Hello and welcome to the newsletter!

It's been a busy month on the waterways and there's been a lot of TV coverage as well. Channel 4 ran 20 episodes of a new daytime show called "Narrow Escapes" documenting life aboard a variety of narrowboats and thoughts on the show amongst the boating community are, shall we say, somewhat mixed! If you saw it and have an opinion to voice, drop me an email to newsletter@cruisingthecut.co.uk and if there's enough to warrant it, I'll publish a selection in the next newsletter.

Meanwhile, Robbie Cumming, the star of BBC4's "Canal Boat Diaries", has taken the show to the oddly-named "Yesterday" channel with a new series starting on June 3rd, featuring hour-long episodes instead of the 30-minute format it was previously in. Hopefully that'll mean longer spent on each canal rather than the somewhat compressed trips that have been documented up until now.

There have also been reports on local TV news on various aspects of boating life. Hopefully this wide coverage given to our canals and rivers will encourage more people and more vital money to come into the system to help with maintenance and facilities.

Cheers
David

News from the canal world.

Good news or bad news..?
Just reaching me in time for this update, the Canal & River Trust has announced it's going to make some changes to boaters' facilities.

The good news is that they're proposing to add 19 Elsan points around the network, that is locations where boaters can dispose of toilet waste from cassette systems, as well as 12 general waste disposal points.

The Trust says these may be at privately-owned locations such as marinas or wharfs that already have those facilities and they'll be paid to permit passing boaters to use them for free.

The bad news is that they're looking to close facilities at areas they claim are "overprovisioned" and are using the excuse of vandalism or fly-tipping as a reason for closure, as well as stating that toilets and showers are non-essential (which as someone whose boat is too small for a shower, I disagree with!)

In Wales, legislation means the CRT must provide recycling so waste sites on the Mon & Brec are going to be "consolidated" with a new facility brought in at Goytre Wharf.

The Trust is citing their limited finances as the reason for the closures and consolidations.

The Crown
It's been announced that King Charles has re-confirmed his patronage of the Canal & River Trust, following a review of all royal patronages after his accession to the throne.

Over the years he's visited the canal network several times, including the National Waterways Museum in 1988 and seeing conservation work at Stoke on Trent in 2014. He opened Standedge Visitor Centre, visited the Kennet & Avon Canal in 2003 to celebrate its completed restoration, and in 2018 represented the Canal & River Trust by opening the first phase of the restored Cotswold Canals.

Regardless of any opinions on the royal family as such, having such a notable figurehead is surely only good news for the canals since Charles has the ear of relevant people in authority and industry.

Easing through
After three months very hard work, the North Oxford canal has reopened at Easenhall near Rugby after 4,000 tonnes or so of earth slipped from the side of the cutting into the canal, blocking it entirely.

The Canal & River Trust had a major job on their hands because there's no immediate access to the location and they had to set up site on their neighbouring fields, with the blessing of the local farmer who owns the land.

Huge long-reach diggers were brought in first to excavate a route down to the water and then to pull out all the dirt from the canal.

The blockage had caused a significant issue for many boaters as the north Oxford forms a key route down from the northern half of the network; avoiding it meant either going all the way through Birmingham and back around, or taking the river Soar through Leicestershire.

Some temporary closures are still in place during the week while the works teams complete the repairs, and the towpath remains entirely shut. This will continue until the works are finished towards the end of June or maybe early July.

1..2..3
Every Spring the CRT conducts a survey of how many boats there are on the network based on physical sightings of the craft. The latest results are in and show a drop in boat numbers across the country of 1.4%, the first year for this to happen since the CRT was formed in 2012.

There's also been an increase of 1.2% in the number of unlicenced boats, giving overall compliance at 91.8%.

In real terms it means 32,602 boats on the water overall, down by 479, with the biggest drop in London and the south-east of 512 fewer boats than last year. That's also the region where the biggest increase in licence evasion was found.

The total number of boats with a home mooring has decreased by 3.7% while the total number of continuously cruising boats has increased by 4.9%

What am I up to?
June looks to be a busy month for me both for boating and even some campervanning at long last. My Microplus 600 cruiser is about to move from its mooring and be taken out of the water so that I can properly effect refurbishment and repairs to the ancient craft (assuming it survives going along the river Severn and being hauled out, that is).

I'm also booked in to visit another canal restoration project, this time in the north-east of England, there's the possibility of a ride on a steam-driven narrowboat, and hopefully I'll be taking a look at a unique narrowboat built out of a type of plastic, that's being launched in early June.

As for the campervanning, I'll not only be using the van for some of the above filming but also attending a festival in Stratford and a weekend jaunt with a friend too.

Videos will follow in the fullness of time!

My latest video has just been uploaded, being a document of the annual Trailboat Festival - trailboats being small, lightweight (relatively) canal boats that can be towed on road on a trailer.

Before that was an update on my boat's ongoing restoration along with news of my book launch (buy it at www.cruisingthecut.co.uk/ebook !!), and I also published an account of the first "Electrika" event, a gathering for people who own or are interested in electrically-propelled canal boats.

Click on the images below to see those uploads.

If you enjoy the videos, I have a tip jar at https://www.ko-fi.com/davidjohns.

Or, join the crew at https://www.patreon.com/CruisingTheCut for perks including early access to the videos before they go 'live' on YouTube, opportunities to help with videos such as choosing thumbnail images and titles, plus priority messaging for any queries. Top-tier members also get the option of a monthly personal video message :-)

Into the dusty archive...
Given my attendance at the Trailboat Festival, my archive suggestion this month is, inevitably, the video I made three years ago about the fabulous Wilderness trailboats. Filmed on a soggy day in Wales, it was a huge pleasure to film and I hope you enjoy it.

Click here to watch: https://cruisingthecut.co.uk/2020/11/24/vlog-235-the-chair-with-the-panda-on-it/

My YouTube top pick of the month
An unusual suggestion for your YouTube viewing pleasure this month: a video about a stool! No, not the biological / medical term, I mean a stool you can sit on.

While I was at the Electrika event, I got chatting to a narrowboater who'd spend considerable time and effort filming and editing this quirky story and if you've got a few minutes to spare and a cup of tea at hand, this is a peculiar but amusing watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDQ0IjuEqRk

A social recommendation

Absolutely nothing to do with canals or even boats at all but as an introvert through and through, this amusing Twitter account is just alarmingly accurate. It's particularly pleasing to have some of my eccentricities validated by realising that it's not "just me"!

Have a look at Introvert Problems at https://www.twitter.com/IntrovertProbss (yes, that's the correct spelling with two 's' at the end)

Meanwhile, you can connect with me on social media by clicking on the buttons below:-

Final Thoughts
That's it for this month but may I ask a favour of you? At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical YouTuber, would you be so kind to press the Like button on any of my videos that you enjoy, and if you are not already a Subscriber to the channel, perhaps you could click the red Subscribe button next time you're logged in and looking at my channel?

Subscribing is free and just means YouTube then knows you want to see more of my videos and will recommend them more often.

To make it really easy, just click this link: https://www.youtube.com/@cruisingthecut?sub_confirmation=1

Likes and Subscribing won't cost you a penny but they do help me grow the channel which is always appreciated!

Don't forget there's now an audio edition of this newsletter, posted up as a monthly podcast and available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or listen directly by clicking here https://cruisingthecut.co.uk/the-ctc-newsletter-podcast/

Thanks for reading. Cheerio!
David