colinlothlorian

The Foden engine and winding gear are on display in the Waterways Museum at Gloucester.

Not sure if it has already been posted - Lindsay and Keppel are now part of the Wales and Border Counties Heritage fleet, well looked after and regularly appearing at local rallies. Lindsay recently travelled from Congleton to the Folk and Boat festival at Middlewich decked out with a floating garden as part of the Cheshire year of the Garden, a fine, if unusual sight.

I saw a hire boat in exactly that situation on the Thames below Osney lock just as it was going dark, and having just been out for a walk I knew there were no moorings above the lock either. They had begun to despair of finding a mooring and were glad to moor alongside, offered me a glass or two of an alcoholic nature. They were from Lincoln, I showed them a pic I took of a sunset behind the Cathedral there and ended up with my own exhibition in their art gallery in the main tourist hot spot. Moral is - you just never know how many friends you fail to meet if you don't put yourself out a bit to help. Worked for me! Colinlothlorian

As I say in the book - try things until you end up with a system that works for you. My boat has a habit of putting its tiller to port all on its own if it is left in forward gear, pushing the whole boat off line, so the tillers strings just make her stay where I want her to be. If you are one of the lucky ones who don't need them, great. Once upon a calamity one of my tiller strings slipped off - the boat was nudging the bottom gates of a deep full lock, and because she had shimmied off line as I opened the paddles to empty the lock the drawdown dropped her onto a projecting brick, over she went and emptied all the shelves in the office, printers, the lot. I saw it happening and dropped the paddles pretty smartly but she had gone over far enough to jam in the lock tail, and didn't come back up at first. With water now pouring in through the deck drains and in a right panic I shoved hard and suddenly up she came and over the other way, completing the shelf emptying, and all because I hadn't put the strings on properly! So, for me, they are essential. I would rather put 10 incidental idea in the book than have someone ask, 'why didn't you say..............' !!! Cheers, enjoy, I am still syuck on my moorings, bugger.

I did manage to get out on the Thames after the floods and met up with a small amount of hostility from owners of Thames cruisers, who quite rightly pointed out that I was taking up the same space that 2 or 3 of them could have used. I always made sure that I went right to the end of a mooring, sometimes hanging over the end, and always had the sticker in the window. Other narrow boats would insist on mooring behind me and leaving a 20 foot gap, evem when I pointed out the problems this can cause. I suppose it is all about education and tolerance, in the end, but it did leave a bit of a sour taste at times. Thames was great though, even when all the riverside pubs had shut because of flood damage.

I have comfortably covered pretty well all of the system single-handed, sometimes with a little butty in tow as well -so YES YOU CAN DO IT. I tried to write up all my experiences in 'Going it Alone' because so many people asked me how I did things. If you have a copy just use it as a guide until you develop your own methods, things that work for me may not be to your cup of tea. Get out and enjoy, take a friend for moral support at first until you are quite happy, then off and away! Cheers, Colin