How many locks is enough.....

.......29, more than enough.

So today was the day, one of the ‘7 Wonders’ of the canal network, the Caen Hill flight of locks. The actual Caen Hill flight is 16 locks, but when going down you first have to tackle the 7 Devizes locks and after the 16 ‘Hill’ another 6 Foxhangers locks so the total if you do it one go is 29 locks, there are limited possibilities to moor up before and after the actual ‘Hill’ 16, but the emphasis is on limited, today it looked pretty full. You cannot moor anywhere in the 16, they padlock the top and bottom locks between 8pm and 8am and you have to be out! the last allowable entry is 5pm. The total rise (or fall for me today) is 237 feet in just over two miles.

I had heard differing views on the best approach timewise, setting off early gives you plenty of time but going down all the locks would be set against you until you met someone coming up, leaving later it may be busy, or it may not be, so all the locks could still be against you, I decided to leave early.

At 8:15 I set off for the first lock, I was content in the belief that I was going to do the whole 29 in one go, solo and without anyone sharing the locks with me, maybe a volounteer would materialise!

But as I moved off from my mooring a boat a couple of hundred yards back also moved off, I had company!, arriving at the first lock (50) there was a boat partly on the landing, not a great start but room for me to squeeze in on an angle.

First Lock of the day.

I set the lock and opened both gates to allow the following boat in as well, once in we discussed tactics, Steve and Kim on N.b. Bloddery Dorn also Caen Hill virgins, Steve was all for letting me go ahead as a single, but I gently persuaded him the best option was to tie the two boats together with him steering, freeing me up to work the locks with Kim. He was a bit concerned but agreed, so we roped them together, more on that later!

We soon worked out a little system and things were going well, when we arrived at lock 44 the first of the 16 flight, I could see a wide beam in the next lock coming up, it was a hotel boat and fully crewed, this gave Steve reason to wonder on the sanity of my suggested method as he now had to pass the other boat in the short pound, we were just under 14’ wide and they were 12’-ish but he did admirably, pulling over to the side as he left the lock and waiting until there was just enough room before moving into the next lock and out of their way.

The flight is an awesome piece of engineering and looking down from the first lock you can appreciate the skill that went in to the original build, all of the locks are the same size and the same depth at 8’ 2”.

Now then, in the pound between lock 40 and 39 was a nice big C&RT workboat, why one wonders? but it was there, it made the task for Steve to get out of 40 and into 39 exceedingly difficult because of the limited room, and here is when we discovered an error in our roping up, we had tied bow to bow in line, but my boat was longer so we had and overhang behind of 5 or 6 feet, Steve had suggested tying to my brass footstep, and I agreed, I suggested tying my centre line to his roof handrail but it was made from wood, so I checked Steve was happy and he said “yes, that’s solid as rock”. Well as Steve struggled to turn the boats and applied some power the screwheads on my brass footstep sheared off and his wooden hand rail snapped in two, we should have untied and re-tied later!

We went through the next couple of locks as singles but then I suggested another go but this time tying bow to bow in line and tying stern to stern across the angle, hindsight is 100% J No further problems were encountered. Amazingly we only met one other boat coming up and that was at the end of the 16 and despite me waving frantically at them they closed the gates of the lock they were leaving, there is none as blind as those that don’t LOOK!

A couple of mid flight pictures:-

Steve working hard on the tiller

Kim working hard on the paddle

And of course the iconic looking back up the Caen Hill fight of 16 as Steve was leaving lock 29.

We finished the 29 in 5 hours, including minor problems and lack of assistance from either volounteers or boats coming up, not a bad effort.

I moored up on the visitor moorings at Sells Green fortunate to find the only space and then as I was tying up the boat behind moved off so I hurried forward and told Steve and Kim who were struggling trying to get to the side and they reversed back and moored behind me, a lovely end to a hard day, we have agreed to meet in the pub later and remind ourselves of how well we all did, that’s if I can walk J

No'Tonights mooring' pictures, the internet is too slow and there is a pint with my name on it in 'The Three Pidgeons'.

Totals today: 3 miles : 29 locks

By the way, for those interested the 7 Wonders are explained here I've now completed 2 of the 7.