UKC

Utterly pointless thread this....

I've always fancied a go of one.  Mrs TC bought me an experience day and I finally did it on Sunday.  From a marina in Leicester, me and two other old duffers supervised by a RYA approved chap.  Spent about 6 hours on the  Grand Union canal, loads of hands on time on the tiller, through 3 or 4 locks, a winding pool and bloody long tunnel. (and then back again)

I think it's one of the most relaxing days I've ever had, despite feeling like I was extremely focused and mentally alert when I was in control (the tunnel felt like it needed a lot of concentration).  And a bit stiff from being on me feet all day and clinging onto the tiller like my life depended on it).

Sunshine helped, plus the fact we passed nothing but green fields, reeds, trees and semi-interested cows and horses.  

That's it really.   A bloody nice day.

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

Wind in the willows?

The full quote is worth posting

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing... about in boats — or with boats. In or out of ’em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not

Nice.

My old school used to do a narrow boat trip as the summer trip in the last year, taking 2/3 boats. I've also done a few trips with family and Scouts on the Kennet - my Dad has (had) a helm certificate.

I've even seal launched in a kayak off the roof of one!

My family and I had a day out on a narrowboat last month, on the Oxford Canal (vert narrow, with the added drama of Somerton Deep Lock) - it was truly lovely. Enough to do to be interesting, and to work up an appetite for lunch, but overall so peaceful,  and hard to imagine the real world from the seclusion of the watery world.

Did two with school; Llangollen and Cheshire ring, brilliant trips with liberal teachers.

Pubs at every lock flight, late night card school, wacky baccy. Great days.

It's a world away from the canals around these parts...Ashton Canal and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, not without their charms, but there are some bloody horrible parts of it.

I've found a place in Bollington that does day hires...Might get a few cool grandad points if I rocked up to Macclesfield in one of these and picked the girls up for a couple of hours...

I did Llangollen with my family when I was about 14. That's a great one. Most of the locks and lift-bridges are manually operated with a windlass (or, were then), there's a nice mind-bending trip over the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, a couple of lock flights and a few other fun features. Great for my parents to chill out in the boat with a beer, while my sister and I handled the locks and negotiated on the aqueduct and tunnels with people coming the other way. Enough to keep even my 14 year old self from getting bored. Very memorable trip!

Admiitedly, the most memorable part was when Mum got the boat stuck diagonally across the canal, but we did stop teasing her abou that eventually!

Just a note of caution - shortly after university we agreed to meet a mate in a canal side pub near Stratford, he was having a canal holiday with his new family. We got totally pi$$ed waiting for him, sitting in the sunshine... three hours after the agreed time a boat came into view, bumping from one side of the canal to the other. Neil was slumped over the tiller, eyes practically closed with despair.

'Worst effing holiday I've ever had in my life' he muttered when he was finally moored and getting outside his first pint.

My mate lives on a 60 foot narrowboat....it's a great way to spend some time cruising the canal....it's well expensive to hire one for a holiday though!

A mate quit work, sold his house and moved on to a 57 foot wide beam. He is a biker and spent his life riding fast and hard. I didn't half take the piss at the lifestyle change. 

But... I will happily ride to his mooring at warp speed then sit with my hand on the tiller for the next 3 or 4 hours at 3mph blissfully happy with the world followed by a warp speed ride back home and a night looking at boat broker web sites. 

Boats are cool. 

For me that's the best part of it. I had a couple of family holidays as a lad on the Oxford Canal around Banbury. Some parts feel really remote.

And the locks are great fun.

I've been fascinated by locks and if I'm walking down the tow path and see a boat using one I'll always stop to watch.  It was great to actually use them and fully understand just how bloody simple they are in principle (but still great bits of engineering)

The full Rosie & Jim

Most boaters will be more than happy if you volunteer to help with the gates, especially if there is only one person working the lock.

If it's a long flight or gates are unusually heavy, extra help can be extremely welcome.

If anyone is interested, an American couple are presently documenting their journey down the golly on you tube "gone with the wynns" 

We lived on one for 4 years. It was a lovey life. Got so much crap now we’ve got a house…

Our old boat has been moored around the corner from us for the last 2 years. Its now gone and been replaced by another. Hopefully that means the couple that bought it have finally finished work and moved on full-time like they intended to. Pretty jealous of them!

 Canal Boat Diaries on BBC4 is another great one

Well if it's good enough for Han Solo who are we to argue?

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/showbiz/i-cant-bear-cheerful-mornin...

Ha - yeah. Part of the problem is that operating a tiller can be counterintuitive if you aren't used to it. The other part of the problem is that long boats (that is, boats which are long, not Viking longboats) take a long time to respond. So, after moving the tiller, you have just enough time to second-guess yourself, panic, and push it back the other way. Then, when the boat does respond, it veers wildly back and forth and you end up over-correcting.

The note of caution from our trip came from a Dutch family who were doing the same route as us at the same time. We were warned that most locks have a shelf at the upstream end that the gates sit on, and that when the water drops you can get hung up on it. No problem, we were told, just make sure you are a couple of metres clear of the upstream lock gate. This family forgot - at the last lock before returning to the boat rental  - and completely trashed the prop and rudder. 

I'm not a canal boater (salty dog), but I've had many fun hours spent watching people trying to steer boats like a car, even more fun when they realise there's no brakes.

I've had a very basic narrowboat for years. I love/hate it for all the usual reasons for having an old/quirky depreciating asset that floats. I keep it on the Welsh border so in the winter we can use it for short overnight trips when the canal is quiet and in the summer we can use it as a steel bothy for when we can't face the madness of the Llangollen hire fleets. We also manage one or two longer trips a year.

Any boat either flying a skull and crossbones or where the crew are wearing any form of pretend naval atire should be treated as a plague ship and avoided at all costs. Drunken idiots ahoy! 

Canal Boat Diaries. Quality TV. It's all up in iplayer. Charts the lifestyle of Robbie as he traverses the UK canal system aboard The Naughty Lass. Lovely stuff. 

Usually, there's a mark/sign on the wall to show where the ledge is.

Another note of caution about going down in a lock is to be careful with the mooring ropes!

Without going into details, it turns out that getting the mooring rope caught when the downstream sluices are open is "a bad thing"!

Incidentally, there's a lock on the Kennet - I think it's Woolhampton - where you have a swing bridge just before the lock and an awkward side stream in between. To get through, you have to moor up downstream, make sure the lock gates are open, then stop the traffic to open the swing bridge. You then need a bit of speed on the boat, come through the bridge, swing the bow hard to port so you're practically 45 degrees across the canal and, if you've timed it right, the side current will push the bow straight and you'll slide into the lock feeling very pro.

If you've haven't got it right, the side current will shove the bow into the starboard bank and you'll feel like a complete amateur with the added bonus of a line of cars giving you increasingly annoyed looks!

My old primary school headmaster and his wife retired onto a narrowboat - but not until they'd had a bow thruster fitted!