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Middlewich Folk and Boat festival


TheBiscuits

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Lots of problems this year, the breach, the Ship canal route also closed and Middlewich boats gone, plus a bad weather forecast for the Saturday which turned out to be way over pessimistic. There was a huge lack of trading boats, on Saturday I removed the reserved mooring signs so that at least some passing hire boats could fill the spaces. Despite this we have had a great time, heard some really good music (Irish band doing another brick in the wall was the best bit), met some old friends, made some new friends, chatted to loads of people, and although our trading is maybe low key we actually did even better than last year, plus lots of beer of course...and bent Richards ear about the rebranding. 

 

.............Dave

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On a similar vein to my post on not being able to moor in Cropredy a full two weeks before the festival, we passed through Middlewich on Friday 8th June looking for a mooring. Empty mooring after empty mooring, all reserved for potential trade boats. We had no option but to continue south down the Trent and Mersey. I know I am sounding a bit like Mr Grumpy, I I really think that more consideration needs to be given to passing boats (hired or otherwise) on the lead up to festivals.

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If you wanted to moor overnight then you should have done, in the worse case lots of trade boats would all turn up at the same time and you would have to move, very unlikely. Several hire boats asked us and then moored overnight on the restricted moorings.

 

Sadly CaRT have to reserve the moorings well in advance otherwise some boaters turn up early and take a mooring then totally refuse to move when the trade boats turn up, or even worse do a dumper. Last year a couple of dumpers were a bit of a problem. The trade boats are now an integral and very popular part of the festival.

 

.............Dave

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40 minutes ago, Derek Porteous said:

On a similar vein to my post on not being able to moor in Cropredy a full two weeks before the festival, we passed through Middlewich on Friday 8th June looking for a mooring. Empty mooring after empty mooring, all reserved for potential trade boats. We had no option but to continue south down the Trent and Mersey. I know I am sounding a bit like Mr Grumpy, I I really think that more consideration needs to be given to passing boats (hired or otherwise) on the lead up to festivals.

You should look more closely. I found plenty of room moored about 3 boats up from Dave

DSCF1486small.jpg

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Ha.... does the excellent photo mean you moored on a Trade Boat Reserved Mooring? Whilst I am sure “legal” mooring spaces came and went, there was none available above The Big Lock until well south of Kings Lock when we were looking. 

Slightly diversifying now.... does anyone know what it happening with the Middlewich Boats premises ( and mooring berths)?

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10 minutes ago, Derek Porteous said:

Ha.... does the excellent photo mean you moored on a Trade Boat Reserved Mooring? Whilst I am sure “legal” mooring spaces came and went, there was none available above The Big Lock until well south of Kings Lock when we were looking. 

Slightly diversifying now.... does anyone know what it happening with the Middlewich Boats premises ( and mooring berths)?

No, but as we walked past we thought how tragic it would be if it was not resurrected as a boatyard of some sort, with that lovely black and white canopy reaching over the towpath its perfect. Also that bit of canal was always interestingly busy (hectic) and fun to navigate, now its dead.

 

...............Dave

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Right, I must be going dafter. 

 

I was moored to the same ring as Dave last night and I didn't notice Brian at all, despite walking past there about ten times over the weekend. 

 

That Merlin brewery will have to take some of the blame ?

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5 hours ago, dmr said:

If you wanted to moor overnight then you should have done, in the worse case lots of trade boats would all turn up at the same time and you would have to move, very unlikely. Several hire boats asked us and then moored overnight on the restricted moorings.

 

Sadly CaRT have to reserve the moorings well in advance otherwise some boaters turn up early and take a mooring then totally refuse to move when the trade boats turn up, or even worse do a dumper. Last year a couple of dumpers were a bit of a problem. The trade boats are now an integral and very popular part of the festival.

 

.............Dave

I was one of the boat's moored last year and was visiting friends elsewhere when the day before the restrictions started signs were put on the towpath.

 

Luckily, another friend was moored nearby and phoned me to let me know and I was able to cut my visit short and get back to my boat, I had a friendly discussion with a trader who was going to take my spot and they breasted onto me for the night and I moved off the next morning. Unfortunately some of the other traders were not as friendly and were in my opinion hostile.

 

I live aboard probably 340 days a year but am allowed time away. In this situation I was a 'dumper' as you call it. I pointed out to CRT and the hostile traders that these signs needed to be in place for 14 days before the reservation took place otherwise the situation would occur again - it seems they understood my point and placed the signs earlier this year.

 

Maybe the issue now is that the signs need to be bigger so the dates can be clearly seen from the water?

 

It's not healthy though to blame people who are correctly moored in an area without any idea that the moorings will be reserved during their legitimate stay, whether a 'dumper' or not. 

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17 minutes ago, Tecka said:

I was one of the boat's moored last year and was visiting friends elsewhere when the day before the restrictions started signs were put on the towpath.

