Charity boat suspends trips as river levels reach 20-year low

Richard Youle, Local Democracy Reporter

The operators of a charity passenger boat have cancelled trips because water levels are so low.

Swansea Community Boat Trust’s vessel, Copper Jack, had only been back in action for three weeks following a lengthy refurbishment.

Trustee Elaine Davies said the charity has been liaising with environment body Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and that the Tawe was the lowest it’s been for 20 years.

“There is a new mud beach at the Swansea Yacht & Sub-Aqua Club and one of our volunteers who lives in the area says he’s seeing rocks he’s never seen in the river before,” she said.

“Unless we have substantial rain we’re probably going to have further cancellations.”

Exceptionally low rainfall from the latter half of June onwards have depleted rivers across Wales and Copper Jack sailings from last Saturday have been called off.

Natural Resources Wales declared drought status in both north Wales and the Upper Severn last week. Areas in south-east and south-west Wales are currently in “prolonged dry weather status” – the step before a drought is declared.

The cancellations are not a decision the trust has taken lightly. “It doesn’t just disappoint our passengers – it hits our revenue,” said Mrs Davies. “We’re a charity run entirely by volunteers.”

The trust is monitoring river levels daily and has called off trips up to and including Thursday July 30 with passengers offered refunds or rescheduled sailings. As things stand, a sailing on Friday July 31 will go ahead.

The vessel takes up to 40 passengers plus crew from the marina up the river to a point just before the Morfa Bascule bridge, near the Swansea.com Stadium, and back downstream. Passengers learn about the history of the former industrial area during the trips. The vessel also offers discounted school trips and hosts private functions and live music.

The Tawe basin does store and release water when spring tides over-top the barrage but the trust has been erring on the side of caution in recent days. “We could get beached and that would be awful,” said Mrs Davies.

Copper Jack spent several months out of the river while being revamped before restarting trips on July 4. The boat launched in 2014, replacing predecessor The Black Prince which was bought in 2010.

Mrs Davies said she felt there was an issue with silt levels.  Swansea Council said it had silt cleared every two years as part of an agreement with boat owners moored on the river pontoons.

David Guy, Swansea Yacht and Sub-Aqua Club’s commodore, said he believed the silt removal needed to be done in a more effective manner and that timber and debris snagged around the piles of the nearby Sail Bridge were directing water away from the east side of the river basin where water levels were particularly low.

He said the Tawe was the lowest he had seen since becoming a club member 50 years ago. “Yachts have been grounded,” he said.

Mrs Davies said the main issue with river levels to date has been when they’re too high, preventing Copper Jack safely passing under the Tawe bridges.

Little if any rain is expected in Swansea this week. More changeable conditions are likely to follow for a while.

The Met Office’s long range forecast said the weather in the UK may become more settled towards the end of the first week of August and that rainfall totals will likely be below normal between August 12 and 26.

Wales, however, received 1.6m of rain between July 2025 and the end of June 2026, which was 10% more than the 1991-2020 average.

The Met Office projects hotter summers and warmer winters in the years to come, driven by climate change. It says summers are more likely to be drier and winters wetter on average.

Tracey Dunford, NRW’s lead water resources planner, said: “With no significant rainfall in the immediate forecast, and the risk of further hot weather to come, we remain concerned about further escalating impacts.

“We are keeping the situation under close review and remain in regular contact with the Welsh government, water companies, farming representatives, other regulators and key partners. While the hot, dry weather persists, we’d encourage everyone to use water wisely to help protect our environment.”

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