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Second sluice gate failure at Dutton Lock

I find it hard to believe that this situation repeated itself in less than a year last Wednesday evening. Our narrowboat tilted 45 degrees. Luckily, a local man rushed across fields to save her by loosening the ropes. Nevertheless, there was devastation on board. Everything that wasn’t screwed down moved from one side of the boat to the other, causing considerable breakages. We have done a big clean-up but we will be inconvenienced for months sorting out replacements for what has been damaged.

Contacting BW has not been easy and involved a number of phone calls and emails so far. Promised return calls never seem to happen. It leaves you feeling vulnerable. We also feel afraid that this might happen again. Once may be considered an accident, twice must be negligence. If we had been sleeping on board and it had happened at the dead of night, what might have been our fate?

Lynda Broad
By email