I don't get in as much boating these days as I used to, so the chance to have a day on the tiller is not to be sneezed at: particularly if it's something a little out of the ordinary. Thus, when an opportunity arose to steer the horse boat for the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site Discovery Weekend and nobody else wanted to, I was more than willing! Saturday was taken up with setting up and general organising, but I would be free on the Sunday. I took a trip on the boat on Saturday, as this was going to be something totally new to me and I took the chance to learn from someone more experienced and suss out the differences between horses under the feet and a horse 50 yards away.
The first thing that strikes you is that there is no slow acceleration up to cruising speed. When that horse says "GO!", you go and with a "whoosh" you go from standstill to something over 4mph more-or-less instantly, which can be a little disconcerting if you're not expecting it. Bearing in mind that on the Cromford we don't have a "proper" horse boat, merely an old engineless motor boat with a small rudder designed to work in the wash off a propeller and fairly poor swims, steering is a little difficult. As the tow rope we use is not perhaps as long as we'd like, the boat tends to get dragged towards the towing path by the horse and it's sometimes necessary to "crab" away from the towing path to continue going forwards - certainly the tiller is hardly ever pointing fore-and-aft. You have to allow for this effect when going through the two bridge holes on the stretch of canal we boat on - fortunately, the horse has to slow down at both points, so you end up what looks like being way off course as you coast towards the bridge. Then, when the horse starts pulling again, you get dragged back into line and hopefully swish through the hole. I know that's the theory, ‘cause it worked like that - once! Turning the boat at Leawood pump house is aided by the Cromford Canal's very own bank mounted bow thruster - the 4 tons of water discharged into the canal at regular intervals when the pump's in operation. Get the boat positioned right, and the stream of water is very helpful in spinning the boat around for the return journey. The same evolution at the Cromford end is achieved with more manpower, poles and ropes. The one abiding memory is of the quietness and tranquility of it all. You can hear the horse's hooves on the towing path and the splash and gurgle as the boat moves through the water - more so when you've got weed on the rudder blade - but otherwise it's very quiet, except when you hit a patch where the bottom's too close to the top for comfort - not unknown on an otherwise disused canal. Then, you can feel the boat slowing down and hear it scraping or sliding over the bottom. The rear end of the horse goes down as he applies more power, you slide off the obstruction and accelerate back up to cruising speed. All in all, it's been a rare privilege to do something very few people get chance to do, on a stretch of waterway that at present is only navigated one or two days a year and where the TNC haven't been. Brian L Dominic Web Sites: Canals: http://www.brianscanalpages.co.uk Friends of the Cromford Canal: http://www.cromfordcanal.org.uk (Waterways World Site of the Month, November 2005) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
