Having been to the top of the canal from Shireoaks and back with Janis and ‘Roots and Wings’, I left them there to return to Retford and the ‘Hop Pole’. Janis was having some more friends join her for the passage down to Retford. She would arrive at the ‘Hop Pole’ mooring on Wednesday evening and the following day she had volunteered to tow myself and ‘Futurest’ to Drakeholes Tunnel on the first of a four day passage to Newark.
Janis and I had a great meal that evening and I was able to thank Michael and his staff for their hospitality and friendly help over the last fortnight. It really is a splendid place to eat and drink and is always very popular. If anybody is interested in a good night out, their website for more details is as follows:
Afterwards Peter and Jeanne came along so we could make our fond farewells. They’ve been so good, friendly and welcoming towards me and it was nice to be able to say farewell properly.
On the Wednesday that ‘Roots and Wings’ arrived at the ‘Hop Pole’, the canal pound was leaking badly somewhere and on that morning, when I awoke, ‘Futurest’ was high and dry with a definite port list. I was on to British Waterways immediately to tell them that I wanted to move off the following morning and bless them they worked solidly all day at the two pumps to bring water up from the River Idle that passes underneath the canal at Retford. By Wednesday evening the level was high enough for Janis and me to haul ‘Futurest’s deep drafted stern off the mud into the middle of the canal. It looked incongruous to see her there but the bow was still close enough for me to hop aboard. However we hoped that no other vessel would come by that night as they would not be able to pass ‘Futurest’s stern. It was impossible, come what may, to move it any closer to the quay.
Day 1; Thursday 1st September
Even though the Locks from Retford to the River Trent were all doubles we had to make fast ‘Futurest’ to ‘Roots and Wings’ in tandem for most of the time as the canal was never wide enough to enable us to navigate breasted up. Even in line ahead the going was slow as the channel was narrow and shallow. It was difficult for Janis to keep a line around any slight bend without catching the fifty seven feet of boat behind her on some shallow bank or other. However she soon mastered the completely new technique and soon we were hardly touching the sides.
We also soon developed a technique of breasting up in the locks, which worked most satisfactorily and before long were getting through the procedure within ten minutes. Luckily when we arrived most of them were in our favour, which helped enormously.
Negotiating a slight bend to Starboard
With crossed towing strops and buttons kissing
‘Futurest’ behaved beautifully
But it was a long day of eight hours and even though the weather was beautiful and we only had one lock to negotiate, it was quite stressful on our steep learning curve. We were glad to find a spare double length mooring available for us at Drakeholes Tunnel when we arrived there in the early afternoon. We made everything fast without having to let go our towing strops.
Day 2; Friday 2nd September
We had another fine day on our hands when we left our mooring at 0830 on Friday morning. As the dappled Sunshine filtered its way through the green lacery of the trees overhead, we were unable to take in the full benefit of its beauty, as immediately we had to negotiate the right hand turn into the narrow entrance of Drakeholes Tunnel.
But Janis, by now well practiced in the art of getting ‘Roots and Wings’ and a fifty seven foot tow behind her around tight corners and into narrow entrances, had no problem at all in getting the whole contraption, which could behave like an uncontrollable bendy bus when it wanted to, past this first hazard without even touching the sides.
All we had time for was a quick lunch
By now we had discovered that ‘Futurest’ responded much better to the tow if we didn’t use her rudder. The large blade when used tended to throw ‘Roots and Wing’s stern well off line, making it difficult for Janis to get her to respond to her own steering requirements and hence keep everything under control. Apart from the most difficult manoeuvres, I kept ‘Futurest’s tiller lashed midships, after which she responded, like a wind vane, much more positively to the rudder controls of the tug.
We had a slow but steady day and passed through the four double locks, from in tandem to breasting up and then back into tandem formation with no difficulty at all. Ten minutes was all we required for the whole locking process. But we were happy though tired when we finally arrived at West Stockwith Basin at around three thirty on that sunny afternoon.
Both boats being the same length made it easy for us to breast them up securely for the forthcoming two days on the River Trent. A breast line from bow to bow and stern to stern plus a forward and after backspring from ‘Roots and Wings’ to ‘Futurest’s alternative mooring points a third the way from bow and stern, meant that the two little ships were hugging each other as close as Siamese twins. Though they would be able to pitch independently on the swell of the river they would never be able to range back and forth.
We went to bed that night, though a little fearful of what was to come tomorrow, nonetheless confident that we had prepared the ships and ourselves to the best of our ability.
‘Roots and Wings’ breasted up with ‘Futurest’ (just seen behind)
In West Stockwith Basin
Day 3; Saturday 3rd September
Our biggest anxiety this morning was how would the breasted up rig behave in a tideway and respond to the tiller. Especially with a dead weight of twenty tons to port, would we be able to control the beast with only the small propeller of ‘Roots and Wings’ on the starboard side? She would obviously turn more easily to port but would we be able to control her satisfactorily when we wanted her to move to the right?
