Anglian Cutting No. 113

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The Inland Waterways Association is a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee.

Registered as a charity no. 212342 Registered Office: Island House, Moor Road, Chesham, Bucks HP5 1WA

Tel: 01494 783453 Web: www.waterways.org.uk

ANGLIAN CUTTINGS

Award Winning Ipswich Branch

Newsletter No. 113Spring 2009

Our annual excursion - on the River Thames this year

2ChairmanChard Wadley

[email protected] Secretary Carolyn WadleySecretary Charles [email protected] Spencer [email protected] Secretary

Clive Saville 01206 [email protected]

Pickerel Project representativeBrian Cornell 01449 721632

[email protected]

Publicity Brian Holt 01502 741345

[email protected] Secretary Diana Holt 01502 [email protected]

Fund Raising Lewis Tyler 01473 [email protected] Cuttings Editor Mick Carter 01245 [email protected] River Stour Trust Rep Sue [email protected]

Welcome to our new members

Clive Saville

Mr A MacDonald EssexMr P Magnus SuffolkMr J A Kennerley SuffolkMr G J Summers NorfolkMr J W Summerfield NorfolkMr & Mrs E & D Clark NorfolkMr T Peek NorfolkMr P Stebbings NorfolkMr & Mrs P & G Corderoy SuffolkMr K Dalton SuffolkMr & Mrs J W & D M Stonehouse EssexMr & Mrs R & A Reding EssexMr C Smith NorfolkMr & Mrs R & J Butler SuffolkMr J Evans Norfolk

3STRATFORD LOCK RESTORATION by Sue Brown

Unlike the works on the River Gipping at Baylham Lock, the restora-tion of the lock at Stratford St Mary on the Stour stopped at the end ofSeptember when we came to the end of the 12 week work periodallowed us by EA. Soon after we ceased work our tool container wasrobbed, so we must replace all our equipment before we can start workagain this year, when our target is to complete the line of gabions alongthe Suffolk side of the channel to the footbridge. This is labour intensiveas the rock to fill the gabions has to be loaded into barrows at theWaterworks and transported across the river on the raft to be placed intothe gabion baskets.We shall be working every day except Sundays from 13th July to theend of September, and if you can help you will be made most welcome.www.riverstourtrust.org

The Great Yarmouth Mercury reported that on the 2 March 2009 aCaister-on-Sea man was convicted for speeding on the River Yare andfined £750 plus costs.

A couple of years ago some of your committee members had the oppor-tunity of visiting the" Lydia Eva" oldest steam drifter still afloat,moored in the river at Lowestoft.Since that date a lot of work has been carried out on the boat and inMarch of this year her boiler was fired for the first time in 30 years. Shewas warmed up over two days and brought up to full steaming pressurefor a boiler test which resulted in her being certified to steam.When the Lydia Eva next goes round to Great Yarmouth she is expect-ed to burn about £3000 worth of coal, she consumed £1000 worth forthe test alone.You can read more information about the Lydia Eva athttp://www.lydiaeva.org.uk

4CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

This edition of Anglian Cuttings reaches you just after ourlatest annual coach trip (see Spencer’s report) and I would

like to congratulate Diana and Brian on another excellent outing. Ireceived many good comments regarding the places we visited, the or-ganization and the friendly atmosphere.Carolyn and I have recently had a holiday in the Derbyshire Dales and

whilst there we walked the Cromford Canal.We started at the basin and reached Whatstand-well where they are improving the towpath sowe could go no further. It is a lovely canalwhich is being restored gradually and there ismuch history along the way about the canal andthe railway which once ran along side. We also

visited Chesterfield and walked some of the Chesterfield Canal. The ba-sin has been restored and there is a café and in-formation centre by the lock. Unfortunately, aswe were out of season, this was only open at cer-tain times due to a shortage of staff so we mayreturn sometime in the summer.The work on the River Gipping at BaylhamLock progresses well, as those of you who be-long to the Trust will have read about in the Trust’s magazine. There aretwo WRG work camps planned, one in July and the other in August withLondon WRG visiting between the two.The next edition of Anglian Cuttings will be out at the end of Septemberready for details of our winter meetings. Until then I wish you an enjoya-ble summer.

Keep boatingChard.

