Final river section dredge before Spawning season shutdown.
by: Andrew Rendell
Target to make landing stages usable by October the 1st from Wallbridge to Dudbridge as well as make slipway safer.
Monday morning first frost but nice day. Team met up at Newman's yard upper Wallbridge pound. Dredger made noises but would not start, the cold and a 3week stoppage did not help.
Swapped battery from Annette2 and consequently Dredger bust into life with a puff off nearly black smoke.
Did some silt and debris clearance from behind gates before proceeding down to lower Wallbridge after a nice lady from the cafe provided us with a free coffee each.
The lower gate though would not operating properly, collar straps loose and gate not meeting at top 1 1/2 metres as well as gates are sitting at different heights
Moved down through lower lock after cleaning fish pass grids of jumpers, shoes, branches, leaves, weed, bottles etc. Not good!
Got to gas main with a struggle as bouyancy tanks rubbed passed the encroaching bank and reeds. Amazing who 9 months ago we dredged this and was easy to pass through.
Landing Stages at Lower wall bridge needed heavy dredging, the team worked well! All the silt and soil I dumped across to offside. Moved on to Painswick brook landing stage. Cleared much silt and again dumped offside, can't be missed especially with a sign.
Sign erected to ask all vessels to keep away as depth of Canal is poor and if spread will cause problem. Hopefully all skippers and users of the Canal keep away from silt banks as can't revisit till May next year.
As can be seen in photos there is warning tape mounted to keep vessels away from a major block wall. It's just below water level and would cause serious damage.
Finally onto Stratchams Slipway and east side of Chestnut Lane. The slipway was badly covered in silt to a foot at deepest point . We've cleared that and a zone around the entrance and hope people keep away from it except for use until we come back next year to clean the whole section when hopefully the gas main is removed.
The Tow path landing stage is being cleared and all deposits put on offside. The pictures show 5 hours work just clearing a 2 metre wide section to opposite side. At least now the landing stage can be used and will be finished by Wednesday.
Many thanks to John, Alex, Jim and Mark for working hard over these 3 days
