Narrowboat

Have you ever fancied a remote control model narrowboat? Well this is a piece on someone who’s got a model version of their narrowboat … errrr  ….

I was watching a program and it had a piece on Adamant a steam boat on the UK canals. The program was from2003, but here’s the piece in particular.

Taken from Waterways World.

Setting off from Warwick this day’s cruise takes us the rest of the way along the Grand Union to its junction with the Oxford Canal. A very sunny March day and not too many boats about. It makes you wonder, the best time to be afloat seems to be on the cusps of the season when the canals are quiet but the weather is often good.

I guess this section of canal is more popular, we passed several oncoming boats in the first hour before we reached th first lock than we had been seeing in a day. Although we went up the first lock by ourselves we then started to share with a boat who followed behind us (not sure where they appeared from, had they been hinding on a mooring or had we missed them in the first lock and they caught up ), but sharing wide locks is always preferred and I’ll wait when I see one approaching in the distance. Fosse Locks can be thought of as quite leaky, but that’s probably part of the design to get water flowing down. This was more apparent on Bascote locks, with its very short pounds – the “flowing down not the leaky part). The short pounds themselves had high water levels so when someone emptied the lock above it flowed over the gates – helpful when you are going up on the lock below! Bascote Locks include a “staircase pair” that is two locks with no pound inbetween – the top gate of the lower lock is thebottom gate of the upper lock. Staircase pairs are fine its only once you increase the number of steps that you have to really think about what state the locks are in (full or empty).

We lock shared until just before Stocktop locks, when we decided to stop for lunch onboard. When we set off again, it seems that narrowboats have more in common with buses than just the diesel engines and along came one we could lock share with – hurrah. A couple on a Black Prince hireboat who seemed as happy as us at finding someone to share doing the lock flight with. We shared the remainder lock through to Calcutt Locks and though this is where we normally stop, we carried on (we had a couple of extra days because engine troubles had meant an unavoidable delay and the owners following had been given an alternative boat for the week). we parted company with our latest lock-sharing buddies at NaptonJuntion as we carroed on to a pub along the Oxford.

I seem to be getting an increasing number of spam comments – luckily I have it set to review comments before publishing so I can stop them from going live. I do have a couple of plugin-filters which stop the type with random words and links, but now there seem to be a few of very-generic phrases (I guess they are hoping to spread a single link via all the ping backs – or as some systems are set to automatically approve once a first one has been accepted, flood once their very-generic posts have been).

I’ve just been over to France on a cheap flight to see family, but found myself with a couple of hours spare in Carcassonne. The Canal du Midi passed close to the railway station with a lock nearby. Fascinating to watch the boats traverse this as it has a lock keeper and automated lock gates. The Keeper uses a remote control console (similar to those you find people who race model cars, fly model planes, etc) to operate it all from the side.

Took a small video, though as my Airport Shuttle was due, its not as neat as I’d hoped. Still shall upload it.