We’ve finally made it south of Tixall Wide on the Staffordshire & Worcester Canal (S&W) and it is simply stunning. The canal meanders through wooded valleys beside a curtain of red sandstone and we’ve already planned to come back this way to spend time in the picturesque mooring spots that we’ve now pencilled into our 14 year old  (but still looks brand new) Nicholson Guide book.

We’re heading to the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal, it’s one that we haven’t been able to reach before so we intend to explore it over next six months or so. The boat is already in winter mode, the cratch cover is down and the bow is has been turned into a store room; full of coal and scavenged wood. The coal cage is being kept lit in the multifuel stove keeping the boat warm, and even the barefoot boater has got his shoes and socks on! Cruising along the canal in the autumn is like drifting in a pot of leaf soup, the floating leaves stick to the propeller smothering the blades, reducing power and steerage, so the odd little bump is inevitable as you try to steer into locks.

The autumn colours are set against moody skies bringing sudden bouts of heavy rain and gusts of wind. We‘ve really enjoyed being on the S&W, the trip down has been peaceful and gentle, that is until we joined the River Severn. Oh boy, that was a rude awaking.

We thought we were experienced and competent river cruisers having spent a lot of time on the Thames over the years, in a range of craft and in a variety of conditions. But the River Severn has a completely different character and attitude. Although the water levels were back down to green, after running high following a couple of weeks of rain, the flow was faster than normal (we were told this by a local boater) and we were heading downstream fast. This was in our favour except for on the two occasions when we very nearly came a cropper.

On rivers it is always advisable to moor with your bow facing upstream, so when leaving our mooring we needed to turn the boat downstream again. We were on the pontoon mooring above Diglis Lock at Worcester, which is opposite the channel to the weir and foolishly didn’t realise (it is very deceptive) how strong the flow was. You’ve guessed it, we didn’t reposition away from this channel before attempting to turn the boat around and got pulled sideways rather violently onto the floating bouys that stop boats from being dragged onto the weir itself. It was frightening and a real rookie error, our little engine did its best but in those few moments of pulling away from the pontoon, the prop had got stuck with leaves so there wasn’t a lot of action happening. But we survived. It was, we thought, probably the scariest moment we’d ever had in our boating careers. Unfortunately there was another incident to follow;

A couple of days later we were booked into Gloucester Lock, all of the locks on the River Severn are huge and manned, but this was the only one that was restricted to weekend opening hours and had to be prebooked. About 3 km from the lock, the river splits and the channel to the lock is narrower, shallower and a bit bendy. We’d previously been warned that a big boat would be coming upstream and would be leaving the Gloucester Lock just after 9am, it was now approaching 11am and as instructed we’d phoned ahead to confirm our arrival. During the call no one mentioned the big boat, we were just told that a second narrowboat was following us and would join us in the lock.  We hadn’t seen the bigger boat on the main river so assumed it had either cancelled or had already completed its transit and was moored in one of the boat yards that we’d passed earlier. This was not so.

We were already in the channel when we met the little pilot boat that was travelling ahead of it, advice was shouted to us to keep across to the side as much as we could, which we did. I dashed down to the bow to keep a look out and you can tell from the pictures what happened next.

The boat appeared around the next bend, it was huge and travelling at full throttle, the water was really too shallow for it and its prop was partially out of the water. As it started to pass us we got pulled side on to it, with our boat bouncing along its fenders until we came level with it’s stern. At this point the force of the water from the big boat’s propeller forced the bow of our boat into the trees, the flow of the river and wake from the big boat then threw our stern across the channel. We were left side on to the current and fending off the trees and branches that were crashing through the cockpit of the bow. How we didn’t lose the cratch, aerials, chimney and me, I’ve no idea. I just remember frantically trying to unhook the bow from the vegetation, grabbing and pushing the branches away. I really did think we’d had it. The boat was almost completely across the river and soon it would be tilting over, with the boat that was following us crashing into us. But suddenly, the bow was freed and swung out back into the river and Ian, bless his toe socks, managed to regain control.

 

You can imagine how relieved we were to see the lock gates opening ahead of us. We later found out that the captain of the big boat had been strongly advised not to proceed, he’d refused to listen, but as he’d left the lock just after 9am, the lock keeper had assumed he would be well clear of the channel before we turned into it, which is why we weren’t given any warning when we phoned. 

So following our close encounter of the “weir” kind and nearly being washed out by a big boat in a narrow channel, we are hugely relieved to be tied up on the canal side of Gloucester Docks. Incidents like that really make you appreciate the joy of being still on calm waters!