The quiet before the storm.
Just before setting off onto the Trent
However the time had arrived to find out.
At 10 am we let go. Quickly our fears were quietened to some degree as the two boats turned very easily to starboard and entered the double lock for our entrance onto the mighty River Trent. We felt much better already as our nerves ebbed with the draining waters of the deep lock.
Then we were away into the daylight of the vast river, feeling our strength and freedom as we turned easily to starboard in the murky brackish waters of the slack tide.
Excitement filled our veins and everything would be okay .... We would be okay!
Very soon, though it appeared when we looked at the water alongside that we were only moving at about one mile per hour, when lifting our eyes a little higher we noticed that we must have been on some kind of exciting roller coaster ride at the fair. When we looked at the river bank, it was flying past us at a frightening rate, with the help of the flood tide.
The dead tall rusty waterfront at Gainsborough rushed by in a matter of minutes and we managed, with extra power and moving in a crabwise direction, to steer a good course between the centre arches of the large ornate bridge. Quickly I noticed the water in full flood building up against the leading edge of the bridge buttresses and streaming down the side. I was glad we had taken care to avoid hitting this side on.
This one was proving to be a very swift flood tide.
For the next couple of hours or so we were unable to relax as the two little ships were flung along almost at the mercy of the river. We were continually struggling with both helms and frequent increase of power, to keep ourselves out of trouble. The strong to gale force wind from the south west increased the swell against us, breaking the tops with spray and both bows were beginning to pitch quite heavily into it sending the spray against the forward ends of the accommodation. Luckily our doors though far from being watertight were at least closed.
There were many bends and most of them were hairpins. The ones to the left were easier to power through with our tendency to go to port all the time. But the right hand ones we found to be much more difficult, with the surging tide trying to put us onto the outside bank of the corner while, to avoid this catastrophe, we clawed our way towards the spit on the inner bend where the swell was breaking like surf. However at fifty seven feet we didn’t have a lot of room to manoeuvre and we didn’t want to go aground on this dangerous middle bit either. To make matters worse the drooping foliage of willow trees overhung the outer bend by a good ten feet or more, so on two occasions ‘Futurest’s stern was being dragged through all this. There was a debris of green shrubbery everywhere and in one case the broken branch of a tree was jammed beneath the hatchway cover which had slid to in the mêlée. Luckily I had the good forethought to abandon the con and drop down into the cabin below, which by this time was looking like the interior of a conservatory with its myriad of green plant life all around me.
But we made it. Nothing was lost but Janis’s phone, which must have been swept overboard at some point. Neither of us lost our nerve and even though for safety’s sake, I had disappeared below, Janis stayed at the con and kept the power on and because of this eventually we pulled out of the bend beautifully.
But at one o’clock in the afternoon we were thankful to arrive at Torksey, where we turned around and tied up at the pontoon ready for the last leg of the journey the following day to Newark.
Day 4; Sunday 4th September
This was our final day as Janis had to be back at work the following morning. But we considered that even with twenty miles to go from Torksey to Newark, with the flood tide urging us along as far as Cromwell Lock, the head of the tidal river, we would still be able to reach our destination later that afternoon.
And how different the passage turned out to be from the previous day. The flood began at 1230 and we set off then to catch the maximum benefit from it. But today the wind had dropped to a degree and the current was nowhere as strong as it had proved to be the day before.
Concentration towards the end of the day
We still had to concentrate but the excitement was different. We managed all the bends beautifully due to our growing experience as well as the less severe natural conditions. We were able to observe what was going on around more and actually saw a Kingfisher swoop from one overhanging willow to another keeping well ahead of us. There was no mistaking the flash of bright orange as he turned his underside towards us or the sparkling sapphire blue of his topsides. It was a thrill and a reward to see him in the afternoon sunshine.
I used the VHF radio to contact the lock keeper at Cromwell and gave him our ETA so by the time we arrived he had opened the huge gates of the massive lock to welcome us in. As we left he also called the keeper at Nether Lock to ask him to leave the gates open there for us. When we arrived he would have long since gone off duty.
It was a beautiful summer’s evening as we motored peacefully up the last section through Nether Lock and up to the King’s Marina entrance in Newark. We entered quietly and a small but appreciative audience of Mallards were there to watch us reverse effortlessly into the double finger berth that had been reserved for us.
Concentration mingled with contentment
As we tied up at 1940 the bright daylight was beginning to fade in favour of the purple twilight.
We were safe at the end of our most memorable voyage.
No comments:
Post a Comment