Simon
Jenkins is a well known figure on the British canal system and has
been a boater for decades, living on, working and owning boats and,
for the last couple of decades, the managing director of Norbury
Wharf on the Shropshire Union Canal.
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Simon
Jenkins at Norbury
Wharf
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There
he runs a brokerage, hire fleet, day boats, a trip boat and a
chandlery, as well as a paint dock, dry dock and full engineering
services. Simon has dipped his toe in to the waters of other
boat-related ideas including sea-going charters, but the inland
waterways are his first love and he has turned his gaze to Europe,
with it’s wide waterways and fully functioning system of commercial
river and canal navigations. He is just back from the boat buying
trip of a lifetime, bringing his first historic barge back to
Belgium, the country in which it was built, from the shores of the
Mediterranean. Last month he was boarded by armed police as he
entered the River Saône.
Now he enters a world of locks and tunnels and the obligatory daft
Englishman in a GRP boat. There is also a meeting with an old friend.
This is his story, in his own words.
The Saône is another river that is a canalised and has sections of lock cuts, something commonplace in France, and in other parts of Europe, and on some parts of the UK system too.
On
some of these canalised sections there are tunnels and this was a
first for us with this boat. The first one we came was on a traffic
lights, we had a short wait whilst another boat was coming the other
way and then it was our turn.
It
wasn't a long tunnel and dead straight, so nothing to get excited
about - but there were more to come! Mile after mile, lock after
lock; meandering our way through some stunning countryside and hardly
passing other boats.
This
was June, and flaming June at that, temperatures were in the high 30s
and the canal and rivers seemed so quiet, much quieter than we are
used to in the UK. All of a sudden we came to something quite
different and a bit challenging.
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Now
the locks are a tight squeeze – the maximum dimensions are 38
metres by 5 metres
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We locked off the river on to another canalised section - this time it was a control lock with a lock keeper, the canal was dead straight and wide enough for two 5M boats to pass so we carried on.
Then
the narrows came in to sight, nothing to worry about - except they
had been carved out of a hill and it was the entrance to a narrow
tunnel, as we went around the bends, slowly, the bow was almost
touching the bank at the front whilst the stern was almost touching
the opposite side at the rear. I would imagine that a 38 m barge
would actually be touching at both ends. We squeezed our way around
this bendy section and then plummeted in to a dark cavernous tunnel.
Soon we emerged back in to bright sunshine.
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Sometimes
the canal itself looks too narrow, especially this approach to a
tunnel
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Bends in a concrete channel can leave only inches as you turn
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| Then the tunnel – which looks too small to accommodate us |
All is going well with the barge, really getting to grips with it, not much traffic about and then in the distance just as we were coming off a river section and heading for a very narrow old flood lock I see a small cruiser approaching.
We
are just slowing down from 12kmh and the narrows are fast
approaching. All lined up and then the cruiser decided that he is
going to go through the narrows first. This guy must have had a death
wish, challenging a much larger craft with much less manoeuvrability
in a restricted waterway is madness.
Hard
astern was all I could do, I managed to keep the boat under control
and bring it to almost perfect standstill as he comes flying past us
just like Eric Sykes on his plastic cruiser in the film The Barge. To
make matters worse he was bloody English. I’m sure he was related
to old Sykes!
The
river is starting to become much smaller now, narrower and bendier,
lots more care is needed going around very tight bends, speed is much
slower too, nearly at the end of the navigation for us and then on to
a proper canal!
We
entered the narrow canal at Corre. This section is 93km long and has
93 locks, so now its going to get even more interesting and really
slow our pace down. The locks are now controlled by a remote control
- something like a garage door opener.
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| The locks are now controlled by a remote control - something like a garage door opener |
Very
amusing indeed. As you approach a lock there is a receiver box
somewhere and you have to aim your remote at it and press the button
- and hopefully it works and a flashing light appears on the box
letting you know it has accepted your signal and the lock is
preparing.
As
you approach the lock there are traffic lights. Red, well that’s
obvious; Red-and green means the lock is setting for you; and green
is obvious too. Once in the lock the same procedure as before, two
bars, blue to operate the lock and red to stop it.
So
off we go, the canal is now a proper canal – shallow and narrow;
and progress is slow, but still very interesting indeed. Meeting
other boats is now fun and virtually all the locks have a lock
keepers cottage on the lock side.
They
are pretty places, some are occupied and some are not, especially the
more remote ones. You can imagine, in the past, that there would have
been a great community feel amongst the boatmen and all the staff
running the canals, just like the UK canals would have been years
ago.
The
canal is mostly rural, passing through small, quiet villages and
small towns following the river Le Coney, and we had been climbing
the locks steadily until we reached the summit pound.
We
were meandering along the summit pound looking for a stopping place
rumoured to be close to a Boulangerie (bakery to us) - well when in
France one has to have fresh Baguettes everyday - when I saw a petite
looking blonde lady waving like mad.
Good
God it was Laura, the partner of a chap called Roger Murray. Some of
you might recognise his name, he is a proper canal nut and used to
own the ex FMC steamer Monarch, also a lovely tug called Kyle. Now he
has a Dutch barge in Holland and they were on their way from her pad
in Palma driving up to the barge.
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| Roger Murray, a proper canal nut and used to own the ex FMC steamer Monarch. |
It
just so happened that their journey coincided with ours so they
jumped on board and we had the most pleasant evening in the company
of these two wonderful people.
As
the spare bed was made up it went without saying that they would dine
with us and stay the night and we sat out on the back deck until
late, drinking and reminiscing.
The
next day saw them come with us and do a few miles and a few locks, we
had now started going down the ‘other side’ they departed from us
at the junction with the Épinal
canal. They got a taxi and we waved them farewell - that was a nice
surprise, and a welcome one too.
In
the next episode: Simon and his crew come
up against manual locks which take them onto another of Europe’s
major waterways - and an angry Frenchman
