Weed in London

[monkeyhanger]

A warning to people intending to visit, or pass through London.

Yesterday I boated from Cowley to the East End of London. There is quite a bit of weed on the Paddington Arm, especially on the London side of the North Circular aqueduct, and it gets worse the nearer to central London you get. BW had their weed scooper machine tiding up in the pool at Little Venice, but I suspect this is merely cosmetic,what with the tourist season in full swing. The weed extended all the way to my mooring at the east end of the Regents canal, and had quite an effect on slowing down my journey time. There is a lot of stringy weed growing up from the bottom, which meant that my trip involved a lot of reversing to clear the blades, and had an effect on my speed through the water, and there is great deal of floating green weed, which although this doesn't cause any navigation problems, it quite often looks like you're boating over a bowling green! I wonder if the floating stuff is the seed for the stuff that always wants to grab your prop? The situation has been bad on the Lea Navigation for some years now, and it looks like it's spreading! The weed grows in the summer, reaches its peak around the middle/end of August, and then dies away again, until next Spring when it begins all over again.

Be warned that you may need to extend your journey times if you intend visiting the capital in the near future.

[mykaskin]

'cause of the depth of this section of canal, the solid bank edges, and now the large number of moored boats, the water isn't getting stirred up as much, and is often clear - thus letting light through. Just need to get everybody to go a little faster away from the moored boats, and have deeper drafted boats travel up and down, to attempt to get the mud in suspension.

 

The duck weed on the surface in theory should reduce the light getting down below, therefore saving your prop from having to cut through the weed. Higher revs usually stops the weed building up - cutting it, rather than wrapping around the prop - and as you say a quick blast astern soon clears it.

 

Mike

[fender]

Finally the canals in London have become green and not before time.

 

Its nice to be able to see the canal from my flat looking like this rather than the filthy, oil stained state it usually is.

[mykaskin]

Finally the canals in London have become green and not before time.

 

Its nice to be able to see the canal from my flat looking like this rather than the filthy, oil stained state it usually is.

 

I find it quite rare to see oil on any canal these days. Lots of floating rubbish though.

 

Mike

[cotswoldsman]

I thought it was going to be another thread on drugs.............

[fender]

I find it quite rare to see oil on any canal these days. Lots of floating rubbish though.

 

Mike

 

Dont need to mention the rubbish!

 

Assume you've never seen the entire Paddington Arm from Kensal Green to Perivale covered in thick oily substances have you?

 

When was that by the way? 2006?

[mykaskin]

Dont need to mention the rubbish!

 

Assume you've never seen the entire Paddington Arm from Kensal Green to Perivale covered in thick oily substances have you?

 

When was that by the way? 2006?

 

It didn't reach Northolt, I see the occasional diesel spill and oily bilge water type slicks on the line, but nothing to get worried about. You should have seen the BCN in the 70's and early 80's!

 

Mike

[fender]

It didn't reach Northolt, I see the occasional diesel spill and oily bilge water type slicks on the line, but nothing to get worried about. You should have seen the BCN in the 70's and early 80's!

 

Mike

 

Naturally I'm sure you dont get worried about oil and diesel floating on the canal as long as your boat floats. I like to take pics of the multi-coloured psychdelic schemes this stuff creates when one looks down directly upon the canal as it runs through the Regents Park cuttings and Camden approaches. Not forgetting the regular homefire, taybrite, or other wasted boaters' bags of coal that has taken desire to team up with other polluted canal surficants and plastics, and other rubbish, creating a medley of amazing artistic colours.

 

For your information I did see the BCN in the 70's and early 80's. I have lots of pics of the BCN from the seventies, after all I did work with some of the canal pioneers such as David Hutchings, Bert Dunkley and Graham Palmer and some of their campaigns in and around the Midlands system.

[Tim Lewis]

Was a bit sceptical about this thread until I went down to the Canal Museum yesterday, we can't ever remember seeing weed in Battlebridge Basin before!

 

 

... and this was after I had been out in our Bantam Tug to see if I could break it up.

 

Tim

[fender]

Was a bit sceptical about this thread until I went down to the Canal Museum yesterday, we can't ever remember seeing weed in Battlebridge Basin before!

 

... and this was after I had been out in our Bantam Tug to see if I could break it up.

 

Tim

 

I agree, not seen this much all the years I've lived in London (both afloat and on land.) Limehouse, the lower parts of the Regents and Lee (and Brentford) are the usual places for the stuff. Not known it to spread so far up the Regents Canal and along the Paddington Arm.

Edited July 26, 2011 by fender

[duztee]

You think that's weed!

Go and try the Slough Arm and see how far you get.

[Evo]

The weed is horrendous down the paddington arm...and the Regents only a bit better all the way to Limehouse. I lost count how many times I had my weed hatch up. It finally sheered my old vetus rubber propshaft coupling. I felt like jumping off the back and doing an African Queen Humphrey Bogard pushing jobby but I was too scared of what sharp pointy things might be in the miriad of carrier bags.

 

I entered Limehouse basin with no drive and no steering, man was I pleased to be out of that shit..!!

[jenlyn]

It needs dredging, its disgusting between clitheroe lock and the hanwell flight. BW needs a serious management shake up.

[WJM]

As a regular on this route I would say that your interpretations are unfair. Hanwell to Brentford is not a canal, it is the River Brent. This river is prone to sudden flooding throughout the year and these floods bring down large amounts of silt every time. In support of BW I think they are very timely and active in dredging.

