"WITH regard to the question of speedboats on Windermere, readers may wonder if your contributor, Dennis Aris, has financial interests in engined craft on Windermere," writes Brian Dilworth, of Hornby, in response to my claim last week that the Lake District National Park Authority has got it wrong by slapping a 10mph speed limit on the entire lake.

"Does he not agree that the fundamental nature of the Lake District is in the unspoilt, unpolluted nature of the scenery?

"Why does he not support the continental practice of installing electric-engined vessels only on all waters in the Lake District? That would be a great benefit."

As a sailor I can assure him I have no love of speedboats and have cursed them as loud as anybody in years gone by when their wash has hurled me headlong from my windsurfer.

I just feel that there is room for compromise on that vast lake and I am sure powerboat users have been just as rude about my antics, unaware that in a dinghy you have little choice but to go where the freakish winds of Windermere take you.

To pour oil on troubled waters, as indeed so many of the less efficient speed boats do, I must say Mr Dilworth's idea of electric-engined vessels only on the lake would create some surprising changes.

For instance, it would get rid of those horrid big diesel-engined steamers with their hordes of waving sightseers, who so mar the tranquil views across the lake and it would also see off those out-of-keeping Victorian boats from the Windermere Steamboat Museum.

Of course, I agree that it is the unspoiled nature of the scenery which is the national park's greatest asset, but a better way of protecting it than ridding the lake of a smattering of speedboats would be to ban all those noisy cars, fume-belching buses and rattling trains.

Unfortunately, people like Mr Dilworth, of Hornby, who live outside the national park, will then have to leave their cars in the already overcrowded Kendal car parks and trudge the 16-mile round trip to enjoy the unspoiled view across the totally empty lake - except, of course, for a handful of electric boats drifting aimlessly about as there would be no businesses left where they could recharge their flat batteries.

May 16, 2003 12:00