Narrow boat on the Severn

TwoHooter

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I've seen narrow boats navigating between the Sharpness Canal and the River Avon before, and met skippers at Portishead while they have been laying over after coming down or while preparing to go up, but....... oooh.... err...
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I think this is only on Facebook so if you can't use Fb, sorry, you can't see the video.
The skipper is the man who took a Dutch barge up to Hereford and brought it back down again, and also took his narrowboat up to Monmouth.
Wye Invader
 

Bru

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As a former narrowboat captain (yes, traditionally on the canals the person in charge of a narrowboat was called the captain) I'd consider that to be risky if not outright foolhardy on an unmodified former hire boat (which is what she is)

Lateral stability is not great, to say the least, and getting twisted sideways and then rolled over in those conditions could easily happen in the blink of an eye

But good luck to the owner, top marks for daring and adventure anyway!
 

Bloater

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Hi tooHooter!

I just watched that clip and it looks quite frightening, not safe in my opinion.

I remember back in 1997 when I took a Seamaster 27 river cruiser on a week-long journey from Stourport to Reading. This was my first trip down the Severn Estuary. I was joined in the lock by a narrowboat who was heading to Bristol at the same time as me (Portishead Marina wasn't open at the time). The narrowboat was making a second attempt (from the week before) when it had sunk at the power station reservoir and had to be rescued (pinned on the wall) and re-floated. The skipper had since dug all the mud out of his boat and borrowed a life-jacket and was going to try again. He was finally told not to go out to sea by the lock staff until he was more seaworthy.

I think the skipper in that clip you have highlighted is for some reason trying to circumnavigate the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, perhaps he was trying to avoid fees? As I said - not safe in my opinion.

(ps. Long time no see)
 

38mess

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They did lots of stuff in the old days that we wouldn't think of doing these days, I remember some guys rowing out to flatholme island for some reason, quite a regular thing I gather.
Needs must I guess
 

TwoHooter

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Hi Bloater. We have been based in Plymouth for the last 12 months and will stay there this winter.

Details of the narrowboat passage are on the skipper's blog and Youtube channel. I believe the aim was to get above Maisemore weir by the pre-canal route, in other words from Sharpness up the Severn, under the Over bridges, and then over the weir at high water. He succeeded at the second attempt. I think the video taken from the bank was shot during the upstream passage on the flood, behind the bore, because of the scene in the background, but I'm not certain.
Framilode passage.jpg
It's clear from his video channel that the skipper's great enthusiasm is for navigating the waterways in this area, which happens to be my home patch also, and I am quite jealous of what he has managed to achieve. On this passage he certainly wasn't trying to save canal dues, he just wanted to prove it can still be done. His great coup was to get the big barge Wye Invader upstream to, and downstream from Hereford, really a quite extraordinary achievement, and quite important in terms of maintaining the very rare right of navigation on the Wye. So although I said "....... oooh.... err... " in my first post I'm not critical. I have taken our boat into some nooks and crannies which have made my wife gulp (up the Waveney to Beccles, and up tight against the rocks overnight at Polperro for example) and I would love to go up to Over with her one day. A friend has taken a Colvic Beta up to Tintern, somewhere else I would love to go, but I don't think we would get under the old bridge at Chepstow, and we had a new cutless bearing last year so I'm a bit reluctant to drive through liquid mud until we've had a few years' use out of it!
 

Allan

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There used to be a guy who did that trip every year. He sold narrow boat memorabilia for a living and did a circuit of part of England. I don't know the full route but he went to Bath, Bristol, Gloucester then up to Stratford upon Avon. One of the lock keepers above Gloucester told me about him.
Allan
 

oldmanofthehills

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I and many others from Lydney have taken our yachts up the Severn over the weir to Gloucester, dropping our masts before the 33kv wires . Nervous making as you cant see the weir and dont know its depth, so I followed a bigger boat.

On a calm day it might not be too bad in barge if barge prepped by closing all windows and enclosing the foredeck, but sooner someone else than me and watch out for the whirlpools at worls end between the M4 bridges if coming up from Portishead/Avonmouth.

Fantastic video by a bold but cautious boater. An inspiration
 
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