The Steamboating Forum

I am finding it harder than i thought it would be to find any suitable slipways into the canal system. Any body know of any in the north west ( Cheshire) that they have used in the last couple of years.

Mike

Mike Cole wrote:I am finding it harder than i thought it would be to find any suitable slipways into the canal system. Any body know of any in the north west ( Cheshire) that they have used in the last couple of years.

Mike

Mike, I've thought for some time that a 'slip directory' is something that is missing from the SBA services. It would require the members to add their local, and oft used, slips. It could then be updated by members who have used it, as and when.

I can point you to a slip at Stone, Staffs, though I haven't checked out who owns it (probably the nearby boat yard) or what the slippage fees are yet.

Mike Rometer wrote:

Mike Cole wrote:I am finding it harder than i thought it would be to find any suitable slipways into the canal system. Any body know of any in the north west ( Cheshire) that they have used in the last couple of years.

Mike

Mike, I've thought for some time that a 'slip directory' is something that is missing from the SBA services. It would require the members to add their local, and oft used, slips. It could then be updated by members who have used it, as and when.

I can point you to a slip at Stone, Staffs, though I haven't checked out who owns it (probably the nearby boat yard) or what the slippage fees are yet.

An SBA slipway directory would be a really good idea. There are lots of slips which are fine for dinghies, but not suitable for most steamboats. I've recently been going round and checking as many salt-water slips onto the Suffolk estuaries as possible: there aren't many, and the normal charge is £25 to £30 for launch and recover.

A SBA slip directory. i shall throw this ideal over to John the SBA sec for a item to be brought up at the next SBA committee meeting, we will be looking for some one to take it on. I suspect most of the information is already out there , just needs to be a collected together.

Mike Cole wrote:A SBA slip directory. i shall throw this ideal over to John the SBA sec for a item to be brought up at the next SBA committee meeting, we will be looking for some one to take it on. I suspect most of the information is already out there , just needs to be a collected together.

I think that's right, we probably all know of our local slips, but not elsewhere. It doesn't matter if the information we can glean for an area is incomplete: we just say it's incomplete, and even for the "known" bits it would be as well to attach a date in case things change with time.

Incidentally, I put Surabaya in the water and had a good commissioning (for me) day yesterday, and that was in Norfolk where the river embankment, and indeed the water level, are well above the surrounding ground. My car copes very well with over a ton of steamboat, but reversing up a steep gravelled slope before the slip dipped down again into the river was beyond the car, and a friend's land rover had to be called in. I'd thought there might be problems with launching from that slip, so I'd asked him to come and have a day out in the steamboat anyway. Potential problems like that with a slipway are VERY worth knowing about.

I wonder if it could be a part of the SBA website, with members able to append, and amend, entries. Keeping it collated logically and stopping double entries might be tricky.

Mike Rometer wrote:I wonder if it could be a part of the SBA website, with members able to append, and amend, entries. Keeping it collated logically and stopping double entries might be tricky.

That could work, perhaps indexed by county first, and then waterway, & then nearest town, or Grid Reference if there isn't one. Perhaps all entries ought to have Grid References, which would then make any duplication obvious.

HEAR! HEAR!

We are soooo lucky here in the states, at least in the Northwestern area where I do my steaming. We have an enormous number of people who fish from trailerable boats thus we have lots of slipways, or launching ramps as we call them here.

A surprising number of them are free too. On my island with perhaps three thousand residents and measuring 10 by 15 miles, we have four ramps and three of them are free.

On tidal waters you have to watch the tide prediction tables as the ramp flatter the further you have to back down. Easy to get your tow car wet in salt water. Not so great. I know that in some parts of Great Britain you have serious tides. Bad enough in a few places near me where the springs can reach a range of 20 feet.

There is already such a site, I am surprised it has not had a mention. Here is a map showing most, if not all slipways in the UK. Just zoom in on the area you are interested in. You can click on a slipway and it will open up details of it:

http://www.boatlaunch.co.uk/#/map