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Tonic required. Send in your photos of what is nice on the waterways now.


DandV

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On this (sunny) day in 2009

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spacer.pngThe Sun, Maunsell Higher Lock, Bridgwater & Taunton Canal

Somerset Space Walk,  a scale model of our solar system, set along the canal towpath. Both the distances between the planets and the planets themselves are to the same scale - 1 millimetre equals 530 kilometres.
 
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Edited by PeterScott
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Such is the eddy below most of the locks on the River Yonne it is inevitable that craft going in fetch up against the wall nearest the weir. With that in mind the pilote of the empty pusher pair that preceded us moved the stern across once he was in to make space for ourselves to aim at. Throughout, though, he and his wife kept their bow firmly tethered to the starboard-hand wall.

 

The reason? There was a steady wind blowing from L to R in the top photo. When leaving they kept one of those lines ashore, the pilote's wife walking down the side decks as they went, putting a turn of the rope on the succession of bollards there,. This kept the boats on course,  with an adroitness that made it look easy..

Yonne pair.jpeg

Yonne pair 1.jpeg

Yonne pair 2.jpeg

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14 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Just been watching Richard Hammond playing on one of them

Mearsk just lost another 750 containers overboard so far this year nearly 2000 lost that we know of. Also one of those ugly car carriers is being cut up off Charleston after tipping over. It’s really clever that they can cut right through a ship using what appears to be a chain.

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J F Pownall, proponent of the Grand Contour Canal, was pictured when two friends of mine paid him a visit. A few months previously Mr Pownall had tried to gather support.Little was forthcoming, though my further friend Mike Streat, then running the Braunston complex, also went to see him.

 

Thinking later that a book about the project might be of interest, enlarging upon Mr Pownall's own dissertation, I encountered the immediate problem that of Mr Pownall, now deceased, no-one seems to know anything. The Internet adds little, though in a posting on this forum in 2010,, Maggie patrick says "Shame the Victorians didn't think of it, they'd have built it." Does anyone now have any information on Mr Pownall himself?

Pownall.jpeg

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2 hours ago, Ray T said:

Would that be Fisher Row on the right?

I think these are two different crossings of the various channels of the River Thames in Oxford (purple stars on the map). The navigable one with the boats is from Osney Bridge and Fisher Row is/was south of Hythe Bridge - on the other side of the river and in sight of the old canal basin, filled in to make way for a college car park. The nice Mr Google has this pic of the pub south of Hythe Bridge and the other is looking north to Upper Fisher Row, which is the same sort of buildings as the original Fisher Row.

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Edited by PeterScott
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8 minutes ago, PeterScott said:

 

spacer.pngOsney-Fisher.jpg.6279a8513620edcde1bcd734b237f50c.jpg

 

 

I think these are two different crossings of the various channels of the River Thames in Oxford (purple stars on the map). The navigable one with the boats is from Osney Bridge and Fisher Row is/was south of Hythe Bridge - on the other side of the river and in sight of the old canal basin, filled in to make way for a college car park. The nice Mr Google has this pic of the pub south of Hythe Bridge and the other is looking north to Upper Fisher Row, which is the same sort of buildings as the original Fisher Row.

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Pedant alert: the basin was filled in to provide land for Nuffield College and for what is now a city council car park. There have been some vague plans to turn the car park back to a canal basin...

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21 hours ago, John Liley said:

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J F Pownall, proponent of the Grand Contour Canal, was pictured when two friends of mine paid him a visit. A few months previously Mr Pownall had tried to gather support.Little was forthcoming, though my further friend Mike Streat, then running the Braunston complex, also went to see him.

 

Thinking later that a book about the project might be of interest, enlarging upon Mr Pownall's own dissertation, I encountered the immediate problem that of Mr Pownall, now deceased, no-one seems to know anything. The Internet adds little, though in a posting on this forum in 2010,, Maggie patrick says "Shame the Victorians didn't think of it, they'd have built it." Does anyone now have any information on Mr Pownall himself?

WW197509-p25s.jpg.728f63078570470cd8db82d34e1b9ed7.jpgWW197509-p23s.jpg.1310e10ba79027601c13cdabd0d88c4e.jpgThe map is from p24 WW Sept 1975, middle page of an article by Mark Baldwin on Pownall, his writings and enthusiasms, rather than the scheme itself. Begins " John Frederick Pownall was born at Pembroke Dock on 17th March, 1900, the son of a successful civil engineer. The family later moved to South London and Pownall went to the local Rutlish School at Merton Park. His education was interrupted by service in the Army of the Rhine but resumed after the War, and in 1922 he graduated from King's College, London, with a degree in Civil Engineering.

His early years as a civil engineer were spent with Surrey County Council, followed by a spell on the Great North Road in Scotland. Venturing further afield, he went to work in Kenya and the Sudan on irrigation schemes. Despite this varied experience, he never joined the Institution of Civil Engineers, although his father was a member for over 40 years. His interest in all forms of transport was already manifest, and before the Second World War he spent several years without employment to develop his ideas more fully. ..."

Scanned and OCR'd into a .pdf here

 

 

 

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On this day in 2016spacer.png

 

Surveying Copperkins, Streethay Wharf Coventry C

 

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spacer.pngAnd How Best To Become An Airship

 

or it may have demonstrated something else.

 

The front fendering has been successful, if slightly unconventional. It all hangs from above, with minimum chance to be hung up on a gate, and the ties keep the fender central. The tyre is optional to the design, and has also kept it going for more years than we might have originally expected.

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2 hours ago, PeterScott said:

 

Osney-Fisher.jpg.6279a8513620edcde1bcd734b237f50c.jpg

 

 

I think these are two different crossings of the various channels of the River Thames in Oxford (purple stars on the map). The navigable one with the boats is from Osney Bridge and Fisher Row is/was south of Hythe Bridge - on the other side of the river and in sight of the old canal basin, filled in to make way for a college car park. The nice Mr Google has this pic of the pub south of Hythe Bridge and the other is looking north to Upper Fisher Row, which is the same sort of buildings as the original Fisher Row.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you.

 

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