Bomb squad warning over magnet fishing
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
These waterways are accessible upon payment of a licence fee, ranging from a few pounds to over £1200, for use by boats, canoeists, paddleboarders and other craft. Walkers and cyclists can use the extensive network of 'Public Rights of Way' that run alongside the canals and rivers without payment of a fee, which were previously permissive towpaths.
Do you need a license to just float down the river on an inflatable? Also, if I drop something into the water, is it now property of the trust? What a ridiculous governing body. The UK really loves licensing the shit out of everything.
"Oi, you got a license for that license, mate?"
I suspect that some of the regulatory environment here is the shape it is for historical reasons -- canals were originally commercial waterways with heavy traffic, not a more lightly-used pleasure/leisure environment.
The comments responding to you don't make any sense either. Needing some sort of permit to permanently moor a houseboat is totally different from having to pay to use a canoe or inflatable in the water.
In case there anyone wants to defend the UK's absolutely idiotic licenses, here's a concrete example from your neighbors about 100 miles east.
Here in the Netherlands we have a ridiculous amount of public water - canals, rivers, lakes, etc - and it's all entirely free to use. It's even free to moor your boat temporarily (up to 3 days) at thousands of spots around the country. Our population density is double, we have more people with boats, and we have a massive amount of commercial shipping traffic everywhere. We've got several of the busiest ports in Europe. One of them is as big as ten of the port of London! And somehow it works out splendidly.
This only covers privately owned “boats” if you rent a kayak or a canoe or a boat the operator must have a business waterways license which will enable you to use the waterways for the duration of your rental.
Paying 48 pounds (63 USD) per year for the ability to use my cheap inflatable on the inland waterways is preposterous. That's more than four thousand US dollars added up over a lifetime.
The cheapest/shortest license I could find was a princely £9.10. Fairly frequently I've gone out for a brief little trip - an hour or so with the boat, drift down a canal, get some lunch - with my girlfriend. Now in order to do that I need to fill out a multi-page form and pay someone £9.10? Ridiculous.
Why can't it work the way it works here? We have more waterways, more people on the water, more commercial shipping, and a substantially more involved system of canals, lakes and rivers, and it's totally free to plop your little inflatable wherever you please (excluding a very small number of areas only available to commercial traffic, far from where anyone would want to be in an inflatable.)
By the way, I've been to the UK, and your waterways are disgusting - certainly worse maintained than here in the Netherlands. I've seen heroin needles, human feces, and piles of trash. Meanwhile over here we keep our waterways clean without making people pay four thousand bucks over their lifetime for something as simple as an inflatable boat. This is despite the planeloads of British tourists coming to the Netherlands to throw trash in our waterways.
Can't speak to the UK but in the USA, maybe. In my state, if it's a "managed" lake or reservoir, or in a state park or forest, there is a watercraft license requirement. Natural lakes, streams and rivers are exempt.
It's a leftover sentiment from the days when taking anything of any usefulness or value from the land without permission was considered stealing from whatever lord or nobleman owned that land. Licensing for everything and everything is not considered abnormal when it's the status quo going back a thousand years. Society takes a long time to change things that are deeply ingrained like that.
edit: If there's an alternate explanation I'm all ears...
The main beneficiaries of the license fees in England and Wales are the British Canal Trust and the Environmental Agency both of which use the money to maintain the waterways and the environment around them.
The fees are next to nothing for smaller vessels, for unpowered boats the fee is incorporated into the membership fees for the clubs.
Rentals are exempt as they fall under the business fee of the rental provider and visitor licenses are available for short term that cost next to nothing.
That's some very British pearl-clutching.
You are welcome to your perspective, of course, and many other Americans have other perspectives. It would be interesting to see the distribution of opinions and analysis of where the variations are (by country? by region? urban and rural?). But I wouldn't call the POV 'American'.
> on BART
Interestingly, the places in the U.S. with more per capita crime, cities, have stronger support for gun control. However, crime is historically low nationwide, which may affect the relative distribution of gun control support/opposition in ways I can't predict.
Attitude on the old continent towards weapons is different, as is conflict resolution, police legitimacy and expectations on government itself.
But it's not interesting, that's the point. Obviously it is* interesting to the author, because it's a dangerous weapon, just like the explosives are dangerous weapons. That, again, is the point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery?wprov=sf...
> According to a BBC news report in 1970,[12] it was determined that if the wreck of Richard Montgomery exploded, it would throw a 1,000-foot-wide (300 m) column of water and debris nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 m) into the air and generate a wave 16 feet (5 m) high. Almost every window in Sheerness (pop. circa 20,000) would be broken and buildings would be damaged by the blast. However, news reports in May 2012 (including one by BBC Kent) stated that the wave could be about 4 feet (1 m) high, which although lower than previous estimates would be enough to cause flooding in some coastal settlements.
I'm curious how this happened. The linked article provided no details...
https://www.examiner.co.uk/news/theyve-tried-save-each-other...
Given this quote “And my last words to them were: ‘Stay safe, be careful. Don’t go in the water.’
I'd guess possibly not great swimmers. This is not a normal thing to say in cultures where swimming is strong.
The "magnet fishing" link is just sensationalist bullshit.
Then the father jumped in? And they both drowned.
BTW, I had to vouch for your dead comment. Not sure why it was flagged.
Seriously? The article's going to try to cast a negative light on ordnance being voluntarily removed from waterways? Isn't this sort of thing one of the main points of the bomb squad in WW2-impacted countries?
Let's not pretend that any government is going to take it upon themselves to sweep their country's waterways for unexploded ordinance. Come on.
The hope is that it lays undisturbed long enough to be rendered inert.
It's "ordnance", not "ordinance".
And if it's armed, as you indicate, it's an even worse idea to use magnets around it.
It's when you start dragging them out of the water with a magnet that the risk ramps up.
Voluntarily being removed by amateurs without safety equipment.
And in deep enough water, an explosive is effectively neutralized anyway.
The BWB has subsequently been abolished with its powers (including the power to make and enforce byelaws) transferred to the Canal and Waterways Trust.
Railway bye-laws operate similarly.
> The crew requested permission to jettison the bomb, in order to reduce weight and prevent the bomb from exploding during an emergency landing. Permission was granted, and the bomb was jettisoned at 7,200 feet (2,200 m) while the bomber was traveling at about 200 knots (370 km/h). The crew did not see an explosion when the bomb struck the sea.
> Some sources describe the bomb as a functional nuclear weapon, but others describe it as disabled. If the bomb had a plutonium nuclear core installed, it was a fully functional weapon. If the bomb had a dummy core installed, it was incapable of producing a nuclear explosion but could still produce a conventional explosion. The 12-foot (4 m) long Mark 15 bomb weighs 7,600 pounds (3,400 kg) and bears the serial number 47782. It contains 400 pounds (180 kg) of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium. The Air Force maintains that the bomb's nuclear capsule, used to initiate the nuclear reaction, was removed before its flight aboard B-47.