It's not because we're
superstitious, it's just that I'm forgetful at times, but I failed to
record the other day that Grace and I both had dreams on the same
night, that Kantara was sinking. Different circumstances, same
outcome. Weird!
Our Stone mooring |
We were in no great hurry to
leave Stone this morning. We'd spent the day here yesterday. The
morning weather had been rather off-putting, and both of us had things
to do for which a day's pause was useful.
Early yesterday evening, a
hire boat had come down the lock ahead of us and moored rather
clumsily at the white bollards, which are reserved for boats waiting
to ascend the lock. I didn't say anything. It didn't seem likely at
this time of day that they'd present much of a problem where they
were. It was not till this morning that I learned that they'd been
pretty much forced to moor there, in fact. Their throttle had jammed
open in slow, forward gear, and they could neither go faster nor
stop. Hence the clumsy arrival! They stayed the night, and someone
from the hire company arrived at about 11:00 to fix it.
We
set off at about that time, up the remaining three of the Stone
Locks, followed shortly by the four Meaford Locks. Both flights are
of deep locks - around 10 feet – and they fill and empty rather
slowly. Add to that quite a volume of traffic in both directions, and
it resulted in slow forward progress. Not that we minded. I got to
meet several people, and have relatively long chats with them. The
lady from NB Sailor, with whom we leap-frogged a bit over the course
of the day, gave me some useful advice; not to moor at Trentham Lock
today as we had intended. It's fairly close to the sprawl of Stoke on
Trent, and the gates there are fitted with
vandal-proof... er... no, it's "water-saving" locks which require special keys. “Water-saving locks”! They only save water because the local
vandals are unable to open the paddles because of them! Is that
Political Correctness, not to use the word
“vandal”? Anyway, the necessity of
fitting the locks suggested to us that perhaps we don't want to moor
there. The Sailor lady recommended Barlaston instead, a mile below
Trentham.
This lady told me she's
over eighty. She was an inspiration! She was slim, fit and strong,
fully able to manage the lock we were at. Her mind was sharp, too. I
just hope I can be the same when I'm her age. I'd love still to be on
the canals then, and still managing the locks, and engaging in witty
repartee with other boaters. She'll be on my mind as my years roll
on!
We had lunch just below
Meaford Locks before ascending this flight.
Though most of today's
locks filled gently, just a few of them were very violent, throwing
up bath-suds around Kantara, and forcing Grace to rev the engine
quite hard to stop the boat from rushing into either set of gates.
I had a very strange
experience at Meaford Road Bridge. I'd just assisted the
single-handed skipper of a 25 foot boat as he opened the top gate and
drove out. Looking ahead, he could see that there was a boat in the
next lock, on its way down. They were just about to open the bottom
gate paddles. The little boat drove slowly towards them as I tried to
close the top gate behind him. But this gate was very heavy. Stiff.
And at about the half-closed point, it refused to close any further.
I'm pulling at it with all my might, but nothing's happening.
Suddenly, I heard a shout
from the man in the little boat, then a loud rush of water in the
side sluices, which carry overflow from the top of the lock to the
bottom. My stubborn gate that had been going nowhere just a few
seconds before slammed closed, and the beam I was pulling on slammed
me, knocking me several feet backwards. I was unhurt, but quite
shocked by what had happened. I'd never experienced anything like it
before. Meeting the man in the little boat again later, I heard from
him how he'd felt his boat ride over a wave just before it hit my
gate. Neither of us had a clue what had caused it. The same thing
didn't occur when I was at that lock, opening those paddles. Very
strange!
Taking the advice of the
Sailor lady, we moored not long after that, at a very pleasant and
sunny Barlaston, mooring of a good number of other boats.
I've been in Twitter
conversations with John of NB Samsara, who is just a matter of a few
hours ahead of us on the same journey to Liverpool, and David on a
three-week holiday on NB Elbereth heading towards us, so we're
keeping a look-out for them both. It's always good to see in the
flesh people we've only ever known by name and/or boat name.
David's read my book.
I can forgive the typo, in
view of the accolade!
Maybe you'd both been reading about the sunken narrowboat that fetched £5900 on eBay? (Waterways World August edition)
ReplyDeleteI wish it were that simple, Tony, but I knew nothing about that eBay boat until you told me. I'm going to have to find out more!
ReplyDeleteRoger, about the wave thing. Seen this happen once many years ago. Can't remember where but was in a lock flight. Turned out that the cause was that at the next lock up the crew had opened both bottom (gate) paddles fast at the same time. This created a rush of water which was like a wave! Slammed my top gate same as you experienced. It's not that often these days that gate paddles can be wound up so fast!!! I'm now at Wheelock after a couple of hard days of locks! :-) Cheers, John (nine9feet) NB Samsara.
ReplyDeleteWeird, isn't it, John? It all happened so fast!
DeleteWe'll be in Wheelock tomorrow afternoon. We'll look out for you! Is there good mooring there?
P.S. The 10th photo is Newcastle Road Lock which is in Stone (3rd up) rather than the Meaford flight. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteOoops! Ta! :-D
Delete