On the 29th July four BCS crew edged, oiled, greased and painted the cill markers on locks 3,4 & 5. The 5th August saw five members given familiarisation training on tugboat '212'. Not having a proper name it was christened the 'Nelson'. The crew went on to scrape vegetation from the gates on locks 4, 5 & 6. On the 10th August a team of six proceeded down the flight and completed the gate scraping on locks 3, 2 & 1.
As the 'Nelson' will possibly replace 'Pochard' as the tug BCS will be using in the future, on the 11th of August, three members went over her with a critical eye and compiled a list of requirements to bring her up to scratch.
The task party on the 13th August was impacted by a sudden change in the weather. However, the rain did not deter the nine crew from achieving their objective. Six took the tug and flat down to Tommy's bridge and collected vegetation cut prior to the lockdown. The remaining three trimmed the lower branches of the yew tree at the Stophouse. On the tugs return the arisings were loaded onto the flat and all transported up the flight and deposited on the offside above top lock.
A BCS team of four took the tug & flat to Buckby flight picking up 2 ton bags of grit at Norton. They also helped the Buckby group to complete their towpath improvements. Another team of five painted Lock 3. Lock six was given its routine maintenance by a team of three who also cut back low hanging branches over the towpath leading up to the tunnel.
On the 29th of August a crew of eleven completed the routine maintenance of the flight. Locks 1 & 2 were oiled, greased, edged and cill markers painted.