MY LAST year's cruise was spoilt by not one but two stoppages, that resulted in my crew leaving to get back and me being thrown in at the deep end as a single hander, that I was most certainly not happy about writes Terry Palmer.
This is not going to be a diatribe about CaRT not maintaining the waterways, there are enough people doing that already, but more a plea to your readers about rivers.
Afraid of rivers
My crew has always been afraid of rivers after early in our narrowboating days we agreed to take over a friends boat and take it for him up the Avon into Stratford having a most hairy trip, perhaps because we were newcomers to the game and the water filling the locks seemed very fierce and the river flow in certain reaches (as I believe they are called on rivers) was quite fast to our inexperienced eyes.
Since then it has been the canals with the exception of the river on the Oxford some years back, but reading of the constant stoppages that are still happening, I am attempting to persuade the crew that at least the rivers don't seem to have so many stoppages thus enabling us to fulfil a cruise in our timescale.
The Trent
I have a friend who takes the boat for us to where we want to cruise, so it is no problem for us to have a cruise that incorporates a river, lessening the chance of our being held up by stoppages, but which? I rather fancy the Trent as it is fairly long and there is the canal off it to Lincoln and Boston that has very few locks so would diminish the chance of being held up.
But is this any good for a crew with a rather nervous disposition? Perhaps someone who has a good knowledge of the river could advise...