Hello once more and welcome to the Cruising the Cut monthly newsletter. As I write, Britain is gripped by a heatwave otherwise known as 'summer'. This began yesterday and will end tomorrow by all accounts. Frankly, it's too hot for me (yes, I'm one of 'those' people who grumbles when it's too cold and when it's too hot) and folks on the canals will have the tricky choice of mooring under a tree to stay cool or mooring in the sun to make use of their solar panels. At my little land-based house, I just have the windows open and plan not to move around much. But enough of the weather, let's get on with this month's canal news.

Cheers
David

News from the canal world.

*** Press releases or other news snippets can be sent to me at newsletter@cruisingthecut.co.uk ***

Hole in one
Top story this month is the major breach on the Lancaster canal. A collapse of the embankment at Hollowforth aqueduct lead to the towpath collapsing and canal water draining down to a brook below. Contractors from the Canal & River Trust have had to install temporary dams on either side of the rupture and attempt to rescue stranded fish from the area. It means of course the area is closed for boating with the navigation shut between Moons Bridge and Hepgreave Bridge.

This image from Colin Wareing on Twitter (reproduced with permission) shows the underside of the breach, taken from a public footpath under the aqueduct.



And this map from the CRT's stoppages page shows where the problem is in relation to the rest of the canal and the Ribble Link.



In its latest update, the CRT says "The damage is extensive and affects both the embankment and a section of the aqueduct's structure. The repairs required are substantial and will need significant funding. The works will take several months to complete"

See https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices/28964-lancaster-canal-hollowforth-aqueduct for ongoing reports.

The stoppage is on top of a major existing  issue with the sea lock at the junction of the Link to the estuary which is requiring a substantial and technically complex repair (due to tidal waters)

Top man
British Marine, the trade association for the UK leisure, superyacht, and small commercial marine industry, has announced the boss of a canal marina as its new President. Robert Parton is the owner and Managing Director of Aqueduct Marina in Cheshire.

The site employs 35 people and has won awards such as The Yacht Harbour Association "Gold Anchors" and Clean Marina accreditation.

Robert says his focus "will be on driving environmental sustainability and enhancing training opportunities across our membership"

https://www.britishmarine.co.uk/news/british-marine-welcomes-robert-parton-new-president

End on a high
Let's finish the news with a positive note as 736 miles of the CRT's canals and rivers have been awarded "Green Flag" status by the Keep Britain Tidy group. In addition, 7 areas received Green Heritage Site Accreditation for the management of historic features. The accreditation is given for demonstrating and acting to conserve the heritage of the sites.



See tinyurl.com/canalsgreenflag for the press release

Dates for the diary

Sat-Sun 3rd / 4th August: The Fenny Stratford canal festival, Milton Keynes. Between Bridges 96 and 97. Boats, stalls and refreshments. Run by the Inland Waterways Association.

Sat-Sun 10th / 11th August: The Wednesfield Canal Festival, Bentley Bridge, Wolverhampton.

Sunday 11 August, National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port; a horse boating display when Flower (the horse) pulls Gifford (a historic narrowboat) through a 200-year-old lock.

Sat-Sun 17th / 18th August. A floating fayre at The Barge Inn, Honeystreet, Pewsey. Showcasing the crafting and musical community living on the historic Kennet & Avon canal including live music, demonstrations, and homemade food.

Sat-Sun 17th / 18th August. The annual Brownhills Canal Festival on the Wyrley & Essington Canal, organised by the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust. Trading boats, historic boats, canalside stalls etc.

Sunday 25th August: The Burnley Canal Festival is at Finsley Gate Wharf. A family-friendly event celebrating canals including art and craft, performances, music, food, boat trips and canoes. More info at https://superslowway.org.uk/events/burnley-canal-festival-2024/

My recent videos

In case you've missed them due to YouTube being its usual random self, my three most recent videos are:


An absolutely wonderful, hand-built, day boat gleaming with shiny brass and polished varnished wood.


A collection of traditional narrowboats all of which feature 'Russel Newbery' engines, lovely big slow-revving diesels that give a wonderful 'ker-thump' sound.


And a narrowboat that looks conventional for the most part but is powered by a steam engine.



