Basingstoke & Wey/Arun - Is It Worth It?

[Tonka]

29 minutes ago, steve.sharratt said:

Thank you to all for your comments. I will check my drafts but it looks like our first canal will be Basingstoke.

 

My back story:  we are currently on the Thames on our 77ft Dutch barge on which we have cruised France and Belgium.  We have been on the Thames for a few years now and while it is a beautiful river it doesn’t really accommodate large boats and good moorings are hard to come by which takes the fun out of cruising.  We recently bought a 62 foot narrowboat and we plan to head down to a friends boatyard near Hampton Court to get the bottom cleaned and blacked as soon as the river settles this year. After that we are off for our first season of narrowboat cruising. As are near they Wey anyway, we figure that it would be a great chance to have a look and get our first experience on an actual canal before heading north to start the adventure proper…

 

How are you going to do the Basingstoke Canal first without doing the River Wey part.

Which boatyard are you planning to use in the Hampton Court area ?

[MaryP]

We loved both, although the Basingstoke was harder work due to the low water levels. Worth the effort though!

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, MaryP said:

We loved both, although the Basingstoke was harder work due to the low water levels. Worth the effort though!

I am not sure what you mean exactly by 'harder work'? If you mean that, at times, you have to try various ways of getting the boat to go over the silt then OK, but it is the engine that does the real work so for the boater is is no much of an increase in the physical effort. Since the couple of pounds we encountered on the way up were ones where we followed another, slightly deeper, boat, the main 'harder work' was in curbing any impatience we might have had but the scenery -  and the novelty - was a good distraction!

[MaryP]

We became grounded a few times, even in our Springer which copes with just about any depth of water. Grounded to the point that we had to ask for help from passing cyclists, use ropes to pull and push to free the boat. That kind of thing. We were the first boat in one year after the winter, so many of the pounds were very low, but so were the several above, so not a matter of just running down some water. The Warden was very helpful. He had to follow us around anyway to "tickle" the locks to seal them. Fascinating to watch. He raised sediment up the lock gates to fill gaps, in much the same way as the old boaters used ash.

Edited January 4, 2022 by MaryP
Spelling!

[steve.sharratt]

4 hours ago, Tonka said:

How are you going to do the Basingstoke Canal first without doing the River Wey part.

Which boatyard are you planning to use in the Hampton Court area ?

Yes but Basingstoke is my first canal. I will also do as much of the Wey as possible.

 

The boatyard is on Ash Island opposite Molesey Lock. It hasn’t been used as a business for time some but a young friend of my has just set up there. It is called Roper’s Boatyard (https://www.ropersboatyard.com). He can slip smaller boats and narrowboat Etc and has been getting quite busy. 

[steve.sharratt]

5 hours ago, David Mack said:

Interesting looking boat. What's the story behind it?

Thanks for asking David.

 

It is an interesting boat.  A private build by a talented fabricator who just decided one day that he would build a narrowboat. 62ft long tug that is fully riveted (not fake) with lovely attention to detail. She has a Lister JP3. The portholes you can see are all reclaimed from a 1960s ferry and reclaimation is the theme throughout. The pinched bow is exaggerated and I suspect could have been quite handy in the early 40s slicing unwary u-boats in half!  It was launched in 2014 at Shepparton and moved to a mooring on the Thames in Richmond where she sat until I bought her last year. I am putting some finishing touches (toilet, hot water etc) and plan to start cruising early this year. I could write pages of detail but I wont put you through it.  I suspect this is the sort of narrowboat people will either absolutely love or absolutely hate. 😍🤮

 

Steve  

Edited January 4, 2022 by steve.sharratt

[Tonka]

28 minutes ago, steve.sharratt said:

Yes but Basingstoke is my first canal. I will also do as much of the Wey as possible.

 

The boatyard is on Ash Island opposite Molesey Lock. It hasn’t been used as a business for time some but a young friend of my has just set up there. It is called Roper’s Boatyard (https://www.ropersboatyard.com). He can slip smaller boats and narrowboat Etc and has been getting quite busy. 

Is that where T W Allen used to be. Just upstream of Molesey lock on right hand side. Knew  it well. Used to have the open air swimming pool opposite on the Molesey side

[steve.sharratt]

1 minute ago, Tonka said:

Is that where T W Allen used to be. Just upstream of Molesey lock on right hand side. Knew  it well. Used to have the open air swimming pool opposite on the Molesey side

I think so. Heading upstream of Molesey lock it is on your right immediately after the weir.

[Stephen Sugg]

I canoed the length of the Basingstoke last summer - it was lovely.  It's funny, but I suppose not surprising that it has changed little since i first walked then in the 80's, apart from the odd housing development. 

[OldGoat]

If the Basingstoke is your first 'proper canal' then - apart from the scenery, you might be disapointed in that - AFAIK - wild moorings are few and far between as it is shallow and the profile is more V than U shaped. If you enjoyed the Wey, then the 'stoke is similar, but narrower.

We spent our first five years on out own boat (having cruised the canal system for many years) on the Wey and enjoyed it - especially as Pyrford - two or three owners ago was a great place to moor. Just as well as there were not many overnight moorings on the Wey. We moved to the Thames and had a mooring on a island which was great unitl that was sold...

We used our current marina bankside mooring as a stepping stone to the canal system - two days up to Oxford with its access to the rest of the canal system - where we originally cut our boating teeth.

Happy to answer questions.

 

ps:

The Thames  above (say - Reading) or mebe Oxford where the big boats can't go is peaceful with 'proper' manual locks that area joy to operate and friendly lockies. Lots of places to moor and walk. Mebe a scaled up version of the Wey, without the restrictions.

Edited January 5, 2022 by OldGoat

[Mike Adams]

I offer a few tips being based on the Basingstoke Canal for twenty five years. The canal in deep in the middle and generally shallow at the banks. It is possible to navigate normally with a draught of 3 feet without having any problems. So expect to have to use a plank except at wharfs. The main issue is working the locks. Ther are four flights on the canal and if you have any sort of draught make sure the pounds are full before you proceed going up. The cills are easily damaged and this has led to the BCA recommending a maximum draught of 2' 8". Any boat can damage a cill if the water level is too low. Do not stop or try to moor above or below a lock with the exception of the top and bottom of a flight. One person should steer the boat and another work the locks going straight from one to another when the next lock is ready. A bicycle is best. Watch out for low bridges some of which headroom varies from end to end. In summer keep a look out for paddleboards and wild swimmers at the far end

[magnetman]

On 04/01/2022 at 16:08, steve.sharratt said:

Thanks for asking David.

 

It is an interesting boat.  A private build by a talented fabricator who just decided one day that he would build a narrowboat. 62ft long tug that is fully riveted (not fake) with lovely attention to detail. She has a Lister JP3. The portholes you can see are all reclaimed from a 1960s ferry and reclaimation is the theme throughout. The pinched bow is exaggerated and I suspect could have been quite handy in the early 40s slicing unwary u-boats in half!  It was launched in 2014 at Shepparton and moved to a mooring on the Thames in Richmond where she sat until I bought her last year. I am putting some finishing touches (toilet, hot water etc) and plan to start cruising early this year. I could write pages of detail but I wont put you through it.  I suspect this is the sort of narrowboat people will either absolutely love or absolutely hate. 😍🤮

 

Steve  

Nice item. 

 

It will have been well executed and have some seriously good quality stuff on there. 

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by magnetman