The World Canals Conference reverted to an on-site event in June 2024 after an on-line version in 2023. The event was based in Bydgoszcz in the Kujawsko-Pomorskie region of Poland, where the Rivers Brda and Wisła (Vistula) meet, along with the old and new Bydgoszcz Canals.
Inland waterways can play a pivotal role in the EU’s efforts to decarbonise the transport system, according to the Council of the European Union. In December 2022, the Council voted to approve the conclusions of the NAIADES III report on ‘Ongoing development of inland waterways transport’.
IWI is a member go the ‘Think Climate’ coalition under the auspices of PIANC (The World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure), working on a far-reaching initiative Navigating a Changing Climate.
A milestone in development of the European waterway network for 3000-tonne barges and push-tows was marked on Tuesday 4 October when the 36m-high Niederfinow shiplift was officially opened, on the Havel-Oder Canal.
The first vessel to pass through the new lift, with its striking architecture, was the Waterway Authority’s icebreaker Frankfurt. Barges and tankers up to 115m long can now transport cargoes between the Polish port of Szceczin and Berlin and beyond.
When we visited the site in May 2022, before attending the World Canals Conference in Leipzig, we saw that even a single-barge Polish push-tow had to split to pass through the original lift, opened in 1933, with its usable length of only 83.50m.
IWI is sad to announce the death of Ruth Heard, a member for many years, and former president of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland, on 5 October. Ruth was a well respected waterway historian who wrote extensively about the Irish waterways under the name Ruth Delany. (She kept the name from her first marriage to Vincent Delany, the founder of IWAI.) She contributed the
IWI’s President Sharon Leighton looks forward to seeing members on her home waterway, the Erie Canal, on the occasion of its 200th anniversary, to be celebrated at the World Canals Conference on 21-25 September.
IWI’s Annual General Meeting was held in Bydgoszcz, on Sunday, June 23, 2024. We were pleased to hold an in-person AGM, as we did in 2022 in Leipzig.
Three long-standing Council members have retired. We are very grateful to our former Secretary Dave MacDougall (Canada), our boating expert and correspondent Mike Miller (Ireland), and Shubenacadie Canal director Claire Halpern (Canada) for their valuable contributions. The three vacancies will be filled shortly.
Donate to support our young person bursary in memory of former president Tom Grasso. The bursary will serve to support a researcher in the field of inland waterways in registering for and attending the annual World Canals Conference. The bursary will be available on application by a candidate less than 35.
The series of five webinars organised by IWI on themes of interest to all waterway users and managers was successfully completed on November 16, with presentations about canal restoration and urban regeneration, through the examples of the Lachine Canal, Montreal, Canada, and the Roubaix Canal in greater Lille, France.
Sharon Leighton became IWI’s eighth president on January 1st, 2024, replacing Rudy Van der Ween
at the end of his three-year term. Sharon recently retired from her position as community development expert at the New York State Canal Corporation, and had been vice-president since 2020.
Meeting at The Cruising Association in Limehouse, London, on 17 April, a group of 25 members heard a tribute by our president Rudy Van der Ween to Dr Roger Squires, who helped to found IWI (with Ron Oakley) from 1992, and continued to serve as Special Advisor to Council until 2022.
It is with great sadness that we announce that Tom Grasso, IWI’s President between 2003 and 2008.
Following Covid disruption to the planned WCC schedule, there is no in-person conference in 2023. In its place, IWI is hosting a series of ‘webinars’ covering important waterways issues, presented by experts from all over the world.
IWI’s Council welcomes its first member from Germany, Angela Zábojnik.