Grassman

I am considering doing the Severn in the southern direction from Sharpness to Bristol (via Portishead), however I have been told that doing it the other way from Bristol to Sharpness is easier on the boat's engine and less hazardous too. Can anyone confirm or deny this please? Also, I want to do it next spring or early summer but I wonder if the tides might be a bit too lively in the spring?

I didn't know him but know from my conversations with Matt that he was highly regarded and a good friend to many. He will obviously be sorely missed and I offer my condolences to you, his other friends, and his family.

My boat is licensed with CRT as being 62ft so it wouldn't have flagged up that it was over the limit. I only discovered it was 62' 6" when I bought the boat and the surveyor measured it and showed me.

I did this but after a few years Royal Mail withdrew the service saying that by now I should have informed everybody of my move. At around £60 a year it was obviously costing them more than that to redirect the amount of mail I was receiving. So I set up an arrangement with our tenant to put all our mail in a tray/box in the garage for us to collect as and when.

I one did this and it looked so bad I had to replace the whole section of veneer. A very costly mistake.

My BMC 1.8 (38bhp) in my 60ft nb shows 1800 rpm at 3 mph (given a reasonable depth and width of canal and a clear prop). At 2000 rpm it does about 4mph. On rivers I often have it up to 2200 depending on the strength of the flow and often for long periods at a time. I used to worry about the revs seeming so high because the hire and share boats I'd used previously needed less rpm, probably about 300 or so less than this. But at these revs the pitch of my engine noise didn't seem to be any higher than those previous boats and the engine didn't appear to be working any harder, so I gave up worrying about it. And now 6 years on it's still doing fine, touch wood!

Was it this one? https://www.greathaywoodboatsales.co.uk/shop/creeping-death/ Surely a name like that would put off a lot of potential buyers.

As well as this the full restoration of the Lichfield &Hatherton Canal would also open up a new through route.

I recommend them. I had mine supplied and installed by them 5 years ago and have been very pleased. They made a neat job and all 3 are still working fine.

I think they're all on the Trent & Mersey! We usually deliberately avoid being on the move during the 6 week school holiday but so many have said it isn't especially busy during this period that we weren't bothered about this year's 3 month trip running into early August. But coming south on the T&M last week it was very busy between Middlewich and Great Haywood with queuing at some locks taking over an hour, and before that we found the Middlewich Branch of the Shroppie very busy too.

You're wrong about the Rufford Branch and Ribble Link. Last month I did them and my Nb is 62' 6". I didn't have to do any shuffling about to fit in the locks, in fact I shared most of them with another boat without any problems. The official CRT limit for the Ribble Link is 62ft.

The biggest inaccuracy wasn't the mispronunciation of Mow Cop but the fact they said that Brindley built the tunnel. Brindley built the now defunct adjacent tunnel but it was Telford who built the current one.

10/10 from me. After being with RCR for 6 years I had to call them out last month for the first time. I was in Hest Bank on the Lancaster Canal with alternator problems and feared that with us being in the far north of the canal system we would have to wait ages.. I phoned them at 8.30 on a Monday morning and the chap arrived around 10am (he had come from Stockport). He was brilliant, very knowledgeable, and got us underway after an hour.

It was good to meet you and have a chat last week (we were both moored just south of Christleton). I can empathise with you on many of the points you've raised. Probably the increasing lack of consideration and boating etiquette and the fact that CRT do nothing about 'continuous moorers' and licence evaders are my biggest gripes.

Great photos! It's such a shame so many bypass this wonderful canal. It has so many things of interest along the way and it's quite scenic in places.

Good to see you enjoyed it John6767 and you'll love The Lancaster. It is reckoned by most that the trip back to Tarleton is usually easier but I didn't find much difference. Something to bear in mind when you do the return trip is that if you are one of the first pair of boats the water level in the tidal section of Savick Brook may be quite low whereas if you are in the 2nd or 3rd pair the incoming tide will have filled the brook a bit more. That 10 minutes or so later can make quite a difference. When we did the trip a few weeks ago we noticed the level was considerably less than when we'd made the 'up' passage. We only draw 2ft but given the narrowness of the brook and being 62ft, we had no option but to cut some of the sharper bends and a couple of times we were on the bottom midships. This made me a bit nervous of getting stuck, however because the prop was still in the water and the fact that we were on mud and not silt, we were able to 'slide' round these bends. So it's not essential, but my advice is to try not to be in the first pair. I'd love to hear what you others who have done it think.

I've been told that The Gallows and the Steamboat are owned or run by the same person, which may explain why people on here have had poor experiences in them.

