  Colin Edmondson has been involved with boats
for many years and living on and single handed cruising his 60ft narrow
boat since 1995. He has written numerous articles for the waterways press
and a number of books including Going it Alone - a boater's
thoughts on single handed boating. We are publishing extracts here,
and you can order the booklet from some boatyards or direct from us. (Click to
order)
Extract
No. 8. Lift Bridges
Approaching the bridge you need to weigh up
the amount and prickliness of the vegetation on the operating
side, the opposite side to the tow-path. If possible nudge the
bow of the boat almost up to the bridge and against the bank on
the operating side. Walk down the gunwale and step off with the
bow rope in your hand. If the vegetation is growing totally out
of hand then you may have to step directly onto the bridge from
the bow of the boat, although I have not had to resort to this
yet. If the canal is a narrow one you probably don't need to tie
the rope to anything, just leave it stretched out on the ground
so that you can pull the bow back to the bank if it tries to get
away. On a wide canal or a canal or river with a flow it is
safer to tie up loosely. As you will probably have to tie to a
railing, tie to an upright as close to the ground as possible to
reduce the strain on it to a minimum should the boat snatch on
the rope. Once you have raised the bridge, either by pressing
buttons or by the sweat of your brow you can grab the rope, pull
the boat close enough in to step or clamber back on to and walk
back down the gunwale to steer the boat through, at all times
keeping your body from between the underside of the bridge and
the top of the boat. Once through engage reverse, bring the boat
to a stop, tiller over and a quick burst forwards will bring the
stern in to the bank and you can step off with the stern rope in
your hand. Again if there is a flow you may need to take a quick
turn round something to keep the boat from coming back under the
bridge while you are lowering it to the amusement of all
watching (Wrenbury on the Llangollen canal is one place that
comes to mind, there is always a crowd hoping to see you get it
wrong!). Once the bridge is back down you can step on board,
coil up the rope and stow it on the roof out of the way and
potter gently on.
I do not to trust kids to hold a bridge open
for me, there is no way of knowing how many victims they have
already claimed! I also don't trust a bridge to stay up, so I
make sure that no part of my body is between the underside of
the bridge and the boat, dropping down into the hatch rather
than leaning forward to avoid bumping my head, if it does come
down I don't want to be a human fender thank you very much.
A variation on the above, useful when the
undergrowth is totally impenetrable, is to leave the boat
against the towpath before the bridge and take the extra long
bow rope across the bridge with you, looping it round a
convenient handrail. When the bridge is up you can pull the boat
towards you to get on (unless you have tied it up to a bollard
out of habit). Don't pull too hard, you don't want the boat to
hit the underside of the bridge before you can fend it off. I
must admit that I try to use the engine whenever possible to
move the boat, pulling it by hand is hard work.
We've
got more advice about
Boat Handling in
our Visitors section.
We
also have links to Boathandling
Training Course Providers. |
