Is Canaltime going?

BEING moored at Derby Motorboat Club, I notice the activities at Canaltime at next door's Sawley Marina, and it looks to me as if Canaltime is on the way out, writes, Ian Cooper.

In the past I know there have been 50 Canaltime boats there, with a whole jetty full, (the picture was taken in 2009) but the jetty now has private boats on it with only a scattering of Canaltime boats, seven to be exact this week, and it is hardly the height of the season!

Total of 12

On  Thursday I counted the seven boats on the jetty, three at the boat yards being serviced/repaired and I saw two on the visitor moorings, making a total of 12. As the red light has been on for days so that no boats can get out, I gather the two on the visitor moorings are stuck with nowhere to go.  I have often seen hirers stuck, and in fact the Trent has been in flood so often that most of the visitor moorings now have a notice saying for Canaltime use only.

But I often wonder what those poor people paying out to cruise the waterways think having to be stuck on a jetty instead.  Do they get their money back?

For a number of years there have been Canaltime boats on the sales side, being sold, and I have not seen a new registration for about five years now, so can only assume they are on the way out.

Stupid place

Both I and my boating friends have always thought Sawley Cut was a stupid place to have hire boats, as only too often the Trent is in flood and so neither hire nor private boats can move anywhere.  In fact neither Shardlow nor Sawley is any good for anyone who regularly takes their boat out, as they can't. The only reason I moor on Sawley Cut is that it is so inexpensive compared to the marinas, and so it suits me especially as now I don't cruise so often.

[This only relates to Canaltime at Sawley, and not to any of its other bases, of which we have no information—Editor.]