Had a bit of a hairy experience yesterday at one of the upper locks at Hatton. Can't remember which lock it was, possibly 40 or 41, it was one of the three just below the C&RT Offices.
As I was coming up, a cross strapped pair were coming down, so, I pulled over to the towpath and stepped off while there was still a small amount of forward momentum. However, as I was attempting to wrap the centre line around the bollard, my boat was pulling further away from the towpath. Luckily a family of cyclists came by and helped pull the boat over, just before I'd have had to let go of the bitter end. It was quite worrying as my 8yr old son was on board and, as the boat would have drifted in to the side pond, retrieving son and boat could have been interesting.
While manoeuvring I hadn't been aware of any side current, or cross wind or anything, however once the power was off, something seemed to take an instant hold of the boat and yank it perpendicular from the towpath.
The tied pair of boats seemed to suffer getting out and across too, whether that was because of my antics, or not, I'm not sure. The rest of the flight had been no problem at all, tiring, but right up until, then excitement free.
Is there normally a strong current there or was it something to do with the uphill lock emptying? Last time I did the Hatton flight was around January, going downgate, I remember the whole flight being a bit hairy but that was an extremely wet and windy day.
In the end it took about 5 1/2 hours from bottom to top, not sure if that's a good time but I did feel like blood sugars were going dangerously low from about lock 37. I told my son I thought I was about to have a hypo and he went and without being asked, he made me a sandwich. First time he's done that for me. He's a good kid , and to think I almost got him washed away.
Rob