Caen Hill re-opened this morning

THE narrowboat sunk in a lock on the Caen Hill Flight has now been re-floated and removed with the flight re-opened this morning (Saturday).

The hire boat Lady Victoria has had its aft fenders ripped off, which appears to have happened from impact with the lower gates, and the boat trapped in the rising water, Alistair Swatridge, tells us.

Did not know what to do

This is borne out by the position of the boat in the lock and the remarks of the crew. It is quite obvious that the crew did not know what to do, as by closing all the paddles then lowering the water level the catastrophe could have been avoided.

Upon first inspection, and with heavy rainfall predicted, Canal & River Trust engineers thought it would be Monday before the flight could be re-opened, but they were able to pump out the water and raise the boat quicker than expected, thus being able to have the flight re-opened this morning.

Not enough instruction

This is yet another example of hire boaters obviously not having enough instruction at locks, that narrowboatworld has been campaigning for for many years, with time and time again boats being sunk in locks simply through lack of the knowledge of what to do when a fender gets caught on a gate or the boat on the cill.

Both of which can easily be rectified by the simple expedient of quickly closing the paddles then righting the water level.  But if hire boaters—and we must not forget new owners too—do not realise this, then many more boats will be sunk, costing money to raise and closing waterways.

Our grateful thanks to Alistair Swatridge for his photographs.