Late on Friday evening we eventually made it to Torksey Lock. The sun had by now set, the canal was still and the only sounds were the splashing of water and the hum of the running engines of the boats, gliding their way toward the moorings. All had so far gone well, all the boats were running smoothly, could this last?
It was a slow start to Saturday. Our lock time was about midday so we had no particular rush. We slowly got the boats ready to go, ate a spot of breakfast and waited our turn to lock down onto the Trent. Eventually 45 minutes late, due to the faffing around of a pair of narrowboats in the lock before hand, we were released into the by now fast flowing Trent. It has been a series of big spring tides this weekend so the flow was quite fast, for the first part of the journey we would be pushing the tide, not an issue for us, but the narrowboats that had set off an hour before us were struggling. We passed them pretty quickly.
Once below Gainsborough we were free to open the boats up. Naughty-Cal instantly settled into a fast cruising pace of around 27 knots, she seemed happy to be set free once more. The other boats equally at home however, Devocean needed a quick prop change to remedy a slight vibration. After a half hour of messing around we approached West Stockwith lock. It isn’t large enough to fit all three boats in at once so Naughty-Cal and Wish You Were Here entered first. By now the water is flowing quickly in the opposite direction, so we turn into the flow and approach the lock, all was going well until suddenly as we entered the shelter of the wing walls the flow stops due to the wing walls sheltering the flow but Naughty-Cal doesn’t aiming straight for the wall. Luckily we managed to reverse off and just graze the wall with the rails removing some growth from the wall. Wish You Were Here was not so lucky and tried to go through the wall!!
Eventually we are all moored up and the beer starts to flow. The beer flags are hoisted, the bunting erected and the palm tree inflated. Let the party start. After some liquid refreshment it is time to find some food. The White Hart obliges and we all eat well. The bar gets a beating and despite there being six of us, the food and drinks bill is only £90. We will certainly be going here again.
Sunday is an altogether different sort of a day. The sunshine has been replaced with a gloomy, drizzly day, definitely a canopies on day. We wearily make our way back up the Trent, dodging trees, mattresses and other assorted detritus in the water. Luckily the big tides pushed us along quite nicely with the boats averaging 10 knots at low revs and Torksey soon comes into view. We are soon through the lock and onto the calmer waters of the Fossdyke, heading for home. A trip to the Pyewipe is a must and a couple of pints later it is time to head back to the marina for a BBQ dinner. Unfortunately we make a very silly error when casting off and end up with our stern rope wrapped around the props, stalling the engine. Oops. No matter within a half hour we are underway again minus one rope, we shall have to buy some more from the Boat Jumble next spring. Finally we make it back to the marina another adventure under our belts, enjoy a great BBQ and hit the sack ready for another week at work.
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