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We left Wheaton Aston and continued on our journey south on the lovely Shropshire Union Canal with temperatures warming and a clear sky. At Autherley Junction we turned left after a deep lock (at least a 6 inch drop) and found ourselves, not unsurprisingly as we’d planned it, on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal after a sharp turn. The turning circle on our boat is certainly not in any way tight – it’s always amusing with a boat as long as ours, I’ll attempt some videos of my turning prowess in the future 😂

We had planned to moor past Gailey, however the gods were clearly playing a bit of chess…

Passing the chemical works was scary for some poorly defined reason, not least the ‘do not stop here’ signs, so we cruised on, enjoying the afternoon sunshine until I lost all forward propulsion (and so steering) going around a particularly tricky bend under a tight little bridge. The bridge is Gravelly Way no.78 (pool.copycat.diverting) and, frankly, looking at it, the bloody map definitely underplays the difficulty of the bridge and corner in a boat our size!! Keith nicely suggested I had lost a bit of concentration going under the bridge. It’s ok, he is still alive. Just.

We moored up and lifted the engine boards to peer underneath. There was an engine. Ermmm. We had power, hot water, food and a nice place to stay for the evening. Wine anybody?

Early the next morning we are up and rummaging around in our engine bay. I do have RCR cover. Decided not to use it, we are reasonably intelligent and fairly practical, surely we can work it out?

A cable. Looking like it is linked to the throttle. A gear cable then. Hurrah! It’ll just screw back in, must have worked itself loose (warning, recurring theme). Not that it is relevant, but we were assured when we bought the boat that the engine had been regularly and recently serviced…

So, we reattach and tighten said cable and move down to Gailey lock with the sun rising and the mist slowly clearing. Moving towards the lock it is quite busy as there is a boat yard/hire company just before the lock and it is clearly changeover day.

Should you be interested in the site of my shame, it is: Smarter.settle.obligated. Lock 32 Gailey Lock on the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal.

We approach the lock and there is a boat coming up. Great, that sets the lock in our favour even though we have to wait for them to come through and then painfully manoeuvre into the boat yard. It’s ok, Keith is at the lock and the boat and I are serenely waiting, not tied but gently idling next to the lock landing.

Keith opens the lock. Erin is out on the towpath enjoying the lovely weather and helping her dad. The sun is already warm and the last of the mist is burning away from the surface of the canal. It’s picture perfect. I engage forward gear and move towards the lock, the mouth of which is about 10 metres away from my bow – I would like to add an adjunct here, I have a personal challenge to enter locks/bridges/moor etc without bumping my boat. I absolutely judge myself as a person on how I enter or leave with my boat. Always have, including the hire boats we have rented over the years. And sometimes, I am a terrible terrible person 🤫

My bow enters the lock at a steep angle and I alter the direction of the boat to bring the body into the lock, not a single bounce off the entrance to the lock or the walls as she begins to straighten. Excellent. I drop the throttle into neutral, let it rest for a few seconds then drop her into reverse (I enter locks on tick-over generally, it works for me unless somewhere really windy or with a strong weir). Worryingly I seem to be speeding up rather than slowing to a gentle drift. I press the button that should shift me into neutral – nothing. I am still accelerating towards the back lock gates. When working out the weight of a steel boat, a general rule of thumb (google says) is 1 metre = 1 ton. Therefore, I have approximately 20 tons of steel accelerating towards a pair of currently quite flimsy looking lock gates and it appears that there is nothing I can do. I cannot pull the emergency stop (she did not have one that was accessible at this point), I have no reverse and I cannot reach the stop button (semi-trad, my arms are just not long enough). Helpfully it is also the exact time everybody is arriving to work at the boat yard, so my humiliation is fully observed and totally complete.

We hit the gates.

The boat shuddered and tried to continue forwards.

Bounced back.

A nice chap jumped on and pressed the button to put the gear into neutral. It doesn’t work he said. No I said. It should he said. I know I said. Having more presence of mind than me at this point, he turns the engine off at the key.

You need to ring the hire company he suggests (our boat has quite distinctive paintwork at the moment). Erm no, she’s ours, we’ve just bought her. He looks at me sorrowfully, then, anything you need let us know, we can lend you tools or send you one of our engineers later if you need help 😊

Note: the gates were fine, despite me thinking that we were going to hit them and continue down into the pound below us, we checked with the boat company at Gailey and they were no more or less leaky than when we passed through.

We closed the lock and passed serenely (if with ongoing palpitations and some slight chest pain) into the lower pound, where we roped our boat out of the lock and moored her just past the lower lock landing. Time to work out what the bloody hell has just happened.

Dear microwave…RIP. Remembering of course that I used the promise of a microwave as a major selling point for this boat to Keith, the poor man has had to live without one for decades!

Millie and the dogs were in the boat at the time and the microwave shot out of its little hollow and hit the nice ‘70’s wooden bars between the kitchen and lounge. Luckily, the wooden bars were between Millie and the microwave although it did land on her mobile (samsung and still working fine today!)