It was without a shadow of a doubt the best weekend so far this year in terms of the weather, I had to go South on Thursday evening down to Lymington and because of the excellent weather decided to stay there over the weekend and do some boating on the Solent, now given that Friday was lovely and Saturday was just stunning I was amazed at how few boats were out and about, Friday it was like a ghost town; It is unusual for marinas down in the South to offer anything free but on Friday one particular marina were offering free moorings and electric for the night, it just so happened that we were there and took advantage of the offer however even that was very quiet and hardly had any boats moored there for the night,the rest of the weekend saw a few more boats out and about but considering the exceptional weather it was still very quiet, it seems to me that this situation is right across the country as the canal also seems very quiet indeed and David has reported that whilst the shop and tea room was busy with visitors the canal on the other hand was very quiet with boats, is the cost of running boats finally getting out of hand and are people feeling the pinch, is the cost of fuel to get to the boat and then the subsequent fuel used in boating just getting too much? or is it just still early in the season? or the lovely weather we had the weekend was just a one off and no one was prepared in time to go boating,You tell me! Answers on a post card, well we are in the 21st century now so just leave a message instead.
Simon
By this time of the year, I would have expected to observe some significant improvement in the level of boats cruising the canals. Over the Easter holiday we were out for two weeks and saw very little in the way of boaters doing their thing. We did the south yorkshire navigation, lower part of the River Trent as well as the Chesterfield canal. I know the weather has been less than welcoming, but would poor weather account for the almost total dearth of boats on the move?
ReplyDeleteI have a suspicion that its much more than the weather that has driven people away from the canals. The financial downturn, as well as the cost of fuel, licence increases and mooring fee hikes will have also played a significant part.
As will the Victor Meldrew - "I don't believe it" moments when another CaRT story comes out.
However, I have this feeling that people are now anticipating the end of an era, brought about by the cutbacks in maintenance. As the canal infrastructure maintenance spirals ever downwards.
Ask yourself - would you want to invest a significant amount of money in the purchase of a boat or even the cost of a boating holiday.
I only hope I'm wrong.
Regards
Mike