Great photos as always SG and Sabrina's video too. Brings back memories our our trip last year. I so want to do it again but

We did the journey from Salford Quays to Ellesmere Port on Friday so thought I would share my experiences and opinions. Firstly what I learnt on here from Graeme's extremely comprehensive and helpful guide at the beginning of this thread was invaluable, as was the help from another member Boredrider. On Thursday we made the short journey from Castlefields to Pomona Lock and met the two lockies at the prearranged time of 8am. We had planned on doing the journey straight to Ellesmere Port but a few days earlier Peel Ports emailed to say we would have to go the following day due to unexpected lock repairs to Barton lock. So we spent the day and that night in Salford Quays in the mooring shown in AdamUk's thread number 6, adjacent to the Holiday Inn which we spotted easily from the main channel. Those other moorings round the corner are still under repair as they have been since last year but I reckon if you were pushed you'd have no problem mooring there. They aren't doing any actual work on them and it looks as if they haven't for a long time. You would I'm sure get in by the Holiday Inn though, even if you had to breast up to somebody, especially as we were told by the lockie at Pamona that they only saw a couple of boats a month through there and this was backed up by one at Mode Wheel Lock who told us that we were only the 11th pleasure boat they'd had through there this year. Everything else was just as Graeme had described in the OP except that we found the lockies, friendly, interested, and chatty. Also because were were descending the locks we didn't need to rope up because there was no turbulence and little movement of water. Some of the ships we passed moored up along the way were quite impressive, and we met two oncoming (the ferry/trip boat and quite a large tanker) both of whom slowed right down and we passed each other with plenty of room to spare. I had liaised with them via VHF but this wasn't really needed because the chap at Eastham VTS was liaising with all 3 of us anyway. You have to report your progress periodically to Eastham VTS (by phone) and each time they told me where they'd next like me to report in. The downloadable MSC Pleasure Craft Guide was very useful, particularly the map/plan of the canal which we could easily follow on our android phone. Reconciling the numbered marker lights every few hundred yards along the whole route with the map on our phone made it so easy to pinpoint exactly where we were at any given time. You can of course print off the map if you prefer. Eastham VTS like to know when you are likely to reach each lock so they can arrange to have lockies there when you arrive (we had different ones at each lock) . I just told them that we'd be travelling at around 4/5mph and left it to them to work it out. Once we were through the last lock (Latchford) our time was our own but we wanted to maintain our 4/5mph as we wanted to reach Ellesmere Port before the museum closed because they have to unchain the lock up into the lower basin. They closed at 5.30 but we actually got there an hour earlier as it turned out. So the whole journey from Salford Quays to EP took 8 hours. They told me when we arrived that knowing we were coming they would have left it unlocked if they had gone home. The other issue to check up before arriving is that the council operated swing bridge will be open, which it needs to be in order to get into the lock. This has been mentioned earlier in this thread but when we arrived it was 'permanently' open and had scaffolding all around it. Thank you Boredrider for sussing this out for us. How long it will be like that for for I don't know. But if and when it is back in working order you will need to pre-arrange things with the council and I think somebody said on here that they would probably leave it open for you if they knew you were arriving 'after hours'. Some people moan about the cost but I looked on it was worth paying for the experience as well providing a different route option. When you analyse the cost I think it's actually not exorbitant. We paid £203 including the £30 locking down Pomona. There were two lockies at each lock x 5 locks. On the basis that including their travelling they'd each be about an hour working you through, that works out at 10 man hours which works out at just over £20 an hour. Given that labour rates these days are between £40 & £50 an hour then I think that is very reasonable. By the way it does require two lockies to operate the MSC locks. Admittedly there is also the cost of obtaining the certificate of seaworthiness to add to that. Mine cost £60 because I met the chap in Northwich where he is based so it saved his travelling costs. So all in all it was a great day and I recommend it. It's a wonderful experience. Take heed of the excellent information on here and you'll be fine.

There's plenty of room before reaching the really strong current in the middle of the estuary to begin to turn without going too close to the sandbanks (which weren't visible btw). Just wait until your stern is clear of the brook's entrance and then begin to make the turn. Their mistake was waiting until they were right in the middle of the estuary to begin the turn. You will see on our video of them that we were pointing at an angle towards the side of their boat having already begun the turn and that's about the angle of turn you want. Look at their video of us coming out behind them and you will see how it should be done . Do that and you won't go wrong. The whole trip in both directions is a great and enjoyable experience and the Lancaster Canal is wonderful. I'm hoping to do it again in the near future.

We are on it. We were behind them. On the 'Swept Away' video, Starting at 10 min 12 secs they filmed us turning out onto the Ribble in the proper way how it should be done! Because once they had emerged from Savick Brook they went too far into the middle before making their turn and they were swept sideways in the wrong direction, It was a scary sight and unfortunately it wasn't caught on camera. Fair play to them they managed to bring the boat under control quite quickly.

We came off the Lancaster a few days ago after 3 weeks on it. We had no problems with any local oiks and felt safe the whole time. It's a wonderful canal.

We bought one of these at the Crick show https://totalcool.co.uk/product/totalcool-portable-evaporative-air-cooler/ We paid a show price of £279. We have used it a few times and it's definitely cools better than a conventional fan does. There was also one called Transcool at the 2018 Crick show which seemed pretty good as well. Prior to buying one I read the reviews of these devices on various caravanning and motorhome forums which were very mixed with some loving them and some saying they were a waste of time. But I think some folk's unrealistic expectations were behind some of the poor reviews. They are definitely not an air conditioning unit but they make a decent job of keeping us cooler in the our narrowboat especially if positioned in the immediate vicinity to where we are sitting, and better than a normal fan does.

I don't know the up to date availability at KB but certainly up to the middle of May they'd had a small waiting list for quite a while but even if there is one I don't think you would have to wait very long

A great blog and lovely photos Simon. It almost makes me want to do it