 

A second point is that of litter. Again, this piece of river is unfortunate in that the Brent runs through some fairly unpleasant parts of London, collecting detritus are it goes. 'Elf'n'Safety being what it is, the weir at Osterley has a fierce defensive barrage above it which stops all of North London's rubbish dead in its tracks. Rubbish piles up there and BW make regular visit to clear it.

 

The point people often fail to realise is that on exiting Hanwell bottom lock you have left the canal system and are now on an urban river. I think BW do a good job of managing a difficult waterway.

[jenlyn]

As a regular on this route I would say that your interpretations are unfair. Hanwell to Brentford is not a canal, it is the River Brent. This river is prone to sudden flooding throughout the year and these floods bring down large amounts of silt every time. In support of BW I think they are very timely and active in dredging.

 

A second point is that of litter. Again, this piece of river is unfortunate in that the Brent runs through some fairly unpleasant parts of London, collecting detritus are it goes. 'Elf'n'Safety being what it is, the weir at Osterley has a fierce defensive barrage above it which stops all of North London's rubbish dead in its tracks. Rubbish piles up there and BW make regular visit to clear it.

 

The point people often fail to realise is that on exiting Hanwell bottom lock you have left the canal system and are now on an urban river. I think BW do a good job of managing a difficult waterway.

I quote a BW employee yesterday "if BW dredged this section, you would'nt have all this crap". The best bit, I had my local MP on board, he had asked me ages ago to give him a trip from Teddington to Uxbridge.

[Mac of Cygnet]

Well it all must have got a lot worse in the past three weeks, as I went along the Paddington Arm, Regents, Lee, Stort, and back last month and only went down the weed hatch three times. The most spectacular wasn't anywhere near the areas complained of , where I had no problems keeping a steady progress down the middle, but in Ware Lock, where I came to a sudden stop and extracted this from my little weed hatch. It was like emptying a bloody Tardis!

 

 

Mac

[Evo]

Well Mac, I might have seen you actually, but that little pile you have there is half of what I had the 5 or 6 times I spent hacking away down my weed hatch 2 weeks ago on the Paddington arm. Weed, weed weed, followed by rubbish. On the Wall in Limehouse I pulled a clump of plastic bags off that completely engulfed the propeller and loose ones were still hanging around in the weed hatch waiting for a space on the prop.

[WJM]

I go up and down this stretch all the time and I have never ever opened the weed hatch even once! In fact, I have only ever used the weed hatch 'in anger' twice in the last five years - and I do travel around a lot. Given that my boat is nothing special in design, I wonder if it is a lot to do with how I operate it?

[Evo]

Actually I remember now, the whole problem was caused by low water levels. I dont care how weirdly you drive your boat WJM you were not getting through there on the weekend we did it without stopping for weed clearance....the whole bloody arm was full of struggling boats some drifting, some at odd angles with no drive or steering, and some just giving up. Stray from the main channel to pass an oncomming boat and that was it you were doomed. The mountains of weed were lying on the surface whilst still attached to the bottom. It was a nightmare.

The clump that finally broke our drive coupling was the size and weight of a bag of coal.

 

Shortg bursts of reverse did sod all and in most cases made it worse.

[Lady Muck]

Just spoke to a neighbour at our marina on the Lee. Our boat is on the Oxford right now.

 

As is traditional at this time of year, because of increased boat movements everyone is hard aground.

My next-boat-neighbour (with the 100 year old tjalk with the hull down to 1mm in places) is hopping mad.

 

The weed will be very near the surface so it won't be much fun trying to boat through it. In fact in the past I've seen boaters get to our pound, (especially deep draughted dutch barges), get the prop so choked with weed they've given up trying to get any further and had to stern haul back to the lock to escape.

 

Should BW enforce this new proposal of theirs for boat movement, we can expect to be aground permanently. Oh goody.

 

And yes my mooring needs dredging but they won't do it.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Lady Muck

[Evo]

Was a bit sceptical about this thread until I went down to the Canal Museum yesterday, we can't ever remember seeing weed in Battlebridge Basin before!

 

 

... and this was after I had been out in our Bantam Tug to see if I could break it up.

 

Tim

 

Tha reminds me of the duck weed problem on the North Oxford 10 years ago..?? The whole canal looked like a snooker table. I cant remember what that was but something was found to be the culprit and it cleared up very quickly soon after.

[fender]

As this is a pretty poor British summer, I dont understand why all this duckweed is spreading. There must be some unseen process.

[Tim]

I went through in the first week of July, don't remember it being a problem at all!

[jami dodgers]

I was told that each individual duckweed plant splits into two every 24 hours, hence the spread rate!

 

Does anyone have one of those knife blade contraptions fitted by their prop, are they any good at slicing up the Canadian pond weed type of weed?

[fender]

Duckweed was previously limited to the bottom end of the Lee Navigation, Limehouse etc. It has managed to find its way UP the Regents Canal and onto the Paddington Arm and this can only be by way of boats.

 

The large picture in the Daily Mail may explain why it spreads in the manner it is doing:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2019135/London-2012-Olympics-Your-photo-guide-Olympic-Park-site.html

 

The main pic shows the Olympic site in good detail. The Lee Navigation is clearly choked with duckweed. The Old River Lea (except the first two hundred yards or so from Old Ford Junction), City Mills and Waterworks Rivers are completely free of the stuff.

 

Its quite strong evidence that it is where regular boating traffic occurs that the duckweed also occurs.