Chard

5IPSWICH IWA ANNUAL OUTING 2009 by Spencer Greystrong

Once again Diana and Brian planned and organised an excellent weekend. Theyclearly have connections in high places as they even managed to produce idealweather, particularly for our trip up the Thames.

On Saturday thanks to everyone’s punctual arrival at the pick-up points we arrived atour first destination, Milestones Living History Museum at Basingstoke at 11.00am.just as it opened This is a fascinating place, entirely under cover, where they havefaithfully re-created both a Victorian street with its shops, houses and factories and a

similar setup showing the 1930s. In theExhibition Court there were individualrooms covering the period from 1940 to1980. As we wandered round we found asawmill, a tram shed (with trams) and lotsmore. A particularly interesting area wasthe Thorneycrofts factory which wasworld famous for its lorries. They werealso one of the largest suppliers to the Brit-

ish Army in WW2. Their decline started when they merged with AEC in the 70’sand then British Leyland. The museum has a very pleasant restaurant upstairs whichprovided me with a sausage roll, chips and beans along with a pint of London Pride!Unfortunately the replica Victorian pub was not open due to staff shortages.

Our next stop was the Mid Hants Railway, colloquially known as the WatercressLine because the area through which it ran produced huge quantities of that particularplant and the railway allowed it to be transported to London whilst still fresh. Ourcoach driver, Paul, dropped us off at Alresford and we had a very pleasant steamhauled trip to Alton behind No. 850 Lord Nelson. This locomotive was built in 1926and is the only surviving member of the original 16 engines in the class. In the mean-time Paul had driven to Alton and was waiting to take us to our hotel on the outskirtsof Reading.

6A few of our more health conscious party took advantage of the swimming pool, spaand sauna before dinner but it would appear that most people decided that they were fitenough already. After an excellent meal (and the odd glass of wine) some hardysouls actually stayed awake ‘til 10.00pm but the majority retired early.

The following day saw even fewer people in the pool before breakfast but as weweren’t due to leave until 10.15 that gave Joshua my 7 year old grandson time tohave a huge bowl of Cocopops, a full English breakfast and toast and marmaladewhich was followed by another bowl of Frosties!

Our first port of call was Caversham Bridge in Reading where we boarded a SaltersSteamer that was going to take us to Henley. Salters started running passenger steam-ers in 1888 with the very first service being a daily return trip between Oxford and

Kingston. Our trip was about 10 mileswhich took us through 4 locks, Caver-sham, Sonning, Shiplake and Henley. Aswe got closer to Henley on Thames theproperties along the river side were clear-ly becoming bigger and more expensivewith one of the grandest belonging to thesinger, Vince Hill.

At Henley the boat moored up just outside the River and Rowing Museum aroundlunch time which was handy as Joshua was hungry again! After lunch our tour of themuseum started with the ‘Wind in the Willows’. This exhibition faithfully followsthe original story line, using theatrical lighting and sound techniques to transport visi-tors on a journey through the whimsical world of The Wind in the Willows. Wewere given audio guides that told the story as we walked through. It was clear thateveryone really enjoyed this exhibition and Joshua in particular was engrossed - tosuch an extent that he nearly burst into tears when he heard the Weasels had takenover Toad Hall.

In the main hall Diana, Brian and I tried our hand at synchronised rowing withmixed results.

7There was no end of interesting stuff about the Thames itself along with many histor-ic boats including the one in which Sir Steve Redgrave won his fifth Olympic goldmedal. This really is an interesting place to visit and I would recommend it if you arein the area. We finally left for home at 4.30 and tried our luck at the second quiz de-vised by John and Joan. (I forgot we did one on Saturday as well). Not everyonejoined in as they were asleep!All in all a great weekend. I wonder what Diana and Brian will come up with nexttime?

WALK ‘N’ WATER

On Saturday 2nd May we drove over to The Granary, Sudbury to take partin an event organised by The River Stour Trust. We were split into two groups asone couple had two Boarder Terriers and we had Magic, our elderly black Labradorwe decided it would be easier on the boat if we weren’t in the same group! At 11.30our group boarded “Francis J” one of the Trust’s trip boats, skippered by Sue, withRoger as crew. At the same time the other group set off to walk along the Stour Val-ley Path to meet up with us at Henny Street, opposite The Swan. After negotiating

round some small boys in rowing skiffs weset off downstream passing some brick pillboxes built during the last war.

