Restoration of Sickle...

 

For many years Sickle had been used as a maintenance tug on the Grand Union Canal, often based at Bulbourne Workshops. She was removed from the water in 2000 and surveyed by British Waterways.

 

The surveyors condemned Sickle and said she could never return to the water. British Waterways therefore decided to cut Sickle up for scrap, luckily the staff refused and instead she was sold to Sawley Marina who decided to use her as a flower pot in their car park.

 

Sickle arrived in the Sawley Marina car park in 2001, Dave immediately tried to find out what the plans were for Sickle, they said they were going to dig her into the ground of the car park and place flowers into the hold. We therefore contacted numerous waterway trusts/museums to try and get them involved in saving the vessel. However, none of the parties were interested so we decided to try and save Sickle ourselves.

 

After over a year of protesting and meetings with British Waterways, we finally managed to buy Sickle in December 2002, and after the new year we had her removed from the car park. For this we had a crane to lift Sickle onto a low loader, which then took her 100 yards across the car park to be craned into the River Trent. We then towed Sickle down the River Trent and up the Erewash Canal (despite British Waterways being adamant that she was full of holes!!). Sickle was then pulled back out the water at Wyvern Marina, site of P.J. Barber Boatbuilder where we were going to complete the restoration.

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