Top Thames Priorities

Three ideas instead of ten

1. Maintain moorings to provide more usable space by tree cutting and dredging.
2. Make more moorings available and actively encourage local authorities to do the same.
3. Raise Osney Bridge (just 1.0m will do!)
 
Bollards !

"suggestions"

More mooring bollards spaced closer together at moorings to enable springs to put out,which means that more boats can squeeze in a given space.

A poster compaign to remind all boaters that later arrivals always put their ropes/warps/bits of string UNDERNEATH the ropes of earlier arrivals and NOT on top!
Ps and when mooring on mooring rings your rope goes in under the ring and up through and back to you boat...........
 
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Good idea

ianc1200 said:
Raise Osney Bridge to 10' headroom.

IanC
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Great idea this, would give us taller folks a real treat..........what does that road carry anyway( yes, dopey, I know cars..........but to where??)

watch out for the Flyboys on Saturday night .........hope the trophies have been cleaned!!
 
plumbob said:
Great idea this, would give us taller folks a real treat..........what does that road carry anyway( yes, dopey, I know cars..........but to where??)

watch out for the Flyboys on Saturday night .........hope the trophies have been cleaned!!
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Well you lot won them last year too so have you cleaned them?
 
plumbob said:
Great idea this, would give us taller folks a real treat..........what does that road carry anyway( yes, dopey, I know cars..........but to where??)

watch out for the Flyboys on Saturday night .........hope the trophies have been cleaned!!
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It's one of the main roads into to Oxenford from the south via the A34. Not only does it carry "cars" but it connects to one of the many good park 'n rides for the city.

It's very busy all day and hell in the rush hours. Oxford doesn't want cars and can't cope with them anyway, so I can't see any prospect in it being raised anytime soon. It's probably a listed structure, so any change would take forever.

Oxford's 'orrible to visit by car but fabulous by boat. If your boat's too tall you can moor opposite Christchurch meadows and walk in.

Low bridges keeps the "real upper Thames' " exclusivity.....

You didn't want a serious answer did you??
 
My main gripe is the state of the lock walls.

It's bloody disgusting...I spend a lot of time and money making the old girl as clean as a freshly laundered shirt, and it looks like a green streaky blob after the first two locks!

FFS, standards have dropped... :(
 
we kept the one we won in cling film...........like some boats !! anyway I thought the Swans won all the silverware last year??
 
plumbob said:
Great idea this, would give us taller folks a real treat.........
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TrueBlue said:
....Low bridges keeps the "real upper Thames' " exclusivity.....

You didn't want a serious answer did you??
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You taller folks can leave Osney Bridge alone!!! It is a wonderful separator between two differing aspects of the river.

The 22 footer below is in Osney marina :rolleyes:
 
"My main gripe is the state of the lock walls."

Suspect that none of the lock keepers would object to you taking a bucket of water and a hard broom into the lock in order to rectify the situation :)
 
Now here's a good idea

oldgit said:
"My main gripe is the state of the lock walls."

Suspect that none of the lock keepers would object to you taking a bucket of water and a hard broom into the lock in order to rectify the situation :)
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How's about concerned users getting together and having a lock cleaning party at selected locks during the season?

Now that all the locks are electrisified there's no need for them to be manned on the resident's days off, there won't be any Summer Assistants 'cos nobody wants to do it anymore and any EA wont have / haven't got any money to pay them. Similarly with the reliefs and anyway river flows are all managed centrally and operated by a SWAT team.

So there will be lots of opportunities for folks to help themselves..

BW have started the ball rolling by suggesting an increasing role for volunteers to d all the work for them, so why not EA??

Discuss.
 
Finding this forum all a bit deprssing recently.

One minute you are all behind 'Save our Service' , the next minute you are saying that you want volunteers ...

The BW locks are a mite smaller than the ones on the Thames as you are no doubt aware , holding one or two boats at most , with much smaller drops . They also have no weirs to operate.

Do you believe that we are all a bunch of untrained button pushers that do as the office tells us ' Go and open gate 1 , 2 and 3 ! ' ...

Do you want lock staff or not ?

River flows are managed by the lock staff , as they have always been.

Lots of people want to be summer hands , although there has been a shift from the students , to older retired people ... we have had at least 5 applicants for the job at Teddington this year.
 
teddington_lock said:
Finding this forum all a bit depressing recently.

One minute you are all behind 'Save our Service' , the next minute you are saying that you want volunteers ...

The BW locks are a mite smaller than the ones on the Thames as you are no doubt aware , holding one or two boats at most , with much smaller drops . They also have no weirs to operate.

Do you believe that we are all a bunch of untrained button pushers that do as the office tells us ' Go and open gate 1 , 2 and 3 ! ' ...

Do you want lock staff or not ?

River flows are managed by the lock staff , as they have always been.

Lots of people want to be summer hands , although there has been a shift from the students , to older retired people ... we have had at least 5 applicants for the job at Teddington this year.
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Calm down, Howard, it's only a wind up -
Of course we want lockies (even the miserable one(s) upstream,
Of course we know there is considerable skill required in managing the lengths between locks, and loading a lock as well,
Of course we want Summer Assistants.

BUT, BUT them indoors at the Office don't understand the issues and thinks the system can manage the weirs.

I was however, trying to put the point that them 'as grumbles ought to be prepared to do some of the work themselves. My understanding is that The Office doesn't want you to clean the lock chambers, has cut back the flower beds and doesn't give a what sit about overhanging trees.

Soo, boaters should get off their flybridges and wield a broom or branch lopper.

I'm equipped...

BTW when I put dots .... after a paragraph it usually means just a tad of tongue in cheek.
 
We take over a hundred calls a day on average at Teddington.

Everything from the nav office , weir messages , PLA , BW , Met police , RNLI , people needing info on heading up or downstream , tide times , London VTS , you name it.

We (literally) couldn't function without a cordless phone , although we do all try to finish calls as quickly as possible , and make human contact with the boaters in the lock. We are all watching what is going on in the lock while we are on the phone though.
 
I'm sure that is the case with Teddington, but on some upper Thames locks I can't believe it's a lot of public information/work issues being given out, but if it is, fair enough.

IanC
 
Just because one certain person has a cancerous growth on her/his ear that looks like a mobile phone doesn't mean all Lockies are continually on the phone.
 
Byron

I know we've discussed that person before on here, but it seems others are on the phone more and more, and yet some I've never seen phoning whilst operating the locks.

IanC
 
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