At Great Cornard some of us gotoff to help work the lock, here the bollardsput anything that BW could come up withto shame. Roger had to contend with a rath-er boisterous, wet muddy Springer spaniel,that was running round the lock which

made it difficult for him to work the paddles without getting his trousers wet! Oncethrough the lock, a canoe moored to the downstream landing stage, made picking upthe shore crew difficult. We passed the new Visitor and Education Centre and sawthe very smart new apartments that now incorporate Bakers Mill.Contd.

8It was a lovely sunny day with a slight breeze and we enjoyed the pastoral

scenery as we continued along the river before mooring at Henny Street around12.30. As the Henny Swan had recently closed we had been advised to bring a pic-nic that we ate beside the river on the pubs picnic tables. Some of our group had de-cided to walk on to the pub at Lamarsh for their lunch and then make their own wayback to Sudbury later. One lady who could not walk far had arranged to travel backby boat. After about 30 minutes the other group, who had walked, arrived and joinedus with their picnics.

At around 1.30 we set off with Sue and Roger to walk the 3.75 miles backto Sudbury. The first mile was on the road to Great Henny Church. Here we joinedthe Stour Valley Path that runs across the churchyard and along the sides of fieldswith beautiful views over the surrounding countryside. At one point Magic was ashort way ahead and disappeared round the end of a hedge. When we caught up withhim he was swimming in a large pond among the fish. Luckily the water was crystalclear so we didn’t get splashed with mud when he came out. Generally he finds asmelly dyke to swim in to cool off. Later when he was on his lead he helped pullBrian and Roger up the hill. We walked along the edge of the clay pits and pastsome houses before crossing the river Stour on the disused railway bridge. The othergroup had already arrived back at The Granary and we joined them for tea, coffeeand biscuits. We enjoyed our day helping to raise funds for The River Stour Trust.

This was the first “Walk ‘n’ Water” that the Trust has organised and it ismost likely that they will run more in the future. For details of events organised byThe Stour Trust, please contact The River Stour Trust 01787 313199 or see theirweb site at http://www.riverstourtrust.org/ . Diana Holt

What utter joy! Larking about on the waterjust got even more fun.The Walk on Water Ball is a giant six footdiameter inflatable sphere that lets youwalk on water.

How about trying one ofthese next time Di????... (ed)

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2009 National Festival & BoatShow will be held at Red Hill,near Ratcliffe on Soar, on theSoar Navigation, close to itsconfluence with the riverTrent, and the junctions withthe Erewash, and Trent &

Mersey canals, just south of Nottingham.IWA hopes to encourage boaters visiting the Festival to try the Erewashand Chesterfield canals and other lesser frequented waterways of theEast Midlands. The Festival also intends to raise the profile and givesupport to waterway societies in the area, including the Derby, Crom-ford and Grantham canals all of which are currently under restoration.

Moira - 24th & 25th May, 2009

The 2009 IWA Trailboat Festival starts with a spectacular illuminated boatdisplay on the Saturday evening, the 23rd.Abandoned in 1944 due to mining subsidence, the Ashby Canal at Moira hasbeen progressively restored, giving nearly 1.5 miles of new canal in the heartof the National Forest. The length incorporates a new road bridge, a swingbridge and now the only lock on the Ashby Canal.Boaters can join the event from Friday, 22nd May, and the illuminated boatparade will be centred on the Donisthorpe length of the canal. At Moira, Sun-day and Monday will feature a full programme of events and entertainment,trade and charity stalls and historic re-enactments

Trent Bridge at Nottingham AUGUST 28 – 31BANK HOLIDAY

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Restoration News from theRiver Gipping

Trust.

The retaining wall that we have been re-building above the lock is now finishedand looks very smart. Well done all.

