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Cromwell to Torksey


john6767

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1 hour ago, noddyboater said:

..............if advice had been given at Meadow lane

Has  Meadow Lane lock ever been manned ?

I was there in the 60's (and it certainly wasn't then) when the Trent River Authority (later Severn Trent) offices backed onto the lock, and the BWB offices were just inside the gate as you came off Meadow Lane - just opposite & up from the Cattle Market entrance. Those were the days !!

Had some years 'off'  and came back onto the Trent in '83 but have never seen a 'lockie' there. 

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There's been a resident keeper at Meadow lane in the past but that's well before my boating time. 

Surely Meadow and Beeston are obvious places to have volunteers?(with experience/common sense)

I've never seen any on either lock unlike the more picturesque Sawley where you can be blessed with up to 5 at once!

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4 hours ago, noddyboater said:

There's been a resident keeper at Meadow lane in the past but that's well before my boating time. 

Surely Meadow and Beeston are obvious places to have volunteers?(with experience/common sense)

I've never seen any on either lock unlike the more picturesque Sawley where you can be blessed with up to 5 at once!

You are quite right that Holme lock should be manned full time by an experienced NOT volunteer lockie. When I skippered the Nottingham Princess  at least all the summer it was manned but that went to being sometimes and with volunteer lockies. We told CART our views on this :rolleyes:

Holme lock is for many boaters on our system the first time they actualy go on to anything that resembles problems as they head downstream to Newark and beyond, many of these boaters have spent years on such as the T and M and midlands canals and find the Trent when its in a hurry an altogether different kettle of fish. Also whilst Holme lock isnt a Big lock its is much bigger and different to the little locks on say the T and M and should be manned.

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The comments about Holme lock are interesting, when we came down it was of course our first big Trent lock, so we did not know what was expected in terms of ropes in the lock.  The keeper indicated a riser which I thought he wanted the stern at, but no he wanted the bow and made me back up.  Then when there was no riser for the stern as it was right by the top gate he went all huffy and said I had better use the centre line then.  It was his choice, I was happy to go further forward where there was a riser for both bow and stern.  In no other lock going down was the keeper so prescriptive and I was able to pick the risers I wanted.  The keeper at Holme was a volunteer.

We are now moored at Torksey, having come all the way from Boston today (just under 11 hours), and going up to Cromwell at 8:30 in the morning.

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Thought I would finish this off with a post now that we are off the Trent.  

I have to say the Trent was a real surprise, it's fab basically and not really what I was expecting.  We did rather blast from one end to the other, but it is very pleasent once you get down stream of Holme lock all the way to Cromwell.  The locks are great and the efficient use of VHF is very helpful.

For anyone going to Cromwell, a stop at the Muskham Ferry pub is highly recommended, we spent Sunday night there and the beer and food was excellent.  The only issue is the pontoons are insanely short for a narrowboat, so you need to bring your best skills out to get on, in front of a packed garden, across the flow of the river.

As I was expecting after having done the down stream trip to Torksey, the upstream to Cromwell is a doddle, you are on a rising tide for perhaps 2/3 the way and have so much more water under you than on the way down when you are arriving at Torkey close to low tide. It was also slightly faster on the way up.

The biggest annoyance turned into the biggest laugh from one of the big three story cruisers, who was annoying when he hammered past me upstream on the approach to Nether lock with an insane amount of wash, and then had a ding dong with the lock on the radio then they told him they wanted me into the lock first and made him wait!

In short I am certainly impressed with the Trent, and next time would probably try and take a couple of days each way, although like all rivers mooring are a bit in short supply.

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On 06/07/2017 at 13:50, john6767 said:

We followed the chart closely and I am glad to say we did not get stuck, and have made it to our destination, Boston

IMG_2398.JPG

Why have you parked your bow on the lawn?

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2 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Why have you parked your bow on the lawn?

That's nothing in some places you are driving through green stuff, but only a few time did I have to use a blast of reverse to clear the prop.

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3 hours ago, john6767 said:

For anyone going to Cromwell, a stop at the Muskham Ferry pub is highly recommended, we spent Sunday night there and the beer and food was excellent.  The only issue is the pontoons are insanely short for a narrowboat, so you need to bring your best skills out to get on, in front of a packed garden, across the flow of the river.

We passed Muskham 10 days ago. We were tired and ready to stop, and there was space on the jetty. I don't mind mooring on a short jetty, but wondered how substantial it is. Do many narrowboats stop here?

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6 minutes ago, MHS said:

We passed Muskham 10 days ago. We were tired and ready to stop, and there was space on the jetty. I don't mind mooring on a short jetty, but wondered how substantial it is. Do many narrowboats stop here?

There was us, another shorter narrowboat and a large cruiser there on Sunday night, that is the only example I know!  The jettys are reasonable, much better than the CRT lock pontoon in Northampton for example.  The issue for me was you are going sideways across the flow  so can't go too slowly but you have to stop rather sharpish when you get in and get the centre line onto the cleat at the end of the pontoon quickly.

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9 minutes ago, MHS said:
10 minutes ago, MHS said:

We passed Muskham 10 days ago. We were tired and ready to stop, and there was space on the jetty. I don't mind mooring on a short jetty, but wondered how substantial it is. Do many narrowboats stop here?

 

 

Mooring at Muskham was probably made easier recently as the river levels have been very low. Ordinarily the flow around the out side of the bend is deceptively strong. It must be more than three years since I last moored there. The pontoon looked in poor shape than and no one seemed to know who owns it . 

 

 

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32 minutes ago, MHS said:

I had no worries about getting onto the jetty. I wondered if it was strong enough to take 57'+ boats moored across the flow. 

I guess the river has as low a flow right now as it ever does.  The pontoons seemed in reasonable condition, and I was not concerned about their integrity, I would not have stayed overnight if I had any concerns.  At high levels on the river perhaps not, but now it seemed fine now.

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This is what waiting for the next tide at Torksey used to mean :-

Picture

Three of Furley's 'Sheffield size' boats loaded ex-Hull for the mills in Lincoln, stuck in Torksey Cut after the tide they arrived with didn't make enough to get them over the outer cill.

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12 hours ago, PhilAtterley said:

This is what waiting for the next tide at Torksey used to mean :-

Picture

Three of Furley's 'Sheffield size' boats loaded ex-Hull for the mills in Lincoln, stuck in Torksey Cut after the tide they arrived with didn't make enough to get them over the outer cill.

You need to update your settings, that's not what I see on Google Maps....:P

;)

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