Towpath Tales: Time and Tide

In the first of a two-part feature, Tony Jones recounts an eventful first journey on his narrowboat The Watchman.

My boat was about as ready as it could be for the arduous journey from Derby to Leeds; I stood on the towpath running through a mental checklist, studying her closely. She’s an old boat, built in 1985 by Stoke-on-Trent boatbuilders and I’m lucky to have her. I’d enlisted the help of a knowledgeable friend to babysit me while looking for a boat and he was immediately taken by her. He commented on her 'beautiful lines' and 'interesting fit out' with an enthusiasm that was lost on me at the time. As a rank amateur I had no concept of boat styling, but trusted his discerning eye, and since then I have come to appreciate his guidance as my boat is certainly pretty, if a little rough around the edges. I like to think that we have at least this in common.

Over the last three years I’ve overhauled most of the systems on the boat, the plumbing and toilet system, electrics, gas and some of the engine have all been fine tuned and by the end of March there was nothing left to fix. It was the first time that everything on the boat actually worked properly. We were as ready as we were ever going to be.

Plain sailing

The first few days were plain sailing so to speak, on the easy and familiar Erewash Canal heading south towards the River Trent. I’d been warned that the Trent could be a little hairy in places, being tidal and cutting through wide expanses of flat country, allowing the wind to barge my boat in any direction it fancied. I was typically unfazed by the warnings, feeling I had enough boating experience and a decent amount of tidal river experience to boot, having done part of The Thames on a couple of occasions. Don’t get me wrong, I took heed of the advice I was offered and had spoken with a couple of Trent boating veterans at length; but ultimately I felt I was ready and by the time the big turn east onto the Trent appeared I was basking in the spring sun and enjoying the experience thoroughly. It would be two more days until I reached the tidal part of the river. Had I known then what was to come I may have been less cocky.

On the Trent

The tidal part of the Trent begins just north of Newark at Cromwell Lock. I’d booked my passage through the lock by phone the day before, and had a chat with the Lockie as my boat went through. He was quite a typical boat-folk character, forthright and experienced with a tale to tell. As the water level dropped he waved me off and opened the lock gates for my entry onto the tidal Trent. It was less than 24 hours later that it all started to go wrong. Seriously, seriously wrong.

I’d worked out that I’d have around two days of cruising on the tidal Trent if the tides worked in my favour, otherwise I’d sit it out on one of the few moorings available on the river and wait for the tides to time themselves nicely for my schedule. The Trent is a horrible, if not impossible place to moor at bank-side given the severity of the tides. A beautiful high tide mooring becomes an ugly slope of steep mud banks at low tide and the Trent seems to slip between them both with some ferocity. This didn’t worry me however as I had planned my journey to include stop-offs at the convenient and safe floating pontoons, which punctuate the Trent at brilliantly convenient intervals. These floating pontoons do exactly what it says on the tin, rising and falling with the tide, the only downside being the noise they make as the decking walkways slide up and down upright steel girders. Sanctuary indeed. Having completed day one of the tidal Trent without any disasters I spent a night at Torksey Lock on a floater before setting off with the tide the next day, headed for the safety of the canals at Keadby.

By this point in the journey I’d about had my fill of the Trent and its flat, uninteresting landscape. There really is not much to see once you tire of arable fields and the occasional hint of a town. A place is truly boring when the series of power stations and cooling towers are the only breaks in the horizon. By the time we approached Gainsborough it was 3.30pm and I was looking forward to seeing the entrance to the Keadby Canal. I was tired, hungry, bored and cold and probably another three verses of Kum By Yah as well. I rounded another sharp bend and the cooling towers of a third power station came into view. I remember wondering if the steam turns to rain as it leaves the towers, and if that meant it was always raining around power stations. My amateur physics and meteorology musings came to an abrupt halt, at precisely the same moment as my engine. My mind took a second to realise that my worst fears had come true, and I had lost power on the tidal Trent. It took another few seconds before I’d fully appreciate the world of shit I now found myself in. I gathered myself, chose my most favoured and trusted swear word, and shouted it loud and shrill into the wind.

I knew that this was NOT GOOD.

The anchor?

While on tidal rivers it is recommended that boats carry an anchor; mine was bought in the first week of boat ownership and had yet to see active service. As my boat drifted slowly with the current I looked to my anchor, desperately trying to decide if I should chuck it in. I was in two minds as to the best thing to do; if left to drift, my boat could end up anywhere, but if anchored in the middle of the river we were reliant on other people to save us. In the end, three factors made me decide to drift without dropping anchor. Firstly, I wanted to be able to get ashore if I needed to, as by now I suspected the problem was fuel-related. Secondly, the season was still young and there were few vessels cruising the river. And thirdly, I couldn’t help resenting the fact that if deployed the anchor was essentially lost as retrieving one is a bit of a lottery. That anchor system had cost me over a hundred quid and I was damned if I was going to lose it unless absolutely necessary. I decided to see where I drifted.