It had a good test of its integrity in early February whenthe river was in flood (see photo) & our work site wasflooded.Since then we have rebuilt one of the upper wing walls& repaired & re-pointed the other. The stop planks aredoing a good job of keeping the lock chamber fairlydry, so we can get on with demolishing one wall of thelock ready to get an excavator in to the lock during theCanal Camps. This will enable us to remove the crude invert repair that would limitthe draft of boats that could use the lock and replace it with a correctly profiled con-crete invert.Canal Camps have been arranged for the weeks 11th to 18th July and 8th to 15th Au-gust.There will also be a London WRG weekend camp on the 25th 26th July followed by5 days of work parties by our own volunteers, we have to complete in this period thesame amount of work as in each of the two, week long, camps. Any offers of helpduring 27th to 31st July would be very welcome.Following a discussion between David Benham and the late Jeremy Clover, re. Riv-er Gipping in Stowmarket, we were contacted by David Benham of Mid-SuffolkD.C.Spencer & I attended a meeting with David Benham & 3 of his colleagues at thecouncil offices on 11th March.

11David is charged with producing a master town plan for the area of Stowmarketthat includes the head of the Stowmarket Navigation. After a wide ranging discussion of their views and our aims we were ask to producea costed list of action required to make the river navigable for leisure purposes. I, veryoptimistically, produced a list that included all the locks & bridges down to Gt. Blak-enham, the last lock in the MSDC area. After all Great Blakenham Lock is only a ¼mile from the Snowasis Project that looks as if it will go ahead, there will surly besome section 106 money available from a project of that size and who knows someof it may come our way. Colin Turner Restoration Manager.

Working up the flight from WW2 People's War by Mrs Jean Peters

At seven, the cheery little lock keeper appeared, slipped the: chain off the endgates and got the lock ready for us. In we went, our loaded boats low and heavynow to steer - but at least one could see over them. We filled water cans - had theboats "gauged"" and were off. I learnt the art of taking the butty. The routine forlocks, jump off checking strap in hand over the gate, round the stump, threeturns, hold it checked, move rope to a forward stump and tie her up, to preventher slipping her Elum under the beam of the gate and sinking when the waterrose. Shut your gate, go and wind a paddle. Loose your boat as soon as she is be-yond the danger line. Wind your rope neatly in coils on the cabin top. Lay theend on your water can and round the chimney. The end ready to be seized nexttime. Most difficult was the timing of the jump off; one hall to take one's tillerout which one couldn't do until one steered one's butty into the left of the lock.Then before the narrow brick ledge was passed one had to hop out, strap in handand tear up the steps to check. The windlass jabbed my ribs, where it rested in mybelt - my arms ached with the stupid paddles I couldn't move. Lock after lock,between locks, the steering. "Steer the opposite way that you want her bows togo" I repeated to myself. Nearly repeated once too often, for on finding myselfheading for a brick wall I steered frantically into it instead of away. Kit on themotor gave a wild cry - made animated gestures to steer the other way. Which Idid, avoiding complete disaster but getting a very healthy bump. Practical lessonnumber one! The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar'

12ROTHENSEE BOAT LIFT near Magdeburg, Germany.

PurposeThe Rothensee boat lift was originallyenvisaged as part of a larger project.The lift is at the Eastern end of theMittellandkanal, it was intended thatthis canal would cross the Elbe on anaqueduct and then be connected tothe Elbe-Havel Canal by a double boatlift at Hohenwarthe. The Rothenseelift is about 500m from the junction

of the Elbeabstiegcanal and the MittellandKanal lowering boats to the lev-el of the Elbe. The Rothensee lift was completed in 1938 but as a resultof the Second World War the aqueduct and Hohenwarthe lift were notconstructed. As part of a German re-unification transport project theElbe aqueduct was completed after a 60 year delay, however two shaftlocks were built instead of the proposed Hohenwarthe lift. For 60 years,therefore, the Rothensee lift, which was originally intended to allowpassage just from the Mittellandkanal to the Elbe carried all the naviga-tion traffic from the West German industrial centres to West Berlin.In 2001 the parallel Rothensee ship lock which allows the passage of big-ger ships was completed making the lift redundant

TechnologyThe boat lift overcomes a normal water level difference of 16 metres,however, changing water levels on the Elbe causes this to vary between11 and 18 metres. The trough moves between levels in 3 minutes. Aboat can pass through the lift in 20 minutes. Approximately 70 shipswith a maximum displacement of 1,000 tonnes pass through the lift dai-ly.

