Unaccustomed as I am to posting these days, I thought others might be interested in our recent brief outing on to the Black Sluice Navigation on the South Forty Foot Drain at Boston. We have spent the last 10 days pootling around on the Fossdyke/Witham before heading north to Sheffield and beyond, so it was an ideal opportuntiy to take a look at this newly-opened navigation, the first stage in the Fens Waterways Link (see http://www.fenswaterways.com for more details).
I phoned the booking line last Tuesday and booked our passage through Boston Grand Sluice for 13:15 on Wednesday, returning through Grand Sluice next day at 14:10. As Black Sluice Lock/Navigation is EA-controlled, an EA licence is required (we have a Gold this year, so no problem); temporary licences can be issued by the Black Sluice locky, at a cost of £10 per day I think. We arrived at Grand Sluice 30 minutes early as instructed and breasted up to D.B. Helianthus who were also booked through (for 2 days in their case). As both boats are more than 41ft, we had to wait for the tide to make a level before starting - this was a little late and we didn't go through until about 13:40. Helianthus went first as te Black Sluice locky wanted to lock them through first, the lock not being quite wide enough to take us both. We therefore had to wait on the new pontoon mooring in the Haven until we got a green light. Black Sluice Lock is very impressive - the control room is like something out of Star Trek. Once on to the navigation, we chugged on as far as Swineshead Bridge, winded the boat and returned to Hubbert's Bridge to moor for the night , as rumour had it that the Wheatsheaf at Hubbert's is preferable to the Barge at Swineshead. I can thoroughly recommend the burger and chips! Apart from the pubs, there's isn't much to see - it's a typical fen drain with very high banks and very long, very straight sections. Our return trip was interesting. The EA locky didn't think he'd have enough water to lock us out into the Haven in time for use to catch a level tide at Grand Sluice on the rising tide. If we missed it, we'd have to tie up to the risers outside Grand Sluice and wait for a level on the falling tide, 4 hours or so later. The alternative was to wait at Black Sluice and lock out on the falling tide, but the locky thought there might be clearance problems under one or two of the bridges if we did that. Hmmm. We opted for the early option. He locked us up into the Haven as soon as the river level was high enough, and I gunned it up the Haven as fast as I could, only slowing down briefly once as we passed a liveaboard - he was just eating an alfresco lunch and I didn't want it to end up in the water. Luckily, we made Grand Sluice with a few minutes to spare, so we avoided the 4-hour wait. We were told later that we were the first boat to have done this - how cool is that!! But there have only been 20 boats through since the opening, so maybe not so cool? I got the impression the lockies are still refining their timings a bit. In the light of our trip, they seemed to conclude that on a tide less than 6.5m (which is what we had) there is enough time, but on higher tides the level rises too quickly. So that's about it. Our second stretch of tidal waterway completed; there'll be a few more by the end of this summer. -- Robin Lewis
