Peter's Blog

Peter's Waterways Blog

The Essence of Navigation on the Inland Waterways
This is from Peter Scott's IWA blog, first written in 2010, and still relevant today.

Maybe it's how The Canalling Addiction first hits us that determines how we enjoy the canals for the rest of our time with them; and sets, for each of us, the essence of our canalling enjoyment.

For me it was being among a group of other students. My friends described how wonderful it all was, took me to canalling talks and showed me their photographs, but befor my first trip I had never knowingly seen one of those essential canalling features, the canal lock or the narrowboat. Canalling for me has always been a socialble event: it is something to do with other people, to chat while walking the towing path, or in the boat, or over a meal, or in the pub. The accommodation might be a trifle basic (see photos).

As students, the first or last week of a vacation could be at home with parents or away at college with friends: studying was equally impossible in either location for different reasons, so a challenge presented itself: by recruiting another nine or ten or eleven people, it was cheaper to hire a twelve-berth narrowboat for a week than pay for that same week in lodgings or hall-of-residence. It just needed planning. Then there were the termly weekend trips with our student Canal Society - a chance to take two boatfuls of students to dash up the motorway on Friday afternoon for a couple of hours' boating, then the whole of Saturday and until dark on Sunday before returning to Southampton for lectures on Monday morning.

north_east_yorkshire_chairmans_thoughts_

With all these people, there isn't a lot of room inside any boat however spaciously laid out - so the attraction of the canal can be absorbed while outside, and that works best while travelling along. It's the travelling that becomes the essence of the trip: passing along the canal, at all times of the day, and experiencing as much of the waterway system as possible within the available time.

The travelling takes precedence over eating: breakfast toast is handed up at the lock side: coffee is carried and drunk between one lock and the next: the steerer has their luchtime sandwich leaving one hand for the tiller, and if there's some catching-up to do, a knife and fork can attack the plate on the slide, leaving the posterior to do the minor steering attachments. There are always enough people available to keep the boat moving all the time: to walk briskly ahead to make the lock ready; to have the gates behind closed and then both paddles ahead whipped up without need of intervening walking-time; and the shopping party can be foraging while the boat goes through the locks.

	Years	Nights afloat	Total Miles	Total Locks	Daylight hours	Daylight used
Student trips	1971-1980	178	4771	3179	2221	87%
Hireboats with family	1982-1992	140	3411	2280	1741	78%
Own-boat paid Job	1993-2005	692	11902	9628	8206	60%
Own-boat Retired	2005-2014	1245	13529	9652	12144	45%
Own-boat Retired	2015-2019	563	6787	4420	5485	49%

Advancing years and smaller crews have reduced the canalling day from dawn-to-dusk to maybe ten, nine or eight hours. The canalling log's statistics say that in student days we used almost 90% of the available daylight hours; with family-and-friends, mainly on hireboats this reduced to below 80%; while still at work with our own shared boat it was down again to 60%; and in retirement it's under 50%. But even now it feels very strange to have tied up the boat and stopped for lunch.

Travelling is the Essence

That is our motto: it's our way of canalling: it's our way of enjoyment. It means working the canal in an efficient way: when walking to a lock, to be doing it purpousefully: there is no need to run, but no need to dawdle either. The trip will have its contingency for the unexpected - or more accurately the expectation of the unexpected - delay. Other people will be doing things at their pace, and the normal camaraderie of the Cut makes that all work in harmony.

What makes it hard now ...

... is that additional difficulty in arranging canalling trips: the Navigation Authority that decides to close things down without understanding the inconvenience it is causing. The bureaucratic mind decides that, for instance, the working of a three-rise lock is 'complicated' and that it would help everyone if a lockkeeper were there to supervise proceedings.

What starts as a help-to-boaters becomes a restriction-to-boaters as soon as it becomes 'convenient' to padlock the locks as the lockkeeper goes home. "8am to 6pm is enough" says the Navigation Authority, and never having measured the demand for its use on summer evenings, the closure becomes ingrained and boaters have to put up with it.

Then we try to save money on lockkeepers, and it all needs to be done within 'the working day' without 'overtime'. And after a couple of rounds of economies, at least one change of management what was once an experiment has become the Norm and the Requirement. Then the locks are open from 9.30am to 3.30pm, and the Navigation Authority says this can "easily accommodate all the boat movements of the previous year".

Except that this Creeping Closure has reduced a summer day from eighteen hours' availability to six and has discouraged or frightened away all those who wanted a relaxing trip without having to rush to beat today's lock-locking time. What was supposed to be an additional service to boaters has become a serious impediment to planning a trip or giving employment to those who now spend lots of their time wielding padlocks and barring the way to their customers.

Comments to peter.scott@waterways.org.uk