Medway and Swale Boating Association
The voice of boating on the tidal Medway and Swale
Those of us who venture up to the non-tidal Medway will be relieved to learn that the long awaited toilet and shower block at Yalding is now open. The facilities block has been built with volunteer labour and materials donated by generous sponsors.
Pictured here is Medway River Users Association chairman Mark Smurthwaite and the Head of the EA at the opening ceremony. Pictures of what followed are too graphic to show…
Clifford Mickleburgh invites us all to the Cruising Association Kent Section’s next Winter Warmer talk on Thursday, 12 November 2015, “Extreme Voyagers 2 – the Next
Generation” by the CA’s inimitable Jeremy Batch. Any toddler who waved a flag at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant at Spithead in June 1897 would have learned at
school about the Wright brothers’ first flight only six years later. He would also, if he outlived his “threescore years and ten”, have watched men walk on the Moon. Within his lifetime, men and women would have travelled through the Northwest and Northeast Passages, to the Poles, to the bottom of the ocean, through the sound barrier, to the edge of the atmosphere and into space, and several would have sailed single-handed around the world. Who were these men and women, and who were the shipwrights, designers, scientists and engineers who made their voyages possible? We pick up the story where we left off last time.
Non CA members are welcome. There is a small charge for the talk, which starts at 8pm. The pub offers a special menu for these events so come to eat at 7pm. Call the Dog and Bear, Lenham, on 01622 858219 by 5pm to book your meal.
Peel Ports have issued a Notice to Mariners regarding maintenance dredging in the Medway Approach Channel for about 5 days from Friday 30 October. We are advised to keep well clear of the large trailing suction hopper dredger Uilenspiegel!
Until now the Queenborough Harbour trot boat has stopped operating at the end of October and started again the following April. This year, for the first time, through the winter (November to March) the trot boat will be available every Saturday & Sunday between 10am and 4pm.
Unfortunately this event has been postponed.
Friends of Westbrook Stream and Stonebridge Pond, near Faversham, have cleared vegetation and rubbish, monitored invasive species, dredged silt and started ecological surveys. They have been supported by supported by the Environment Agency, the Medway & Swale Estuary Partnership and Swale Borough Council. To enable the clearance work, the group commissioned a punt to be built by a group of unemployed locals led by shipwright Alan Thorne from the Purifier Yacht and Dinghy Company. Read more in the Telegraph
The 1937 tug Charlight and 1962 tug Touchstone were star atttractions at the Queenborough Open Day.
Archaeologist Dr Paul Wilkinson was contacted by Dan Tester, who owns a boatyard at Oare Creek, believing it to be an Anglo Saxon boat. However, Dr Wilkinson revealed that the boat is an important find dating from the Bronze Age (2,500 – 800BC) and is “rare as hen’s teeth”. . Read more at Kent Online
The Clarke & Carter Yacht & Motorboat Fair takes place at MDL Chatham Marina on the 9 – 11 October between 10:00 and 16:30.