Click the links below to watch.

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 occasional early access to the videos before they go 'live' on YouTube.

What am I up to?

I've got some splendid filming days in the diary for August, starting with (weather permitting) a day out on a tiny narrowboat doing some actual old-fashioned cruising the cut!! You may not be surprised to hear the boat is a 25-ft long Beetle called Foxglove which belongs to my good friend Lorna.

You can see this brand new boat and my initial opinion of it in the recent videos on her channel; see www.youtube.com/@LornaJaneAdventures but we're planning to take it out for a day and chug along the Leicester Arm of the Grand Union canal. That's coming soon.

Fans of my restoration project aka Twiggy may be wondering when there'll be an update and it will be soon, I promise. I haven't been able to get to the boatyard recently in part due to filming and editing other videos, in part due to the normal ebb and flow of life. I did in fact go to the yard yesterday with all my filming gear and tools, leaving home in reasonable sunshine but, as I got closer, the rain began to fall and as I turned in to the yard it became such a drizzle that work would have been unfeasible and definitely not any filming. So I turned around and came home! I'm now aiming to go and - you'll like this - drill some holes in the back of the boat in mid-August.

Also on the cards this month should be a visit to another restoration, this time of an unusual link from a canal into a town centre via a river. It's a short length and in theory shouldn't take much to achieve but let's find out.

You may recall a video I made recently about a young woman who's taken on the challenge of completely stripping out and refitting a short but widebeam canal boat in London to be her new home. When we left Gabs she was about to start removing everything in the boat and gave us an overview of her plans. Hopefully I will catch up with her some time in August and find out how the renovation is getting on.

And finally I've planned to revisit a location that I filmed at before, this time to tour two aluminium canal boats of a most unusual design, each of which is laid out slightly differently, I'm told. People seem to like boat tours and I'm often asked about aluminium canal boats (due to them not rusting) so this will be a good opportunity to cover that subject.

Into the dusty archive...

Delving down into my video archive this month I've chosen vlog 279 which is about two tiny narrowboats and their owners. I've picked this in honour of going to see Lorna's new boat soon. If you're a fan of very compact canal boats, this one's for you.



See www.cruisingthecut.co.uk/2022/10/03/vlog-279-honey-i-shrunk-the-narrowboat/

My YouTube top pick of the month

In this section, I like to suggest other YouTube channels that I think are worth a watch. That doesn't mean boating channels necessarily, just ones I enjoy. This month it's a car channel - but wait! This is definitely not your usual, run of the mill motoring reviews or idiotic challenges nonsense.

"Aging Wheels" is an eccentric American chap who keeps chickens and a huge garage of weird vehicles from around the world. He's got a British 'Reliant Robin' for example. He has a Russian Trabant. He's got a Polestar 2. He has a Twike (an electric car you can pedal). The list goes on.

What makes his channel so compelling is the variety of vehicles and the projects he attempts such as electrifying a Ford Escape using battery packs scavenged from other cars. He's not an EV evangelist but will drive anything interesting or unusual.

He's a funny guy too. Have a look at www.youtube.com/@agingwheels

A social recommendation

There are an awful lot of cafe boats on the waterways, selling teas, coffees and snacks out of their side hatches to passers-by. I have found it very interesting, however, to watch the progress of such a boat while it is being built from a bare metal shell - especially as the boat in question is just 20 feet long which fits nicely with the 'small narrowboats' theme I seem to have embraced in this edition of the newsletter.

The account which is on Instagram was previously called something else, I forget what, but since commissioning the build it's become @moonbeancoffeeboat. Scroll back to September 2023 to see the start of the build as the metal hull took shape, then the fitout since.

It's all at www.instagram.com/moonbeancoffeeboat

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

Final Thoughts

And so we reach the end of another newsletter. The school holidays are upon us which probably means chaos on the canals as more boats than usual try to get around the network, holidaymakers in particular usually desparate to complete a 'ring' of many miles and many locks in a ridiculously short time. Take care out there!

Oh, and if you're in need of something to read over the summer, may I recommend my own ebook about the canals? It's available at a very reasonable price from www.cruisingthecut.co.uk/ebook/

Cheerio,
David