Retirement with No Problem: Yarwell Lock nighmare

Yesterday – Nassington to Wansford Lock, River Nene, 1.75 miles 1 lock

We promised the site manager at the Queens Hotel building site that we would leave when the Tesco delivery arrived, and reluctantly we did just that in high wind. Going back along the bywater was fine, well I knew exactly where the very shallow bits were, and with Vic on pole duty at the bows, it was a piece of doddle to get back out to the River proper.

There was a cruiser (easily crushable little boat) moored close to the lock mooring… I didn’t get in, the wind decided NP would be far better up weir stream. Once again another ‘jam it in the lock throat’ effort from me…. I hate doing that… it seemed to take ages to try to hold her there, in the end deciding to leave it in forward gear so I could get off and help with ropes.

Trouble was, I had to reverse off the gates for Vic to open them…. fine except the back end wanted to blow down the weir stream! With a lot of effort though we managed to get into the lock… I flippin’ hate the wind, NP is dreadful in any sort of breeze!

Anyway, a photo I took a few days ago when I walked here with Lucy to see if there was any water… hundreds of caravans on gorgeous pitches on the river bank here, but boaters are a no no “Passing boats, no water, no toilets, no rubbish” This with the Environment Agency building in the background!

Yarwell Lock

That was just the start of an awful day for us… standing, as I have done for the last 32 or so locks, on the lock side with two centre ropes, one round the a forward bollard one round the stern end bollard, Vic started to let the water out. It doesn’t seem to matter how slowly you allow the guillotine to rise, the rush of the water out gives the boat a real haul forward… the ropes always hold her just fine. But panic… NP started to list badly! I though I was going to have a heart attack!

I guessed she had caught the quarter inch skirt around the base of the boat on the chains that are hung in the locks! I loosed the ropes, nope she was still listing more… damn these locks, once that guillotine has been raised, there is no way you can just slam them shut!… 45 degrees, I cried out, I could see my home turning over! Lucy was looking up at me from the back deck, I couldn’t reach the roof with my legs to push NP off the chain, too low in the lock by now… all I was praying for that the lock must have been almost empty…….. thankfully suddenly, she suddenly ‘bounced’ off the wall, and settled squarely in the lock below me…

I felt dizzy, my energy already drained with the fight against the elements not 10 minutes before with the wind… I looked at Vic, he was as white as a sheet, the guillotine was up now, but we were in no hurry to go down the ladder to board on the roof as usual, instead we just looked at each other in silence and gave each other a reassuring cuddle on the lockside… such a shock it gave to our systems.

Leaving the lock, we were both just shattered and in a state of shock I think…. we just wanted to stop and moor up.. confidence totally gone for the day. We found a place that would do just before Wansford Lock…. I took Lucy for a walk… settled for the evening, then about 8pm a woman appeared…. called me out for a chat. She wasn’t happy with us mooring there, spose she was the farmer’s wife. She wanted us to move on… phew no way did I want to do that… “Is your dog savage?” “No of course not” says I “Well she is growling at my three dogs” Well Lucy is always nervous with lots of dogs about, she was set upon while minding her own business under a lock gate beam last year by two dogs who just attacked her and ripped half her ear off!

The woman was ranting and raving about how narrowboat people leave stakes in the ground that her husband runs over with his tractor, how bbqs are lit, how crews play rounders in their summer corn… I thought yeah tar the brush… I told her that I understood her feelings, but that we would be gone in the morning… she mumbled something I didn’t hear and turned away…