Down Bosley again

Despite a grotty weather forecast, and some grotty weather, we've had a decent morning's boating, working through two lift bridges and Bosley Locks in about four hours. We did a flying start, and after 90 minutes were at the top of Bosley by nine. We'd passed a hire boat coming the other way, so weren't surprised to find the first few locks with us.

Just under halfway down, we met another Heritage hire boat coming up. They were being assisted by an experienced boater. He told Sheila a sad tale; the hirers had set off yesterday, but were having such a struggle to get the hang of the boat that they'd already forfeited their deposit for ramming another boat so hard they'd broken some of its crockery.

Stopping at the foot of Bosley overnight, they'd knocked on this guy's boat at seven this morning and asked him to help them up the flight. Seemingly, the hirer had been so discouraged yesterday he'd wanted to abandon their holiday. The woman on the boat told Sheila that they'd had only the most cursory training from Heritage, so it looks like that may not be the ideal yard for novices to start from.

There was a thread on Canal World just the other day about the wide variation in training that hire yards give, as well as the undoubted problem of getting excited hirers to pay attention. Anglo Welsh were quoted as being good in this regard, but we've known some AW hirers show a very poor grasp of the basic techniques and courtesies; it may be a case of variation from yard to yard even within the one company.

As a point of interest, because of the very high standard of the boat, you can't normally hire from Braidbar unless you can show that you've had several previous hires. If you are a potential purchaser wanting to try before you buy, they'll ask you to go and have a day's training from Top Lock training up at Marple before taking the boat out.

Further down the flight, we encountered a couple of Middlewich boats cruising in consort; they were an experienced group who were coping very well. They were planning on doing the Cheshire ring, but since the Marple flight has suffered a paddle failure and is closed until Wednesday, they might have a problem with that.

By the time we reached the bottom of the flight, there were five boats queuing to come up.

We've come on to the country mooring by Bridge 65, just short of Congleton. In the morning, we'll carry on to the Hightown mooring in Congleton, stopping at the water point at Bridge 68 on the way in. The weather forecast is even grottier for tomorrow, but we've got a rendezvous with Peter and Jan there for late afternoon, after which they are boating with us through Harecastle on Tuesday.