Accessibility Pontoon Changes 2025
As a unique watersports centre, we face a wide range of challenges, one of the most challenging being the canal walls, which mean we don’t a have a lovely beach that give simpler access to the water. In 2023 the accessibility pontoon was installed and over time we recognized some of its limitations, some areas where improvements could be made and the absolute need for a “beach”.
There are some amazing resources available from the US, including a detailed review of launch options in https://www.river-management.org/assets/PreparetoLaunch/ptl%20-%202%20chapter%201.pdf . This led to the work by Maintenance Jamie and our Vice-Chair Graham to find a way to create a beach from the 2nd hand pontoons donated by SportScotland and dckc.co.uk that fitted onto the accessibility pontoon. This took a significant amount of time and iterations to finally get a beach than allowed seal launching and recovery rafted canoes (often the right choice of craft for a wide range of additional/ needs participants) but also often the fasted and smoothest way to launch relative beginners.
We also took the chance to reconfigure the accessibility pontoon by moving the Easy-dock wheelchair accessibly launch ramp to the far end of the pontoon, creating a large space for launching and also removing the area that created a blind spot where swimmers were hard to keep an eye-on.
The pontoon upgrade was a huge team effort and we still have future plans including a decked area over the stones at the end of the basin and a couple more rows of pontoon blocs at the end of the beach. Watch this space.