Slawit

Saturday 12 July 2014 – Slaithwaite, Huddersfield Narrow Canal

Graham had the early start as he needed to fill up with water, for me it was the regular 07:00 start, making sure we did not disturb the other boaters.  Our first interest was bridge 18 which is very low, a local advised that I dropped the chimney and flag, even so the fold-flat plastic crate on the roof almost touched!  Then it’s round the University buildings to the approach of 100yd ‘Bates Tunnel’ – this is a single width narrow culvert which opens out into double width before going back to single width.  Then there is the ‘Sellers Tunnel’.  It took us nearly two hours to cover the first three locks as the canal is very low and for most of the day we have been scraping the bottom.  We did get into a rhythm, with Beryl setting the lock and moving on to the next one, Graham or I going through and setting the lock again then the last one closing and re-setting the anti-vandal locks.  Even so it was a long and tedious run – 21 locks in 4 miles.

The locks on the Huddersfield Narrow are 70ft long and 6’10” beam but on the Huddersfield Broad they are 57ft with 14’2” beam so there is an immediate problem with a continuous route from Stalybridge to Wakefield except in a 57ft narrowboat.

The sun has been with us all day.