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Ashby Canal


Leo No2

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If you can find the channel (not where youd expect it as modern boats dont always follow the "correct" path (correct being the path i want/need to take!!)) then your ok, but most corners we kick up mud/get drawn in sideways.. or is that just my bad steersmanship?

 

...good weekend had at Shacky, lots to celabrate clapping.gif

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Well they were dredging the narrow cutting close to the start the other day, but a lot more will be needed to get deep draught historic boats comfortably to the terminus.

 

I travelled recently as far as Market Bosworth but gave up there and returned. Its not that the solid bottom is too shallow, more that there is an unusually deep layer of soft mud on top. This translates as increasingly slow progress on my 33" draught boat, with more engine revs just making you even slower. In fact up to Stoke Golding reasonable progress can be made, but immediately north of this is noticeably worse.

 

Another effect of the mud layer is that a boat such as mine can be slowly pulled towards the bank to moor without any tendency to heel, but on departure the boat has first to be dragged/pushed towards the centre before any forward or reverse progress can be made.

This surprises me somewhat.

 

We went up to Shackerstone last year with "Sickle", and of the entire run up from Marston Junction, I only remember a mile or two as being significantly slow or silted, (apart from the former stop lock at the entrance, that we struggled to get through on either high or low RPM - that would have benefited from a bit of silt dug out).

 

In line with the debate in another thread, I do wonder if the fact that most ex working boats are far more "shaped" than most new build deep draughted leisure boats comes into play here? Certainly "Sickle" will not draw less than your boat, and, being short, the moving draught can easily increase by as much as 6" as the back end pulls well down when under way. I wouldn't have classed the Ashby as being as bad as some other canals we have travelled in Sickle.

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