 

Luckily, another friend was moored nearby and phoned me to let me know and I was able to cut my visit short and get back to my boat, I had a friendly discussion with a trader who was going to take my spot and they breasted onto me for the night and I moved off the next morning. Unfortunately some of the other traders were not as friendly and were in my opinion hostile.

 

I live aboard probably 340 days a year but am allowed time away. In this situation I was a 'dumper' as you call it. I pointed out to CRT and the hostile traders that these signs needed to be in place for 14 days before the reservation took place otherwise the situation would occur again - it seems they understood my point and placed the signs earlier this year.

 

Maybe the issue now is that the signs need to be bigger so the dates can be clearly seen from the water?

 

It's not healthy though to blame people who are correctly moored in an area without any idea that the moorings will be reserved during their legitimate stay, whether a 'dumper' or not. 

I am almost certain that at least one of the boats last year was a rather "long term" dumper. I do agree that a couple of the traders were somewhat hostile to other boaters which is rather sad. We were warned about a "troublesome boat" who moved to make a space for us when asked, and although maybe a bit scary looking turned out to be a decent bloke. A couple of boaters had been very hostile to traders the year before so these things just come back to bite!

 

There is no easy answer. If CaRT don't put the signs up early then boaters rightly feel they were not warned, especially if they have settled in for the festival, if the signs go up early like this year then short term visitors are denied a mooring. Think it was the year before last that the signs went up in good time but an angry boater walked along and removed every one.

 

There are more and more trading boats so things might get worse. Except for Middlewich we have rather moved away from organised trading due to all these arguments, and just sell a bit as we go along.

 

...............Dave

29 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Right, I must be going dafter. 

 

I was moored to the same ring as Dave last night and I didn't notice Brian at all, despite walking past there about ten times over the weekend. 

 

That Merlin brewery will have to take some of the blame ?

You should have introduced yourself!. Maybe Brian just made a very early start?, though I do seem to remember that we made a rather beer related late start.

 

...............Dave

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One of the weekend highlights...., as we returned home rather late two very drunk lads asked if we were having a party on the boat and if they could join in with the S&M and bondage. We were confused but they pointed out that we were flying a flag featuring a chain which surely must indicate bondage!!!!!

 

.................Dave

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9 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

There is no easy answer. If CaRT don't put the signs up early then boaters rightly feel they were not warned, especially if they have settled in for the festival, if the signs go up early like this year then short term visitors are denied a mooring.

 

Surely the answer is for the signs to go up early, saying "Mooring reserved between X date and Y date". This allows any short term moorer who is leaving before X date to use the mooring.

And signs then removed at the end of the event (rather than at Y date which is typically a week or two later), so that as participating boats leave, others can use the moorings vacated.

Edited by David Mack
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3 hours ago, Derek Porteous said:

Ha.... does the excellent photo mean you moored on a Trade Boat Reserved Mooring? Whilst I am sure “legal” mooring spaces came and went, there was none available above The Big Lock until well south of Kings Lock when we were looking. 

Slightly diversifying now.... does anyone know what it happening with the Middlewich Boats premises ( and mooring berths)?

These signs were between Big Lock and the bottom of the Middlewich flight, now you are saying there were non available but before you said " Empty mooring after empty mooring, all reserved for potential trade boats. We had no option but to continue south down the Trent and Mersey." If you look at the notice they were not reserved until the 11 of June, I stayed on the 10th for one night   they were empty on the 9th and you passed on the 8th. There was no reason why you couldn't have stopped.

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13 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Surely the answer is for the signs to go up early, saying "Mooring reserved between X date and Y date". This allows any short term moorer who is leaving before X date to use the mooring.

Its all difficult. Some traders like to turn up very early (too early?) to blag the best spots but it would be wrong for CaRT to reserve the spots too far in advance. However CaRT did reserve the moorings quite early and the issue is then passing boaters feeling they can't use the spot during the reserved period even though its obviously empty.

 

It was bad this year as lots of traders failed to turn up so there was a lot of unused space. Much of the festival appears to be organised by just one very over-worked council bloke so the chances of him handling cancellations and passing details on to CaRT are slim. One trading boat did not arrive till late on Saturday but did find a space.

 

We arrived rather early but do tuck ourselves away right down the end (The Towpath telegraph told us that Middlewich was rapidly getting full!!!!!!). Due to our length and draft there are only a handful of spots at Middlewich were we can get nicely in to the bank, and this is a requirement for safe towpath trading. If we had arrived and found that CaRT had "cancelled" these spots we would have been stuffed.

 

90% of traders will try very hard to accommodate passing boats but I do understand why boaters can feel its unfair. We have been told several times to leave moorings because a tripboat or boat club etc claim they have priority.

 

................Dave

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40 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Surely the answer is for the signs to go up early, saying "Mooring reserved between X date and Y date". This allows any short term moorer who is leaving before X date to use the mooring.

 

They did, which is why there was a space for me 11 to 18 June 2018, I dont know when they were removed as I had gone

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