Dinky toy locks at Napton and Claydon.. but it's not me on the sill!

Napton to Cropredy, Oxford Canal, 15 miles 17 locks

Phew a busy day today for sure!! A good ol’ 9–5 job, well 9.30 to 5.30 actually with a break for lunch!

We pulled the pins this morning from The Folly at Napton on a glorious morning, not a cloud in the sky, and here is my view of Napton Bottom Lock through the gates on the second lock of the day..

From here it was just a steady climb to the top at Marston Doles, and Vic and I worked the locks together.. here Vic making use of the boathook to reach across to pull the far gate closed..

Hey just look at the weather!.. This is such a beautiful flight of locks, I am so pleased we didn’t attempt it yesterday in the rain.  The views across the countryside are as stunning as anywhere in England, and moreso on a day like this…

I am very surprised at the number of boats on the move on the canal, we must have passed 10 or 12 on their way down this flight of eight.  At one lock there was a queue of four boats waiting to go down.  A lot of hire boats too.  This could be due to prices being much lower for hiring at this time of year than in the summer, or maybe the hireboat companies are cutting prices for late deals..

This is one of my most favourite bridges on the whole canal system.  It is a footbridge, and it sags so much in the middle that I have to take a line to the left or right or it would take off the chimney!!…

We pulled into Cowroast Marina at Fenny Compton about lunch time, well not actually into the marina, we moored outside.  The reason was to go over to Steven Goldsbrough’s yard to have a look at Paul Balmer’s narrowboat which has not long arrived there for fit out from Reeves.  It’s looking good Paul!

I got rid of a few more tomatoes today, (I ordered 6 punnets instead of 6 single ones from Tesco!) and on the menu for lunch was tomato soup again!!.. still it is very moorish, and there is some left over for tomorrow too!  I think we will look like tomatoes soon.. Having enjoyed that, we got under way again hoping to make Cropredy this evening.  I have some post to collect from Cropredy, and forgot until this morning that they close at 12.30 on a Friday and don’t open again until Monday morning.. so I have to be there tomorrow..  On then…

This is a lovely part of the canal, Fenny Compton ‘tunnel’.  There is no tunnel now, in fact the tunnel was taken away over 100 years ago, which has left this lovely deep cutting.  It is narrow and crossed by several bridges, the lightest coloured one in the pic was built in 2002 and carries A423 across the canal.

After the huge locks of the River Nene and their guillotine gates these narrow locks are almost dinky toy size, they take such a short time to fill and empty, but here on the last lock of the day we had a reminder of the River Nene, as water was pouring over the top gates just like it does on the river locks..

But although these locks look easy, we had a reminder today not to get complacement when working through them.  NB Lubley Jubley (I think that was it) was in front of us going down the Claydon Flight, and as I arrived at one I saw that a windlass (key that winds up the lock paddles) had flown off and hit the lady working the lock right full in the face.  I quickly tied up No Problem and went to help.  The man had got off his boat to check on his wife.. the other paddle was still open and the lock was emptying quickly.. it was a 70ft boat.. the inevitable happened and it got caught on the sill (The masonry beneath a lock gate, sometimes projecting several feet from the gate) ... I shouted, and ran to drop the paddles to stop any more water going out of the lock, and ran back the other end to let water in to refloat the boat.

The lady will sure have a huge black eye tomorrow she was lucky to get away with that, and the narrowboat may have to come out of the water.. the rudder bar came out of the skeg.. ie he couldn’t steer it.  Vic made some running repairs with a sledgehammer, and it seemed to steer a bit better ..

There is a safety catch on the lock paddle gear which should be engaged when winding up lock paddles.. it is there so that if the windlass slips out of your hand it will hold firm stopping a windlass spinning on the cog and flying off at tremendous speed in any direction hitting whatever parts of humans are in the way.. This lady did not engage the safety catch..

So we kocked the pins in at Cropredy this evening after a very enjoyable day.. very satisfying too, it’s not often we have such a long day with so many locks..