Author: Sarah

Lechlade Flag Festival

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We are delighted to once again be taking part in the town’s annual Flag Festival, which is co-ordinated by Lechlade Town Council and Lechlade & District Lions. Over 50 flags representing local clubs, associations and businesses are flown between June and September, bringing a welcome splash of colour to the town.

The flags can be found in the Market Square, Burford Street, St John’s Street and High Street. Our flag can be found in High Street, towards the Marina entrance but on the opposite side of the road, on the old Methodist Church.

 

Ongoing support for the RNLI

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Those of you who have visited the office at the marina may have noticed our collection box for the RNLI, the lifeboat charity that saves hundreds of lives each year through its 24-hour search and rescue service.

While most people are well aware of their rapid response to emergencies at sea around the UK coastline, what’s less well-known is that the RNLI also covers estuaries and some inland waterways. Tower Lifeboat station on the Thames is their busiest station, with a crew on site around the clock, and Teddington, one of their newest stations on the Thames, specifically covers the river.

Every bit of change dropped in the box really does help. In the two years up to May 2022 we collected £177.96 and when we emptied the box again in April this year, we were delighted to learn that the donations totalled another £102.41.

Thank you to everyone who has been generous enough to donate, it is very much appreciated.

Craning in for Spring!

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Despite some recent hard frosts, spring has officially arrived at the marina, with the annual craning in of the cruisers that were stored on land over winter now complete.

Once again MJT Crane Hire Ltd – headed by the ever-reliable Barry Tuckey – was very efficient in getting all the boats back in the water in just a few hours and it’s great to see so many berths occupied once again.

With Covid now more-or-less behind us (fingers crossed!), we’re looking forward to a great season and to welcoming our moorers, regular slipway users and some new faces to Lechlade Marina over the coming months. With a bit of luck, we’ll have plenty of sunny days for you all to enjoy our little part of the Thames at its very best.

 

Hosting the Electric Boat Association

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In mid-September, we were delighted to host a meeting of the Electric Boat Association for two days on the water – a welcome outing for all, after 18 months of hopping in and out of lockdown.

Some members brought their boats – three of which are based here at the marina – and a few simply arrived by car and hitched a ride aboard with friends old and new. The boats that arrived on trailers used our slipway and everyone was afloat by the afternoon of Wednesday 15th, for a short trip down the river in the glorious sunshine.

Monique from Monique’s Country Kitchen in Lechlade supplied an excellent cream tea back at the marina and then the overnighters moved on to the New Inn Hotel in town, where, we are reliably informed, the beer and wine flowed long into the evening!

The next morning, members set off at 10:30 sharp for around a 6km sail down the Thames to the lunch destination, The Plough Inn at Kelmscott. The weather started off a little hazy, but once everyone was happily settled in The Plough’s beer garden, the sun burned through and made for a beautiful cruise back to the marina.

The meeting was rounded off by more tea and cake, and a club awards ceremony where the winners – in categories that included ‘Most Relaxed Driving Position’! – were each rewarded with a bottle of 2016 St Emilion. (We can confirm the quality, having been awarded Best Marina ?)

As members of the EBA ourselves, we thoroughly enjoyed this long overdue get-together, which was unanimously voted a resounding success – roll on the next one!

(Thanks and credit to the EBA for the images.)

The new boating season gets underway

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Spring has finally sprung in Lechlade and, for us, the new boating season has also begun, with the cruisers that were stored on land over the winter now back in the water.

The craning operation took place on a bitterly cold but thankfully dry Saturday at the start of April, with the team from MJT Crane Hire Ltd once again on site. Barry Tuckey and his two ‘banks-women’ – his daughter, Lisa, and regular assistant, Sharon – arrived with their 60-tonne crane just before 9am and, with the help of some of the boat owners, all 10 cruisers were safely transferred to their berths in just two and a half hours.

Covid restrictions over the last year meant that many owners didn’t feel it was worth putting their boats back in the water last spring, so most of the ones craned in this year had been on dry land for nearly 18 months. With the end of the pandemic now hopefully in sight, it’s lovely to have the marina looking so full once again.

Thanks to Barry, Lisa, Sharon and all our socially distanced owner/helpers for a job very well done. We’re now keeping everything crossed for some fine weather and looking forward to a busy summer.

New landscaping at the marina

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A huge benefit of much the restoration work we’ve done at the marina over the past few years has been the positive impact on the natural environment. Clearing the site, cutting back overgrown shrubs, removing diseased trees and opening up the landscape has resulted in healthy flora thriving and a huge increase in the amount of wildlife in the marina. We’ve now got a really inviting habitat for fish, water voles, kingfishers, swans and ducks – and the populations keep growing!

Our most recent investment has been in hedging, to replace some of the trees that had to be removed and which will also provide additional shelter and food for our wildlife. Kingsdown Nurseries supplied us with a total of 270 whips, which we’ve managed to get in the ground just in time for a spring growth spurt.

We’ve put in a 12m beech hedge along one edge of the car park and then along the western boundary, running from the river bank back into the marina, we’ve planted a 42m mix of shrubs – hawthorn, cherry plum, privet, hazel, pear and beech. Once they’ve matured, they should provide excellent privacy and protection, as well as nesting for birds, blossom for bees and plenty of foraging opportunities for smaller mammals.

The lockdowns over the last year have certainly given us the opportunity to get things done more quickly than we otherwise could have under normal business conditions. But now that restrictions are about to start easing, we’re very much looking forward to welcoming everyone back over the coming months to enjoy our beautiful marina once again.