No life jacket on tidal river

I MOOR my narrowboat at Stockwith on the Chesterfield Canal, and obviously use the tidal Trent very often, my log showing ten times in 2015, and your correspondents comments regarding the wearing of life jackets bring me to write about these, writes Paul Levens.

A few times I have been on the river when it has been flowing rather fast, with a strong ebbing tide and a fair amount of fresh, yet all too often I have noticed men—always men—perched on the stern of a traditional narrowboat with no life jacket.

Believe it 'sissy'

As to whether they believe it 'sissy' to be seen wearing a life jacket, or just have not the sense, I of course am not aware, but should the boat encounter any turbulence and they be thrown off, they have not a cat in hell's chance of surviving, as the boat will continue on its way and the person will be swept away on the tide.

Canal & River Trust in its ignorance (and I believe it is ignorance, as just how many of those in charge have ventured onto a tidal river?) make the suggestion that boaters should wear life jackets on rivers, not even differentiating between slow moving none tidal streams and fast tidal rivers, but I believe that wearing life jackets on tidal rivers should be compulsory, for many must have drowned by not so doing.

I notice that it insists that all its staff concerned with its canals and rivers always wear life jackets, and there must be a reason for this, so why not boaters using dangerous tidal rivers?