Getting carried away by speed

Thursday 12 July

A cloudy morning encouraged a lazy start. After I popped to the campsite shop to buy a paper at 9, we worked up Cosgrove Lock with Sue and Frank Day on Lotus. There followed a steady chug along the Yardley Gobion pound. I was steering and found that although the day continued rather grey, I was thoroughly enjoying my boating, and started winding Sanity up as fast as she would go in the gaps between the clumps of moored boats that have become an unfortunate feature of the GU around here. (Without, of course, dragging a breaking wash – the fun is to see what pace you can get from the boat in the conditions. I don’t have GPS, so can’t measure it exactly, but my estimate would be just on the speed limit of 4 mph)

Perhaps inevitably, this exalted mood led to a near miss. One of the trickier judgements to make when approaching a bridge hole is if you see another boat approaching in the opposite direction. In particular, if the pound is quite straight through the hole, it’s very hard to decide which boat is nearer to it and so who should slow down. This can lead to a game of chicken. As we approached just such a bridge I eased back to let a boat through coming the other way. I could see another boat some distance behind him, and both Sheila and I thought that we were nearer the hole than he. Accordingly I held my course and speed, even though it became apparent that the other steerer was inclined to the inverse view.

Nearer and nearer we got, each still chugging along. In the event, Sanity got there first, and we just squeezed through the constriction before the other boat reached it.

“Seems to me your boat should be called Insanity” grumbled the steerer as we passed each other with inches to spare. Since he hadn’t had to do more than slacken off, or maybe drop into neutral, I didn’t see that he had much to complain about, but it was undoubtedly a silly situation to have got into. If I’d been wrong, there would have been quite a bang as the bows met in the middle of the hole.

After it was all over, Sheila said ‘You do realise that was Ceiriog, Braidbar 47, don’t you?” In any event, if he’s reading this, I apologise for playing boy racers like that and giving him a fright. But I still think it was my bridge ‘ole.

When we reached the foot of Stoke Bruerne, there was no other boat waiting to go up, so we hung around to see if a partner would appear from behind. In the event, Lotus showed up again, and we shared up the first five locks with them before stopping on the visitor moorings in the long pound below the top two. Lotus went on, as they were planning to head down to the Nene the next day. Frank was quite relaxed about the state of the river, which was encouraging, even though they live in London and frequently go out on the tidal Thames, and so are perhaps a bit more blasé about moving water than we are.

Friday 13 July

Another dull grey morning, but without much actual rain. We made an eight o’clock start, and the lockie came walking up just as we were setting off. He’d been down the flight checking water levels, and proposed to let some down as soon as he’d seen us clear. With his help we worked up the top two locks in fine style and were soon approaching the tunnel. We must have gone in just a bit after 8.30, Sheila steering and me on the bow tweaking the set of the tunnel light, which had got knocked a bit skew recently. I got it just so and tightened the fixing nut, so it should be fine for a bit now.

Not surprisingly, the tunnel was extremely wet after the weather we’ve been having – it’s never dry at the best of times, and this time the water was fairly cascading out of the ventilation shafts. We emerged at 9.10, so the usual 30 minutes to pass though, give or take a few.

We then had a slow run to Gayton, being held up at first by the Tunnel Boats day boat, which was pottering along so slowly we kept overhauling it even in tick over. To be fair to them, they pulled over and let us past after a bit, and we got on a little faster. We made it to Weedon just on lunchtime, so I made a quick dash to the shop to get bread, milk and a paper.

The afternoon turned steadily greyer and wetter, and things seemed generally a bit gloomy. Still what can you expect on Friday the 13th? Martin Ludgate on the canals list gave us the benefit of a conversation he’d had with an EA representative about the state of things at the Ely Rail Bridge. It seems that with luck they might just get it open in time for people to get to the actual weekend of the National, so no use to those of us who need to be there two weeks before. Looks like we’ll be going up the Hundred Foot River, assuming that the threatened rain doesn’t close the Nene again.

Never mind, as they say, a bad day’s boating is better than a good day at work, and I’ve had no reason to change my mind on that score yet.