It is usually assumed that our inland waterways are very safe places for boating, but a recent survey shows that ‘it ain’t necessarily so!’ The survey report pointed out that many locks are deep and without railings, and it is all too easy to trip over a mooring ring and fall in. Then, with the turbulence created by the powerful inrush of water, even a strong swimmer might not survive. Surprisingly however bridges and tunnels seem to account for a higher proportion of injuries.* On many of the hire craft surveyed the person who undertook the cooking did not know where the fire blanket was stowed or even whether there was one on board, yet every second counts in a fire afloat. Many of the hirers were found to be first time boaters, and although, except for a tiny minority, the hire companies were responsible and their training programmes adequate, there appeared to be few checks on whether clients had adequately absorbed the training provided.

Ed Wingfield, a mature student, undertook the survey as the dissertation for his Honours Degree in Environmental Health. He already had experience in this field, having previously crossed France, Germany and the Netherlands by their inland waterways, worked a season on French canal boats, and as a teenager, played a courageous leading part in a boat-fire rescue. He has now been appointed Port Health Officer for the Tyne.

Excellent cooperation was received both from boat hirers and the relevant authorities. Wingfield was invited to appraise Blake’s training booklets and all of his recommendations were incorporated into their 1995 edition. The survey was an unfunded and almost unassisted exercise and there were consequently too few cases for statistical validity, but even so a fairly clear picture emerged. Generally speaking our inland waterways provide excellent relaxing holidays which can be very safe provided that hazards such as locks, bridges and weirs are taken seriously, buoyancy aids are worn for deck work especially by non-swimmers, and fire hazards are always born in mind.

After the survey was completed three horrific accidents were noted from press and TV reports. Surprisingly, in two cases experienced boat-owners were the victims. A boating family had driven their cruiser into a lock, and while waiting for the lock to fill, were replenishing the outboard motor’s fuel tank. Petrol fumes came into contact with the gas refrigerator’s flame and the fuel tank exploded, throwing everyone into the lock. Here they were trapped by an inferno of petrol burning on the water, and unable to reach the lock ladder to escape. The lock-keeper, though weakened by diabetes, climbed down the ladder to the flaming water to rescue them. In a fatal accident early this year a school secretary, steering a narrowboat with a party of primary schoolchildren aboard, fell in when reversing and was sucked under and caught by the propeller. A male teacher on a following boat dived in and helped by two men working nearby, tried and save her, but could not free her. There was another fatality early this year. An experienced couple were cruising on the Norfolk Broads in their luxury cruiser when the wife fell in. Her husband jumped in to try to save her. Neither could swim and neither were wearing the lifejackets that could have saved them. A couple in a following boat then bravely jumped into the icy water to rescue them but failed due to the rapid onset of hypothermia, the husband also suffering cracked ribs due to being crushed between a rescuing boat and the bank.

Ed Wingfield suspects that the reason why relatively few accidents occur involving locks is that deep, dark locks with water cascading in are obviously hazardous and therefore engender respect from even the most frivolous boaters!