13The Rothensee boat lift utilizes floats in float chambers in a similar

manner to that at Henrichenburg. In this case only two float chamberswere needed. The lift follows the patented plans of Rudolf Mussaeus.

The trough is 85 metres long and 12.2 metres wide and is supported ontwo 36 metre long 10 metre in diameter cylindrical floats submerged intwo 60 metre deep float chambers. The floats are internally sub-dividedinto three separate chambers. Each of these chambers is filled with aircompressed to a pressure appropriate to its depth in the float chamber inorder to prevent implosion. The floats provide buoyant lift equivalent to5,400 tonnes, enough to balance the weight of the trough and its load ofwater and ship. The trough is set in motion using four worm gearedshafts, 27.3 metres long and 42 centimetres in diameter moved by eight44 kW electric motors. Because the trough and its load are in equilibri-um with the floats only the friction opposing the troughs movementneeds to be overcome by the motors. A complete lift can be achievedusing less than 500 kW of power.

This method of construction was selected because a standard lock wasnot technically possible over this height difference at the time. Thismethod also saved the cost of back pumping lost water. Today 110 mil-lion m³ of water are back pumped for the parallel ship lock each year.The overall height of the lift measured from the base of the under-ground float chambers to the upper cross beams is 97.21 metres. Thewater depth in the trough is usually 2.5 metres.

HistoryThe building of the boat lift was a major engineering achievement. Tobuild the lift 225,000 cubic metres of earth were moved and 55,000 cu-bic metres of concrete were needed. In order to dig the pits for the two60m deep float chambers the ground was frozen to a temperature of -40degrees celsius in order to prevent a possible collapse of the excavation.

14It took 4 months for the temperature to be lowered by the correctamount. In the neighbourhood of the boat lift a company owned hous-ing estate, the Schiffshebewerk Estate was built.

In the first 50 years of its existence 730,000 lifts were completed. In theyears 1980 and 1981 an 18 month long general overhaul was complet-ed. It was at this time that it received its green coat of paint.

The lift todayDespite the completion of theparallel locks in 2001 (seeright) the lift is still in use. TheGerman Federal audit office,aware of the lift's current lossmaking status will probablybring about the lift's closure inthe near future.

The Elbe Aqueduct This article was repro-duced from Wikipedia, anamazingly informativesite. The photographs aremy own during a visit tothe area.

Magdeburg is slowly be-coming part of unifiedGermany, but the people

here still cling to the East German values. When I first visited Magde-burg steam for heating the city’s homes was produced by a factory, andpiped round by huge metal ducts beside the roads.

Mick Carter (editor)

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Pete Bowers, a stal-wart member of theIpswich gang of vol-unteers reaches themagic pension age(and he still has hisown hair .Ed..hmmh)

Roger Brown receiving the Ipswich Branch trayat the annual dinner earlier this year.It is awarded to non-committee members foroutstanding, heroic, amazing, death-defying featsthat no man or beast should have to endure!!!!

16Working party dates

Working parties are held at Baylham Lock from 0900 to1700 every Wednesday and the first Saturday in the month

unless that Saturday is in a Bank Holiday weekend, the workparty will then be held on the second Saturday.In 2009 we are hosting 2 x WRG canal camps on:July 11th to July 18th. and August 8th to August 15th.

We also are hosting a London WRG weekend on 25th & 26 July.We plan to tackle a large job in July & August which may require extra work partiesto be arranged at short notice offers of help would be appreciated.Colin Turner

Interesting web sites

Ipswich IWA web site http://www.ipswich-iwa.co.ukhttp://rivergippingtrust.org/http://www.flickr.com/photos/ipswich_iwa/ .http://www.waterways.org.ukhttp://www.harnser.infohttp://www.iwapeterborough.org.ukhttp://www.broads-society.org.uk/index.php?page=homehttp://www.thegreenbook.org.uk/home/home.asphttp://www.riverstourtrust.org/http://www.goba.org.uk/http://www.waterscape.com/http://www.savethewaterways.org.uk/

The IWA may not agree with the opinions expressed in this newsletter but encourages pub-

lications as a matter of interest. Nothing printed can be construed as policy or as an official an-

nouncement unless otherwise stated. The IWA accepts no liability for any matter in this

newsletter

Anglian Cutting No. 113

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