River Canal Rescue summer rescue spike

Published: Wednesday, 09 October 2024

RIVER Canal Rescue reports its teams, from 1st June to 31st August this year, responded to an unprecedented number of call-outs.

50 major incidents involving submerged, partially sunken or grounded craft, and 1,200 general call-outs, typically for electrical, fuel and engine issues, flat batteries, over-heating and gear box failures.

RCRSunkBoat20243,335 general call-outs

This equates to nearly half the 121 major incidents RCR attended last year, and around a third of the whole year’s 3,335 general call-outs.

A high proportion of the major incidents were due to boats being trapped and submerged in locks, after getting stuck on lock cills, people missing signage and underwater damage. There were more incidents on rivers than canals, and the Trent at Sawley appears to be an incident hot-spot.

General call-outs were evenly spread across the UK with the top three reasons being fuel issues, fouled props and engine overheating, with RCR managing director, Stephanie Horton, commenting on the major incidents:

“There are numerous reasons why boats get trapped on lock cills; you may not be used to the lock and accidentally push your boat further over the cill or perhaps lose concentration for a second which can be disastrous. Not seeing signage or poor signage is an issue; on the Trent at Sawley there’s a huge sign with chevrons telling which way, but people miss it, and frequently become grounded in the wrong channel.

“There are many cases of people going the wrong way—usually when rivers are in flood and weirs and locks may be difficult to see. Then boaters sometimes don’t have enough power to change their route and end up trapped on weirs.”

Underwater damage to props, hulls, skegs and tiller cups is equally common, mainly due to the amount of debris found in rivers and canals due to fly tipping. Dumped mattresses, clothing and wiring are the main culprits, with low water levels making things worse.

RCRSunkBoatSternStretched entire staff

With canals silting up, grounding is also becoming a problem, as are clogged-up fuel filters caused by sticky fuel and diesel bug. Stephanie continues:

“This spike in numbers certainly stretched our entire staff. Everyone at RCR is rescue-trained, but for major incidents we have six rescue engineers. As there were high demands on their time, our 19 general breakdown engineers pitched in to help, which in turn put pressure on their call-outs and return visits with parts. We were however, able to support everyone who called us, meeting our ethos to get boaters moving again as soon as possible with minimum disruption and cost, and to keep the navigation clear.

“With the Met Office reporting this summer was the coolest since 2015, I thought the poor weather may have put people off taking to the water, but this wasn’t the case. There seems to be more boaters enjoying our inland waterway system, and I suspect our high call-out figures are either due to the cost-of-living crisis, prompting more people to enjoy a staycation on the water or owners spending less on boat maintenance.”

Case study

Lock 13, Tilston lock, the Shropshire Union canal, a hiring from Anglo-Welsh.

Boat was caught on the lock cill, causing the stern to stay in place while the bow lowered in line with the dropping water level, sinking the vessel. (Both images.)

Sunday 21 July - RCR three man team attended to find the vessel was held on the lock cill by one inch of rudder, making it unstable. As the team could not enter the boat, due to health & safety issues, the only option was to flood the lock and float it off the cill. After approval from Anglo-Welsh, the lock was flooded and the boat sunk to the bottom of the lock safely with guide ropes and winches.

Now stabilised, after emptying the lock, the team sealed entrances and pumped-out the vessel while the lock was refilled. Once refloated it was moved and recovered by Anglo Welsh.