WE are writing in response to Steve Lloyd’s letter of June 8 asking why the Wye Trow is nowhere to be seen at the moment.

As Mr Lloyd said, the trow was built in 2012 to represent Herefordshire in the Diamond Jubilee Thames Pageant. That was a great success and a few weeks later The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh inspected the trow and its builders and crew on ‘Diamond Day’ in Hereford.

‘The Hereford Bull’ spent 2013 on the sheltered lake ‘Drummonds Dub’ near Ross and was used by schoolchildren and Sea Cadets. Last summer it was moored on the Wye below the cathedral. The Sea Cadets used the trow for training, and trips were made by them and others along the navigable stretch of the river upstream. One objective we did not manage to pull off, despite the Sea Cadet unit’s best efforts, was to create a jetty good enough to let us do trips for disadvantaged children and adults. These operations since 2012 have been good as far as they go, but are a bit limited.

When The Hereford Bull was moved back to shipbuilders T Nielsen in Gloucester last autumn for safe mooring and winter maintenance, some decayed planking was found. Treatment with preservative was tried, and some planks were replaced; but later it was found that there was widespread attack of the hull by a fungus causing wood rot.

The volunteer trow team is now weighing up what uses of the trow in future will justify the cost of extensive repairs. One factor is that keeping a wooden vessel in fresh water makes it more liable to decay than in sea or tidal waters. We hope to find ways of keeping the river’s history alive in The Hereford Bull, and also to find people with knowledge of river and canal life who can help us achieve this; but at present it is unlikely we will be able to moor the Wye Trow in Hereford in the near future.

Bob Tabor, Philip Wilcocks, Ian Hale, Nat Hone, Ray Hunter, Jeremy Picton-Turbevill, Rob Shiels, Steve Swaithes and Andrew Wynn, Herefordshire Community Foundation Trow Committee