If you go down the Monty visit the our local shop/PO by the canal at Maesbury. On the subject of the Llangollen locks there seems little chance that old H&S BW will do anything about the lock crossflows. I have been writing to local managers suggesting for safety reasons those at Swanley bottom, Baddiley middle, Willeymoor and the three Grindley Brook weir outflows be realined for over 20 years now. BW (the H&S people) always either plead poverty or say my letter has been passed on for comment to someone who presumably bins it. The same happens if you suggest that certain lift bridges and tunnels where boats going upstream can be thrown into the wall at shoulder height due to the flow would be safer if there was a large baulk of timber at water height on the offside to stop the happening. At the moment the Llangollen men, after last years free spending bollard bash, are spending much time and money putting up fences. A couple are safety fences - replacing defra rash with something more permanent while leaving the problem. Some of it is railings for steps - where there have never been railings in the past. But most of the work - all in expensive wood - is flash towpath fencing. Being one who does a bit of this in cheap wood this work must be costing a bomb. One wonders what most of it is for as the farmer often has his fence behind the new BW one. Meanwhile little things like collapsing lock walls at Swanley bottom and a couple of damaged bridges with telegraph poles protecting at water level lest boats cause them to fall down - as happened near Whitchurch a few years back are still awaiting attention after a number of years. Anyway - enjoy the Monty - you could be on the bottom most of the way to Gronwen down there!
--- On Sat, 27/6/09, Steve Wood <[email protected]> wrote: From: Steve Wood <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: Llangollen draught To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, 27 June, 2009, 11:40 PM David wrote: > Having seen you a few times on the way up (including Willeymoor where > the wife says you liked my lock entry) glad to see you made it to the > end. Have a good trip back. David, sorry I didn't recognise you to say hello to other than my usual (hopefully cheery) greeting. Bream is still very anonymous with no sign-writing I do miss quite a few chances to say hello to people, so you did well to spot her. If you're still up this way and see her again yes she does look different as we took the cratch down today so visitors could make better use of the front deck. The consensus was that it should stay down for now, so it will. Willeymoor has quite a vicious by-wash. Knowing how far to the side to steer and how (not) to correct as the boat drifts across is definitely an acquired skill. It amazes me that they have survived the years like that. I do know people who won't do the Llangollen (or the Audlem flight which is even worse) specifically because of them and have to say I avoid single-handing at Audlem if I can because they are such a pain as you can't stop the boat anywhere near the locks. I'm not quite done with the Llangollen yet. I'm back at Ellesmere (and possibly need to leave the boat here for a few days) but will do the Mont and probably have another run up to the end with different passengers in the next week or two. I notice the Eisteddfod starts next weekend for a week, does anyone know if this makes Llangollen a place better avoided or visited at that time? I did see a poster saying something about fireworks but there were no details. This is a reason to visit, in my book - can't miss a chance to experience something even louder than my engine! Steve NB Bream [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
