On 20/03/07, Neil Arlidge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > . > > > > Now we realise what an age of innocence it was 30 years back - > > before the BCN became what they are now. As for getting the silver > > sword the contest was made more difficult so we never did bother to > > try for one as we worked our way round the country. (Though we didn't > > go for every bit as did your much admired crew!) > > > > David Cragg > > In 1973 we were only a weeks hireboating away from getting a Silver Sword > (and that was without doing much intrepid stuff at all)...but the next > years > hireboat holiday fell out side the year period. It is really sad that the > IWA gave up on this....
The Silver Sword was a dreadful idea, and at the time no-one who valued their credibility (or had a narrowboat) would have anything to do with it. The boats sporting rows of swords across their sides always seemed to be skippered by ex-military types with tweed jackets on boats that were made for river cruising. They were so light they used to zip across the top of the water at quite unacceptable speeds. And it was this that made the scheme such a lousy idea because the Silver Sworders used to bomb along with a bow wave you could have surfed on, breaking down the banks of canals which were, in those day, broken down badly already, much worse than most contemporary boaters can imagine. Theynever used to stop either. They'd just keep going from dawn to dusk to get in the miles. Frankly, you wondered why they were doing it since the crews couldn't have seen anything of the landscape they passed. Indeed, one very unusual evening when I managed to talk to a crew after they moored up late on the Union, they admitted they used to steer in relay, with some crew sleeping and others steering, so they could cram in as much mileage as possible. Steve > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
