Awards at the IWA Festival.

This years IWA Festival provided an ideal opportunity to the winners of a number of trophies, to be presented with their awards by Stephanie Horton, River Canal Rescues MD.

The Nationwide Anglia Trophy for the most enterprising and non continuous journey running from the 1st January 2009 was won by Di and Reece Jones aboard NB Wandering Whimbrel who travelled an amazing 815 miles through 491 locks. Their journey took them the length of the country, including all of the Leeds Liverpool canal from Keadby to the newly opened Liverpool Link and Salthouse Dock. They also included a visit to the Anderton Lift and the River Weaver on their way to the River Soar ending up at the festival at Redhill.

The Robert Aickman Trophy, for the most meritorious and enterprising journey undertaken during the 28 days leading up to the start of the festival, was won by Tony Parks who sailed the 70' NB Tom Tug 154 miles, single handed from London with his wheelchair bound wife. Negotiating a 70' boat through all of the double locks, single handed while still attending to his wife's needs was felt to make Tony more than worthy of the award.

The AP Herbert Trophy for the longest journey during the 28 day qualifying period preceding the start of the festival was won by David Jarvis in NB Orchid 2. Over the 28 days he travelled 495 miles taking a route that began in Leicester and included the River Soar, River Trent, Keadby, Yorkshire Ouse, Selby Canal, River Trent back to the River Soar and then to Redhill.

News updates.

You may have noticed that we've added two new news items to this blog covering the new project with Adverc and the increased levels of interest in our maintenance courses (if you've not seen them look below this post). But we would also like to hear from you the customer if you have an interesting story or recent incident that others might like to hear about.

It's easy to let us know about these, all you need to do is visit the testimonials page of our website which you can access from here.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Adverc and RCR hit the ground running!

River Canal Rescue has teamed up with Adverc, the Wolverhampton based battery management systems developer and manufacturer. The two businesses are collaborating to enable RCR to develop and expand the range of services offered to its customers. This joint initiative will increase the level of service available to RCR's customers by implementing permanent solutions to battery management problems.

Until now RCR engineers and contractors, attending electrical breakdowns involving a battery management systems, would generally bypass any battery management systems and effect a safe but temporary repair which will get the member up and running again. However now RCR envisage that by working with Adverc they will increase the engineers knowledge of the management systems and as such allow them to diagnose and resolve some of the more typical faults encountered. To enable this to happen Adverc will be running a training program for the RCR engineers and each one will be supplied with testing equipment. RCR will also be adding the Adverc specialists engineers their list of current contractors so that if the issue cannot be resolved it can be easily and quickly passed to a local Adverc specialist or pass these details on to the customer.

As a result of gaining this additional training on systems of this type, RCR will be looking to add information on dealing with battery management systems onto its courses, both the diesel engine course and, quite obviously the electrics course. The latter course will involve a demonstration of the Adverc system to delegates".

Michael Stimson of Towergate Mardon has been the first RCR member to benefit from this agreement. After a plethora of long standing and ongoing battery related problems, his narrow-boat ‘Spirit' was subjected to full scrutiny by two of our engineers, Guy Taylor (Adverc BM) and Jay Forman (RCR) as a test case.

Although much work has to be done on his boat, Michael can now be reassured that his battery problems will become a thing of the past. Michael's narrow boat was a good example of what not to do in getting the best from his battery system and electrics, which reflected a combination of bad practice and lack of knowledge not uncommon throughout the inland waterways.

Adverc BM and RCR, together, will jointly provide the necessary expertise to deal with most problems on a narrowboat, in addition to providing advice on avoiding some of the pitfalls that can ruin the pleasure for the enthusiast on the inland waterways.

For more information visit,

www.rivercanalrescue.co.uk

www.adverc.co.uk/

Press Release: RCR courses filling up fast

Press Release: Courses filling up fast

The popularity of the RCR training courses would seem to be as strong as ever with places almost completely filled well into February 2010, and chances are this trend will continue throughout the coming year. As a result of feedback from previous courses and requests from members they will be adding electrical maintenance courses to the wide range of subjects already covered.

New locations are also being added to the 2009 itinerary. As a result of running a very successful course at the St Pancreas Cruising Club in central London, RCR have announced that this venue will be a permanent addition to their list of venues. Over the coming year and beyond it will provide easy access for our members, and those wishing to take part in any courses with a location in the capital.

It's not only the classroom based courses that have proved popular. With around 20 people per session, and 10 classes being held on the IWA Festival site over August bank holiday weekend, over 200 people attended. With these sessions proving so popular RCR will be continuing to run these events throughout the 2010 season at various events. It's thought that the recent squeeze on individual finances has made training on all aspects of boat maintenance increasingly popular as DIY is an ideal way for boat owners to reduce boat running costs.

For more information on River Canal Rescues courses visit their website at, www.rivercanalrescue.co.uk