Driving the canal boat

The next two weekends were testing times.  This is because the task of steering /driving / cruising – call it what you will – has increasingly fallen on me.

Weekend 2 I found the stress of doing something I did not feel confident about or had planned to do overwhelming.  The only time I had been on a canal boat before I was chief cook and bottle washer – husband drove it and the children did the locks.  I hadn’t expected to be the driver.

The bikes on the boat wrapped up in protective covers obscured my vision and I was afraid.  By the time we arrived at Wolverton via an abortive first stop where the water was too shallow, I was exhausted and at the end of my tether.

I realised how naïve we were not to get proper lessons before we started.  I know you can’t necessarily kill yourself on a boat that goes 3 miles an hour, but it is possible to infuriate people bumping into them, not getting the etiquette correct and giving it too many revs which just sends it careering manically from side to side.

In the end I had to sit boat business partner Captain Quirk down and tell him I wasn’t going anywhere further until we had someone out to go through with both of us how to manoeuvre the boat properly and to sort out various problems we haven’t got our head around – bilge (this is not poo) causing the back end of the boat to sink and the invertor – moves the power from 240-120 volts.  I prefer to tag it assertive while others may think bossy.

 

I have also realised Quirk is not a well man post cancer and a pacemaker; doesn’t take his medicines, is on warfarin so when he knocks himself there is blood everywhere and prone to passing out.  He could seriously fall off the boat somewhere isolated – kaput.  He has no plans to move the boat without me and I sort of admire his determination to live out his dream regardless.  We just need to be responsible about it.  Luckily, he has a sense of humour about it all and kept saying how funny I was.  I don’t think he thinks I am so funny after the straight talking, but I rang round and found some retired boat enthusiast who lives nearby and was prepared to spend the day with us so I should get some credit for being constructive.  Did I ever plan to be a boat expert?  No.

 

Unfortunately Quirk did not like Mr Boat Expert, but I learnt enough to increase my confidence by a big leap and we also got a (poo) pump out and re-filled with water which had run out mid-week.

 

For some reason I thought driving the boat was like a gear box and you would feel it clunk up in stages.  I thought something was wrong with the engine and had been chugging along at tick over speed.  He taught me the feel of the engine and what numbers (revs?) I should be doing out on the canal in different situations.  He also demonstrated drastically how far to the left and right I could steer the boat.  He taught me how to turn in a winding point; what to do in a lock and how to draw it into the bank for mooring.  I am beginning to enjoy it.

Mr Boat Expert also said very nice things about the boat – its size, manoeuvrability, fit out and condition so we got some things right.

 

Working out the boat business partnership in close proximity, even though I am only there 2 days a week has been fraught and hard with some serious, certainly not humorous stuff said on both sides.

I guess we both had expectations of each other that are just not going to be realised and there is disappointment on both sides letting them go.

However, we both love the boat.  Noah the dog loves the boat and does not poo or wee inside it.  Quirk loves Noah.  Neither of us would be on that boat without the other.

 

One of my wisest friends said to me, ‘all will be well Hazel, all will be well’.