My narrow escape (Home)

By now I have come down from the Grand Union summit at Tring, cruised for a long time at the bottom (mainly around Milton Keynes forever) and have come up again to another little summit, just before reaching Braunston, the end of the Southern Grand Union. I have finally reached the point where I turned off to new places I have not travelled to before. So this feels like I should write another post about the rest of the journey on the Grand Union. At the summit in Tring I had some work done on my boat by the very helpful Darren at Cow Roast. My plans to open a training centre for boat handling courses (RYA Inland Waterways Helmsman courses) on my boat were abruptly stopped in March, when the lockdown happened. I was close to launch at the time, but had to have some minor safety improvements done on the boat that I couldn’t do myself. Finally now in June I was able to find an engineer to do the work. Everything is so much easier (and cheaper) outside of London, where demand outstrips sup...

I have now made it to the Grand Union canal summit in Tring. From here it's all downhill to beyond Milton Keynes before the canal starts climbing again on its way to Birmingham. A summit sounds grand and it is indeed hard work with all the locks. But the summit is "only" 121m above sea level on the edge of the Chilterns. Lifting boats up to this height is no mean feat though. As promised I am going to focus a bit more on canal history and engineering on this cruise, but first a brief recap how I got here. I started off in Cowley in West London when the lockdown lifted. Between Cowley and Tring I went up 45 locks. Around Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted the locks are spaced at such distances that there is only a few minutes crusing between them. So it is a constant stopping and starting, getting on and off and waiting for locks to fill or empty. On some days I made less than 2 miles progress with all the locks. In the past I have always invited crew over to help me with thi...

The year 2020 was not going to be a major cruising year for me, but the Covid pandemic has thrown all my plans out the window as it has for so many people. So I decided to go and explore some waterways that I haven’t been to before instead. It will be a very different experience with all the hygiene requirements and social distancing. All canal attractions are closed. And NO PUBS! I really hope that later in the year at least some places will reopen. I am now making my way slowly up the Grand Union (so many locks …). I won’t bore you with more stories about that as I have written about the GU twice before. My plan is currently to turn off before Braunston at Norton Junction and go up the Grand Union Leicester line and from there on to the river Soar, then the river Trent. Fingers crossed there won’t be too much rain. I am terrified of rivers flooding as seems to happen quite regularly. The canals are not fully opened up yet after lockdown, but the rules are ...

It's been a while since I have written anything on this blog. Not that much to report as I haven't been on any major cruises for more than two years (way too long!). Last week I went on a little round trip though that is worth describing, as not very many people do it: a couple of hours going round the Olympic Park, through a very unusual lock, another massive lock, a tidal creek and another lock that is hardly ever used. Another boater posted on facebook that he was planning to do this trip, so I signed up for it and also found two crew who wanted to come along. The locks had to be pre-booked through CRT as they are all operated by lock keepers. If you want to do it, you need to book Carpenters Road Lock, Three Mills Lock and Bow Lock in this order. And do look at the tide times beforehand. You need to go onto Bow Creek on the incoming tide with enough water to navigate, but enough time to get you round before the tide turns. This is the route we took: The day of the...