Eventually we came close enough to land for me to jump ashore, getting my feet only slightly wet. The Watchman was already pointing back the way we had come, so I ran my bow line to the base of a small tree which overhung the water. I drove in two large mooring pins, having to relocate them several times as the bank was about as firm as porridge in places, but eventually I managed to tie my spare ropes together and lash bow and stern to a couple of reasonably secure mooring pins while running a midline to a more stable stump in a fence around the riverside field. I felt the fence was the strongest mooring and was thankful for its presence; the mooring pins seemed about as reliable as a fishnet condom and I didn’t trust them one bit. I congratulated myself on my small victory and stood on the bank trying to work out where it had all gone wrong.

As I said, I suspected a fuel issue based on the noises the engine made just before it cut out. Although I was confident I had enough fuel, I dipped the tank to check the levels. They were low, but not low enough to cut out as far as I could tell; and besides, I know how far my boat would go on a tankful and that point was probably three days away. I was puzzled, but decided to top up with diesel before panicking too much. Scouring the map I located the nearest road and set off across the fields in search of a petrol station. I wasn’t happy leaving my boat but given that there was not much traffic on the river it was unlikely that help would come. I felt that if I could get some diesel then perhaps I could at least get to Gainsborough Moorings, a mere mile away according to my waterways map. It took me an hour and a half to get across the fields and get back with 20 litres of diesel. By now it was approaching 5.30pm and the tide was starting to drop. Darkness was only a few hours away and I had to work fast. I knew that there was a chance that despite topping up the fuel, I may need to bleed the fuel line before I could start the engine. I wasn’t wrong.

A bigger problem

After numerous attempts to start her, my boat was having none of it and I was concerned about using all of my battery power on starting attempts. Besides, by now I had an even bigger problem. The tide was going out and the water level was dropping. Already more of the bank was visible and the bow of my boat was nestling comfortably in the mud. I had no idea how low the river would go and how aground I was going to be or how steep the slope was. The risk of tipping was pretty high and if I was going to be aground I needed to make sure I would be aground as safely as possible. I spent the next hour hauling on ropes and pushing with the pole, trying to get the boat into as stable a position as possible. We ended up with the bow aground at the end of the longest rope I could make, trying to keep at least some of the boat in the water in an attempt to keep my rudder and stern gear wet. The last thing I needed was a bent and muddy rudder.

The water appeared to have levelled off and by this time I was absolutely exhausted. Trying to fight the tide is hard work and there is very little victory to be had. In fact, I think if I had just left the tide and the boat to do their own things, I’d have likely ended up in pretty much the same position and not exhausted myself at all. As it stood my boat was at around 30 degrees nose to tail and at a jaunty angle side to side, making walking along the length quite a mission indeed. Having achieved a degree of stability I turned my attention back to my engine and set about bleeding the fuel line. Within the hour the job was done and my engine was purring like a kitten. (And, if you have ever heard an old Leyland Diesel 1.5 BMC, you’ll be smiling right now.)

But we weren’t out of the woods yet. We still had the issue of being aground and the tide to deal with. I couldn’t set off until the tide came in, which wouldn’t be until midnight. The lack of civilisation on the banks of the Trent meant that it would be difficult to see where I was going as there are no buildings or street lights to use as bank markers. As darkness fell I checked how useful my navigation floodlight would be and decided that it was better to rely on the sheen of moonlight on the river than to expect my pupils to adjust between the bright floodlight and the pitch blackness of the night; the shadows hiding more than the lamp light could reveal.

I spent the next hour making the boat ready for the float. My pockets were bulging with stuff that really should have been in a utility belt: blade, adjustable spanner, head torch, Jaffa cakes and my mobile phone. (I had switched my phone off earlier that afternoon to preserve the last of the battery that remained considering there was no way of charging it again once dead.) My engine was running and my Jaffa cakes were long gone by the time my boat finally floated off the mud bank and I cut the last mooring rope. It was about an hour to Gainsborough Moorings against the current and I was more or less home and dry. I laughed to myself a little as I pushed the throttle and revved the engine to fight the tide. It chugged sweetly out into the middle of the Trent and I was pleased to see the glimmer of moonlight illuminating the line of the river.

Then the engine cut out again.

Read more in this month's Towpath Talk

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