Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS YEARS

FULL STOP ON THE NENE, 1980

or how to get through a lock without using the top gates.

Click on a picture to see a bigger version with a caption

This voyage took place in 1980, when we had our first boat, the original Felis Catus, an old wooden joey conversion (Click here to see all about her).

We were at the National Rally at Walthamstow and had taken some friends for a ride up and down the moorings when another boat's crew told us "The police are looking for you : they're at your mooring": and so they were.

They had a message asking us to contact Mike & Lindy Foster of Bridgewater Boats at Berkhamsted. We did this and discovered they were looking for a rescue crew for one of their hire- boats, trapped by floods at Irthlingborough on the River Nene. The hirers had given up and gone home and Mike Foster was care-taking the boat at Irthlingborough and worrying about next week's hirers who were due to pick the boat up at Berkhamsted the following Saturday.

The navigation authority thought the river would be passable by Wednesday, and somebody was needed to crew it back with Mike F. Since Mike & Lindy knew that we (a) had cruised the Nene the previous summer, (b) were likely to be available in August and (c) were mad enough for almost anything (we were young then), they'd decided to ask us. A hasty re-arrangement of our booked departure from the Rally and a hectic couple of days' cruising (with various friends crewing with us at different stages) brought Felis Catus to Berkhamsted by Tuesday afternoon, (Click here to read the report of that trip - in the later part of the chapter). whence Wendy, Roger (co-owner of Felis Catus), myself, Caligula (our first boating cat) and supplies of food were ferried to join Mike F on nb Grumbuskin at Irthlingborough.

By first light next day the step in the water as it came through Irthlingborough bridge was only (only!) about 18", so at 06:10 we decided to give it a try, playing the usual game of "guess which arch". Eighteen miles and sixteen locks lay between us and the safety of the canal above Northampton. Mike F had taken the governor off the engine so that we could use extra revs in an emergency, which we needed to force the deepest part of the boat (the stern) through the bridge against the current.

Next came Higham lock, which was surprisingly routine. (Given that it is routine on the Nene to have a waterfall over the top gates of a lock, what difference does an extra couple of foot of water make?)

Higham Ferrars bridge was a different story. We'd expected problems here. It's no longer the same, but at that time this was a narrow bridge on a fairly tight bend, with the full force of the current pushing through it at an angle. It was never an easy spot for a narrowboat, and in flood conditions it was even worse than ever. Mike F's first two attempts to go through on engine power alone resulted in the current catching the bow and taking the boat into the bank facing back the way we'd come.

The next thing we tried was to let a line down from the top of the bridge with two of us up there to hold the boat's nose on line : which was all very well until the rope was vertical and no more use. So we tried letting the rope down from the far side of the bridge and repeating the operation. This got the boat half-way through, by which time the rope was holding the boat back; so we went back to the drawing-board.

Finally we spliced together as many lengths of rope as we could find and Roger and I set off along the bank to try and find a suitable purchase-point on the bank above the bend. We were heartened to find a scaffold-pole driven deeply into the ground at just the right point : clearly we weren't the first people with this problem. This time most of the boat came through, but even at full emergency revs with the engine smoking like anything, the deep stern end wouldn't make it through until Mike F gave Wendy the tiller, clambered up onto the cabin roof and gave a great heave on the bridge. The resemblance to a champagne cork as the stern came out of the bridge'ole was remarkable!

After this effort Wendy went below to assemble beer, coffee and hot rolls filled with scrambled egg for breakfast-on-the-move. At 08:25 we reached Ditchford Lock and came across one of the tricks of the Nene that we'd only read about in the past. In flood conditions, many of the locks are used as water-control sluices rather than navigation locks, with the top gate padlocked open and the bottom guillotine gate controlling the flow of water. This was particularly annoying as Mike F. had been told by the Anglian Water Authority on the 'phone the previous evening that we could move up the river if we could get through Higham Ferrars bridge.

