Time to stretch our legs (aka Teddington and back)
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At long last we have managed to get out on the river again, our first trip of the year after extensive flooding and continual red boards that discouraged/prohibited boating. Now that we are on the run up to our channel crossing to Belgium, we really need to sort out a few things, the most urgent of which is the need to empty our black tank, which after more than three months, is almost at capacity, and with the marina “pump out” still not back in operation, there was a certain urgency for us to get to another “pump out” station!!
<— Waiting at Temple Lock
The eve before beginning our planned six day trip to Teddington Lock and back, Bob and Jane joined us once again, and our little foursome plus two dogs was ready to sail early the next morning. At this point we already knew that we would not have a particularly good start as Marlow Lock was still flagged with red boards due to increased flow around the weir and lock, but I decided to go for it despite the fact that we might be a bit tight on some bridges further down. Well, only a few minutes out of the marina, we arrived at Temple lock to discover that the electrics for the lock control were out of action – we had to call up for support from the lock keeper at Hurley but in the meantime worked with the manual controls. Not that easy really (although Bob is making it look pretty leisurely in the photo) but we got a good workout for the day. Anyway, a lock keeper did turn up just at the end, and he found that the electrics had tripped due to a previous user (definitely not us) repeatedly essing the buttons. Seems odd that it would be so easily disrupted.
Manual lock operation at Temple —>
<— How many does it take to operate Marlow Lock?
Further down towards Marlow the river was flowing quite strongly, but we easily had enough clearance under Marlow Bridge and the draw from the weir was not too great. Once at the lock, what did get interesting was that workmen were busy piping cement across the lock gate to the island so they had to dismantle it to give us free passage; that done, there was great discussion as to how the lock gates operated and it was funny to see up to 7/8 men trying to agree how that should happen!!
Next stop … Bourne End Marina and our much needed “pump out”. Whoopee!! The whole process was much easier than expected, and once it was done and dusted we happily carried on down river to the next ‘threat’ – getting under the footbridge of Cookham Lock Cut. Normally our bow flag clears it with about 2” to spare, but due to the high and fast river levels we were well aware that there might be a problem and so we approached with extreme caution only to find we were about 4” too high. We stopped and took down the flag and one aerial, which left us with a theoretical clearance of 12” for the wheelhouse, so we proceeded very slowly and got through OK. Phew!
As you can imagine, all of the above slowed our passage somewhat so we decided to overnight at Maidenhead, and although Maidenhead bridge was a bit tight (again due to the fast flow of the river) we got through and moored up for the night. We all decided to have a stroll before settling down for the evening, Jane and Bob heading towards Maidenhead town, Nicki and I taking the dogs for a walk in the opposite direction along the towpath. As she and I started our walk we spotted Chris passing by in his fuel barge; luckily for us, he was re-fuelling another barge at our mooring spot, and we were able to ask him to fill our tanks up so that we were as ready as we could be for our push into Belgium next month.
From Maidenhead we carried on down stream passing Hampton Court on the way, looking fabulous as ever.
Thursday started off a lot more relaxed – Nicki decided to give the dogs a longer walk and took them down to our next lock at Bray and we picked them all up when we got there. That relaxed start was shattered a little while later when we had an unpleasant encounter with the bank covering the boat with twigs and branches – I could not immediately figure out what had gone wrong and initially thought that I had compensated for the pull of the weir we were passing by adding more power, but on reflection it was obvious that the pull from the weir had pulled our stern round and that then ended up pointing us at the bank whilst still under power. Ouch. Luckily, there were just a few minor scratches and we were able to carry on to Staines, mooring up on the edge of the town before heading into the shops for some food shopping . An exciting evening followed watching a barging video to remind us what we were doing wrong.
Sadly, by now it was obvious that the new steering gear has proved to be pathetic, although on the plus side it does give me a full upper body workout. I think the only solution to this issue will be a power steering upgrade, but that will not be cheap.
Sunday and Nicki left us to walk along the towpath towards the next lock, leaving the rest of us to depart our overnight stop and make our way to Old Windsor Lock.
We all arrived at the same time so that worked well.
At Windsor I had arranged for Lucy to join us – she turned up with flowers, chocolates and a candle as a Mothers Day gift from her and her sister and brothers, and then took Nicki out for a coffee in Windsor which Nicki thoroughly enjoyed.
Lucy left after a few hours, and so we continued on through Boveney Lock, mooring up at an EA site just beyond it next to the Olympic Rowing Lakes. Bob wandered off to investigate a little church nearby, followed by Millie, desperate to get away from the boat.
Our final day was the Monday and despite having escaped the rain for the last few days, it now looked as if we were doomed to do the final trek to Marlow in pouring rain. And to compound this, most of the stretches to be covered were again on red board warnings with strong flow and it certainly was strong. We could make progress but it was a challenge to maintain a heading and the steering was even worse under load with a strong flow. However, we made quite good time but as we approached Maidenhead, there was a wide beam barge in front of us, going very slowly and this slowed us down considerably – it seemed as though the wide beam was going to moor up but didn’t, so we had missed the only opportunity to overtake it before reaching the following two bridges. I was not keen to push our luck with the strong flow so we slowed down to a snail’s pace to keep some distance and allow me to apply some power to get through Maidenhead bridge, which we did without incident. We then followed the barge – again at a snail’s pace – until we arrived at Boulters Lock where they let us in first and tucked in behind us, which left us free to carry on more swiftly.
The next lock was Cookham Lock with the very low footbridge fairly close by after passing through, and as on the way downstream we took down the flag and were able to easily pass through.
Thinking it was now all good, we got to the end of the lock cut to go under Cookham Bridge which is right next to a weir and whilst this was not a surprise, on this occasion the current was extremely strong so we elected to take the port side arch of the bridge as it was furthest from the weir. A good move but we still struggled as we exited and got pushed over to the bank and some moored boats – a bit of a struggle but we made it through without any hitches and breathed a huge sigh of relief!
From there it was a straight run on to Marlow and through the lock without any issues other than the lay-by almost being submerged under water. Exiting the lock we had to pull up on the right to allow Bob to hop back on board, and then moved on past the weir which, as the others before, was really pulling at us. Still, with a fair bit of power and speed, all went very well.
Our next challenge was Marlow bridge which we approached a tad slowly just in case our normal 8″ clearance had been eroded – I guessed it would be about 5″ and indeed that proved to be the case. At the last minute Nicki decided that she would walk the dogs back to Harleyford from Marlow, so another brief manoeuvre took us to the towpath and they hopped off leaving Jane, Bob and myself to manage the last bit of the journey via Temple Lock. (Luckily the lock lay-by was still (only) just above water level otherwise we would have needed to moor up and wade ashore – or at least Bob would have done.)
I think I must have been getting tired as we got close to the marina because as we started to steer into the entrance, any ability to handle Shensi seemed to evaporate. Still we didn’t hit anything but it was not pretty. Then the mooring up …. after all the red boarded stretches of river and the weirs trying to pull us this way and that, the calm of the marina with a very slight breeze seemed too much for me to deal with. I just seemed to be trying to make as much noise as I could with all the controls. I suppose it is all a learning curve and we did not hit anything, well apart from the river bank, and on the plus side, I don’t seem to have any issues getting in and out of locks, although my crew are still working hard on their rope skills. (Note from Nicki: at least we have rope skills. Hmm, she’s obviously seen me trying to throw out a line on the odd occasion!)
