Mac of Cygnet

I left my boat for several days on the other side of the rail bridge, on the town side of the canal. It needed pins, well knocked in. There was another boat there which looked as if it had been there for a few days at least.

No. I went in there once to enquire about leaving the boat, but couldn't find anyone to tell me yes or no.

I did this many times with Cygnet, and generally speaking they were very welcoming and helpful (eg Strawberry Island, North Pennine, Lichfield and several others). But at one, my presence sparked off infighting which had obviously been simmering for a while. (they were also the only ones who checked I was actually a member of the Brighouse and Sowerby Bridge club (now defunct) by phoning the chairman).

Glad to see the Commercial is keeping up the standards - that and the Riverhead in Marsden are two of the best pubs I've encountered on the waterways.

And Cygnet scraping under one of the bridges on the Witham Drains. Note I'm using an Ordnance Survey map to navigate, as the guide was very sketchy. I only made it half a mile up the Sleaford, as the later season made the weed impassable.

Once is unfortunate, twice is careless, but 'a few times'?

In the 15 years I moored at Sowerby Bridge (just Below Lock 1 of the Rochdale) I did the HNC 13 times and the Rochdale once. That tells you something about the relative merits of these two transpennine routes. The eastern half of the Rochdale is absolutely fine, and I was a frequent denizen, but it took a bit of determination and a feeling of 'well, I suppose I should' to do the rest. And I say that as a boater on the Rochdale before it was restored (Shire Cruisers kept a boat at Hebden Bridge - we met one boat in 10 days, unsurprisingly the Rochdale Canal Society boat.) Having said that, I think I had the best of the HNC, compared to before and now,

Absolutely! I just laughed at winding holes,

My 27ft boat, Cygnet, was always a devil to steer backwards, and required constant correction (quick burst forward on the opposite tack). The upside was that correcting was much quicker and easier than on a longer, heavier boat. I got so that I could usually back into my finger mooring quite successfully, despite gongoozlers.

Hen pheasant?

At least that's better than Doombar (see the latest KELPIE thread).