Blog

Bringing the boat out of the marina and back to the mooring after her recent blacking was relatively stress free with no major incident to report. We had popped her back into her mooring facing Shobnall with a vague plan to start on the leaky window once the weather settled. While she was being blacked we had the ventilation holes in the gas locker repositioned as they were letting in canal water while we were cruising and were a couple of inches above the base of the gas locker – how this had escaped the boat safety certificate for the previous 20 years is beyond me (including the new certificate we had when we bought the boat), as gas sinks and so the ventilation hole needs to be at the lowest point of the locker. The repositioning of the holes meant that we had the old ones welded up and new ones created. The upshot of this was that we were definitely not BSC compliant and so had to book ourselves back in to have a new floor welded in and the gas fittings moved. All fine, except that the bloody boat was now facing the wrong way, so we needed to turn her around.

We are now moored in Eggington in our new linear mooring. The nearest winding hole to us when facing the south is Shobnall, directly opposite Shobnall Marina. The what3words for the winding are jeeps.monks.safe. There is a facilities point in Horninglow where we could technically turn, but you cannot rely on it being empty to allow turning and it is quite shallow in places. There is also often a little group of friendly locals who sit by the canal and will wander over to variously chat/try to help/have a look around your boat/see if you have any mind altering substances to share, so I tend to not turn here.

My crew for the day were Mum and my sister. Mum is perfectly capable of handling a narrowboat and the sister hasn’t really been on one since we were kids, apart from a few days away with Mum when they hire one so she probably can’t be trusted with the tiller. Anyway, the weather is gorgeous and we have a cream tea with fake prosecco planned so all is good. Off we go, with Mum at the tiller and the sister and I on opposite sides of the stern (the beauty of our stern is the size, we can comfortably sit 3 people and remain appropriately distanced for the outside). We pootle towards town and pass under the A38 bridge where, unusually, there is no-one smoking pot and/or magnet fishing and navigate the tricky turn with no issues. I wander inside to experience the thrill of being inside a moving boat and sit on the bow for a bit, enjoying the familiar scenery. I will film this route and put it onto the youtube channel when I get round to it, we have to do this quite often.

It’s all going magnificently with no high speed crashes or embarrassing events. Mum and the boat waited at the lock while I helped a boat in front of us go up and then one come down. I have some nice distanced chats and wait for Mum to move the boat into the lock. The sister wanders up as she is coming into the lock and chats to a lady from a boat waiting to come down, telling her that it’s been a long time since she worked a lock and isn’t sure what to do. The lady explains and, as I cross the gate to open the paddle on the opposite side starts to tell me how to do it. I nod and smile and the sister tells her that the boat is mine so I probably have a reasonable idea about how to operate a lock!

As we come into the winding hole, we pass under the bridge and come in next to the concrete wall just before the entrance to the marina. It can be a tight place to wind (see my previous blog ‘Fangirling while moving to our new mooring’) but while there was a boat moored just past the entrance, it wasn’t blocking the winding hole. I go to the bow to provide completely non-judgemental guidance and support and Mum begins to turn the bow into the apex of the winding point. Except that she’s misjudged it slightly and the boat is too far forward to be able to swing the bow into the apex. So, she reverses and uses the concrete at the entrance to the marina try to move the boat into position. The stern scrapes along the concrete and an onlooker asks if shes ever done this before. Moving forward again, I raise my hand to let her know the bow is approaching the opposite bank and she reverses. Back into the concrete…

One member of the watching audience asks if this is the boat moored at Eggington and tells me he passes us quite often. I say it is and that she has recently had new blacking. Mum puts the boat back into forwards and continues trying to simultaneously remove a bit more of my shiny new blacking and swing the bow around. I lift up my hand, assuming that as she stopped and reversed last time, she’ll do the same again to the same signal. Apparently not. The boat continues to accelerate towards the bank and the bow makes a spirited attempt to rise up the bank and go through the metal fencing behind the trees. Frantic waving and a minor expletive or 7 later and the bow gently slides down the bank. Swinging the bow to the right, the boat is now facing in the opposite direction as planned, however we are snuggled up quite tight to the encroaching shrubbery and negotiating this to position her in a good line back through the bridge is tricky. Typically, we have collected a growing number of onlookers and a young couple are eating ice-cream on one of the ringside benches, obviously enjoying the gratis entertainment. Summoning as much dignity as is possible we sedately pass back under the bridge.

Mooring up for lunch, we remove the accumulated shrubbery and I try not to think about my new blacking, a significant amount of which is now behind us at the marina entrance. Making numerous references to Mum’s boating skills we take every opportunity to remind her how costly blacking is, the tight turning circle of my boat and the elegant way in which an expert would have completed that manoeuvre.

As we are good and diligent daughters we continue to make sure Mum doesn’t forget as we cruise back to the mooring. The afternoon has stayed warm(ish) and we have a lovely wander back. The highlight is seeing a swan on her nest with her partner aggressively defending her from every passing boat and a little group of ducklings with mum and dad herding them across the canal in front of our bow. I turn off the propellor and we slow to a drift to give them time to cross but there is 1 who gets separated due to swimming in zigzags and is frantically swimming up and down while letting the world know of his distress – surprisingly loudly considering how tiny he is! A boat is passing in the opposite direction and we tell them about the duckling separation as they pass us. He eventually makes it back to his family behind the passing boat meaning we can go on our way without worry.

End note: I have offered Mum a slot as a guest writer to present her mitigation!