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Chesterfield Canal Trust Update - Official handover of Chesterfield Canal Learning Boat

The Chesterfield Canal Trust officially received their Learning Boat from British Waterways on Friday 9th October 2009.

The brief ceremony took place at Shireoaks Bottom Lock. Sean McGinley, the Area Manager of British Waterways, officially handed over the boat, called Python, to Robin Stonebridge, the Chair of the Chesterfield Canal Trust.

Chesterfield Canal Trust Update - Official handover of Chesterfield Canal Learning Boat Mr. McGinley said that he was pleased to be able to hand over Python because he was confident that the Trust would make good use of it. Mr. Stonebridge thanked British Waterways for having the vision to lease out a vintage boat rather than scrap it. He thanked the Trust members who had already been working on the boat. He promised that the Learning Boat Project would be an asset to the communities along the Chesterfield Canal.

The ceremony was witnessed by the Executive Steering Group of the Chesterfield Canal Partnership. This is composed of local councillors and senior officers representing interests along the full length of the canal from the River Trent to Chesterfield.

The Chesterfield Canal Trust has been in possession of Python since May when she was collected from Adelaide Dock in London. Since then she has had a complete overhaul and been repainted. She arrived at her permanent mooring near Shireoaks a few weeks ago. However it was only this week that it has proved possible to arrange the official handover from British Waterways.

Python is a ex-working boat that the Chesterfield Canal Trust have leased for five years. She is a coppered steel construction craft built by Yarwoods in Northwich and fitted out at Uxbridge. She was commissioned in February 1930. Her fleet number was 249 and her registration number was UXB 572. She came into the hands of the British Transport Commission (which eventually became British Waterways) in 1949. They shortened her in the 1980s to her current 53'. She had been out of service for a year before the handover. Her sister boat, Panther, is owned by the Coventry Canal Society.

Python will be used for canal work in the winter and as a learning resource in the summer. She will also be on hand for rallies and festivals, performances and events. It is hoped that by the time the five year lease is up, the people living on or near the Chesterfield Canal will insist that she stays having become an essential part of their lives.

The Chesterfield Canal Trust is planning to use Python as an educational resource, not a trip boat. She will stop at villages and towns along the canal and will serve as a flexible, multi-purpose platform with a stage and lockers full of laboratory equipment, costumes and props.

Members of the Trust have been busy working with schools, colleges, dramatists and education providers to prepare a whole series of modules in drama, history, science & technology, ecology etc. for children of different ages. There will also be performances and presentations for adults.

The Learning Boat approach is to do things, not talk about them. Tell children that “The easy movement of goods was the triumph of the canal age” and they will yawn. Get them to try to pull a couple of bags of coal on land and they will struggle. Put the bags on the Learning Boat and they will be able to pull it easily.