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Hello and welcome to the December (Christmas?!) edition of the newsletter.
It's been an incredibly busy month for canal news and you can read those items immediately below. Other than that, the weather here in the UK has turned distinctly wintery with heavy rain causing flooding and damage to homes and businesses and even some canals overtopping their banks which is unusual.
Plus temperatures have dropped and we're seeing the first sub-zero (Celsius) nights which could lead to canals freezing over. Pretty to look at but a nuisance for boaters who want or need to move!
For any children reading who are worried though, fear not, Father Christmas can still get down narrowboat chimneys so your presents will be delivered. But only if you've been good all year...
I can't help thinking it would be more fun if there was also a Bad Santa who delivered suitable presents to people who'd been naughty. Ho ho ho indeed!
Cheers
David |
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News from the canal world.
*** Press releases or other news snippets can be sent to me at newsletter@cruisingthecut.co.uk ***
Better Boating
The Canal & River Trust has announced a renewed focus on boaters to allay concerns that the charity was spending too much time, money and attention on other aspects of the waterways.
At its Annual Public Meeting in November, the CRT said it wants to improve navigation and target boater-related issues as a priority. This includes a ‘paddle pledge’ with a target to fix newly-reported broken lock paddles as soon as possible and in no longer than four weeks, and to clear all outstanding issues by 2026; more greasing of mechanisms and clearing vegetation from locks and moving bridges; increased grass cutting over the next three years, ensuring grass is cut at locks and mooring sites; quicker response to broken boater facilities and a review of busiest refuse sites to improve provision and reduce issues; and better recycling provision, with segregated collections introduced in 2025.
An additional boater Trustee is also being recruited to sit on the charity's Board to measure its performance against key indicators that reflect feedback from workshops held with the boating community.
The Trust says it will engage with boaters with more face-to-face forums and will publish a 12-month calendar of the meeting dates. It will also explore ways to make it easier to access up-to-date navigational information and to report issues via a Boater App.
The Charity's Chief Executive, Richard Parry, says he wants to "make sure that we demonstrate to boaters that their needs are at the heart of what we do" and has published a plan which can be read at https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/boating/better-boating
BoatLife Ends
The annual BoatLife show, held for the last three years at the NEC in Birmingham, is no more. Organisers have pulled the plug on the 2025 exhibition after the event was bought by Pendigo Events and the NEC Group.
They said, in a press release, they "would like to thank all those who were due to attend for their interest in and support of BoatLife 2025 and look forward to welcoming them to another show soon."
The 2024 show attracted 14,000 visitors over three days. You can see a video I made at the time at https://cruisingthecut.co.uk/2024/02/25/vlog-324-dreamboats/
Snappy Solution
Lynch Motors, a Devon-based manufacturer of electric propulsion, has announced the "Red Snapper" which it claims is the first "drop-in, hybrid marine drive system".
Essentially an electric motor with a belt-drive that wraps around your existing propshaft, the motor is designed to be easily added to conventional (and already installed) motor systems.
When turned by those engines, the Snapper becomes a generator to feed electricity back into a battery bank. That can later be used to provide pure electric propulsion with the Snapper turning the propeller.
The company says it needs just 100mm of space to fit and that it can be added to a wide variety of boats.
There's more info on their website at https://www.lynchmotors.co.uk/news/introducing-first-electric-hybrid-drop-solution-red-snapper
Wet Government
A group of MPs from across the political parties has come together to discuss issues relating to the UK waterways, and hosted its first meeting.
The Waterways All-Party Parliamentary Group - WAPPG - is chaired by Bill Esterson MP who said "It is not just boaters who make use of our waterways. Canals and rivers are a valuable resource for leisure, active travel, industry, energy. The tranquillity of time spent by the water, along with the wildlife that thrives around clean waterways, is truly something to be cherished and enhanced."
Canal Legend Dies
Tim West, the acclaimed actor and television presenter most recently famous for making canal boating shows with his wife Prunella Scales, has died at the age of 90.
He'd starred on stage and screen, from Shakespeare to soap operas as well as comedy performances.
Despite his wife's dementia, the couple made ten series of Channel 4's "Great Canal Journeys" in the UK and overseas.
For a much more extensive list of his incredible acting credits, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy9vw893xvo
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My recent videos
If you've missed my latest uploads through your own busy schedule or YouTube's inability to let you know what I've uploaded, here's a summary!
The most recent video, that's just gone live by the time you read this (or should have done!) is a chat with well-known narrowboat broker James Millsop of Rugby Boats. I asked him about what kind of prices used boats are fetching these days and what the state of the market is as well as how feasible it is for people overseas to buy a canal boat.
Before that were two videos documenting the rebuild of my cabin cruiser's transom. It's a slow process, prompting one irritated viewer to comment that it "could be done in two hours" but being new to fibreglass and wanting to do it as best as I can, it's clearly going to take me longer. That said, further progress is now on hold until the Spring when the weather warms up as fibreglass resin doesn't like the cold.
Click the links below to watch.
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Book your perfect canal boat holiday! |
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I've teamed up with Roam & Roost Canal Boat Holidays, a group of independent canal boat hire companies. Book through my link for great rates and a range of locations (and I get a small commission too)
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** Bookings now being taken for 2025! **
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What am I up to?
I have recently filmed and edited a lovely "old style" cruising vlog on the Gloucester and Sharpness canal courtesy of one of my Patrons who invited me aboard for the day; that will be online this coming month.
I'm hopefully due to be making a special Christmas video with my "canal wife" this month as well which I'm very much looking forward to.
And then to kick January off, I'll be huddling by the stove (actually a radiator, my house doesn't have an open fire unfortunately) to do two "fireside chats": firstly a general chit-chat about things on my mind, and then a Q&A (for which I would be delighted to receive any questions about boating; just reply to this email)
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Into the dusty archive...
It snowed (briefly and not very deeply) across much of the UK last week but I wasn't able to get out and capture any pretty canal footage. Instead therefore, here's a hark back to 2021 when I was aboard the boat in a marina at Lichfield and the snow came down quite heavily.
This lead to an impromptu few minutes with the camcorder which (at the time of writing this) has racked up an astonishing 140,000 views on YouTube!
See https://cruisingthecut.co.uk/2021/01/24/snowy-scenes/
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My YouTube top pick of the month
Every month, I like to pick a YouTube channel I enjoy that I think you might like too.
He hardly needs any endorsement from me really as he's got over 350,000 YouTube subscribers but if you're not a viewer of "The Tim Traveller" (and yes, I did spell that correctly) then he really should be on your watch list.
Describing his style as "travel videos for nerds", Tim makes videos about unusual, peculiar, unique and otherwise interesting places (mostly in Europe with France, Germany, Belgium and similar being frequent destinations).
Of particular note is his clever use of accordion-based music (yes, really) in the background which comprises or take inspiration from well-known British TV themes, it's very subtle but ingeniously done.
Subjects have included "The Subterranean Canal Underneath Paris", "The European Tram Driver Championships" and "Why Is There A Tiny Bit of Italy Inside Switzerland?"
Watch and delight at https://www.youtube.com/@TheTimTraveller
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Final Thoughts
I'm ending on a high note in that following my grumble last month about a user on TikTok shamelessly ripping off my videos and posting them there without my permission, TikTok have finally responded to my copyright infringement complaint and taken the entire account down. Hooray!
Sadly I notice there are other accounts doing the same stuff so now I have a permanent quest to quash them too. It's like playing "whack-a-mole" at the seaside arcades... still, it'll keep me busy over winter.
Cheerio!
David |
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