After breakfast and a further uninformative 'phone conversation with AWA, we did some experiments, raising and lowering the guillotine gate to see what happened. With the gate open, the turbulence at the top of the lock was considerable, but only extended for about a third of the lock's length. Fortunately Nene locks are long (78 ft) and Grumbuskin was only about 45 ft, so we could stay in fast-moving but non-turbulent water while the guillotine was closed. As the lock filled, the turbulence, of course, abated to nothing.

We needed to leave the guillotine gate part-open as we'd found it, and Roger drew the short straw of staying behind to do this and walking on to join us at the next convenient mooring point, about half-a-mile up-river. This took a lot longer than expected as all the little side-streams that are normally no obstacle had swollen to Olympic long-jump standard and he needed to make some quite long detours to get across them.

By lunchtime the current was noticeably less, and by the time we reached Doddington lock we found a paradoxical situation. The lock was again in flood-control mode, but because of the much-abated flood-water, the reach above was way down on its normal level. So this time Roger's instructions were to wait a good long while before re-setting the guillotine.

Soon the boating seemed pretty normal and we were optimistically talking of reaching the canal at Northampton before nightfall. At 19:50 we slid carefully into Weston Favell lock, just four locks short of Northampton. The sun shone, birds sang and a perfectly humane-looking passer-by called down to us that we couldn't go any further. The navigation gate in the flood barrage just above the lock was stuck in the closed position, having been damaged by the flood. We hope that one of us remembered to thank him! Northampton Boat Club is situated just below this lock, and we were made very welcome in their clubhouse for the next couple of days.

Next morning some AWA staff were walking around the damaged navigation gate scratching their heads. It seemed that some pulleys had been smashed by the force of the gate closing, and replacements would have to be manufactured as there weren't any in stock. Mike F. 'phoned AWA to ask when the gate would be working again. They didn't know and said "but it doesn't matter as the river's not navigable at the moment anyway". On being told that we had come up from Irthlingborough the day before (with permission), they put Mike through to their Chief Engineer, whose response was "If I had my way the river wouldn't be a navigation. It's a drain".

We were obviously going to be stuck for some time, so Mike F. and Wendy caught a bus into Northampton, Mike to go back to Berkhamsted and Wendy to replenish our empty larder. Laden with shopping, she approached a taxi rank. One driver "waiting for his wife" loaded her shopping into a friend's cab. When she told the driver "Northampton Boat Club at Weston Favell lock" he said "Are you a member?", then "Never mind, I've got my key and I suppose I ought to check my boat's OK after the floods."

By Friday afternoon , AWA's Chief Electrician appeared, bringing with him not only the replacement pulleys, but a sense of purpose we'd not seen in the rest of their staff. After further delays while the pulleys were modified to fit, he told us "We're going to test the gate now. If we get it open, go through it straight away because God knows if it will work a second time". By 16:15 we were away, meeting Mike F. again as we arrived in Northampton, where Roger left us for home.

The locks up the Northampton Arm form a very pleasant rural flight, but that day we wouldn't have noticed if they'd risen among factories and tower-blocks, we were so desperately keen to get through them. I'd twisted my ankle on Wednesday evening, so I was steering while Wendy and Mike F. did all the leg-work. It seemed strange when there weren't any more locks to do.

We moored at Blisworth village at 22:00, and cleaned the boat ready for next day's hirers to be ferried out to her. Then one of the boatyard staff drove us back to Berka and our own boat.

By Sunday, boating quietly on Felis Catus, we had to pinch ourselves to remember that the strange voyage up the Nene had indeed happened. Caligula was pleased to be back on his own boat : a wooden boat sounds much quieter to a cat than does a steel one. On Sunday evening in the Grand Junction Arms at Bulbourne we drank two toasts : one to Northampton Boat Club for their hospitality and one to BWB for, whatever their faults, not being AWA.

It was an experience we are glad to have had, but aren't in a hurry to repeat. I leave you with the traditional warning "Children, don't try this without adult supervision"!