, maybe! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E6jzJijHrd88Zfm6S2YyRs-uD2_eXJ-4/view?ts=62c608cd

Have been talking to people, including Crown Oil, a producer of HVO. They can not make enough, as the big boys have stepped in to use it. They are using it on things like the Sulzer Tugs and big railway trains, as they can then claim the green environmental levy, which makes it better for them for two reasons - its cheaper and better publicity. I do not think being green enters the equation! This mean us, members of the General Public, will not get a look in for ages now, as Market forces are jacking the price up and the government is not subsidising Joe Public, just its mates. There was always going to be a problem as the world can not currently grow enough stuff to turn into HVO. There are various research projects looking at how to fix that by, for example, using green algae, but that will be as far down the line as cold fusion. I find the conversations about power requirements interesting. It is blatantly obvious some people have never done the Ribble Link for example, or watched the various You-tubes about it. Hammering out of Tarleton on a rising tide up the River Douglas, is flipping hard going, it is a real test of if you have got the engine and prop sizes correct for your boat, those that haven't, have had a pleasant time in the old Preston Docks, whilst they await the next tide and hopefully a slot on the link. That applies to both energy sources diesel or electric.