Notices had been coming through thick and fast from CRT about water shortages and closing lock flights. One of the Stone locks was closed for a couple of days for repair, Heartbreak Hill was padlocked temporarily. Those poor holiday makers, how frustrating to have planned to do the four counties ring in a week, only to find themselves unable to plough on with their 9 hour cruising days. Poor hire companies as well for that matter. We’d already felt the bottom at Whitebridge lane as lock usage drained the pound, (section of canal “impounded” between two locks) but as we were sitting in our nice comfy dry boat eating our tea, the heavens opened and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Eric and I shared a sympathetic smile with boat going past us at 6.30pm in the pouring rain. “Why on earth don’t they moor up here where there’s space and call it a day?” we thought, they’ve got to get up the 4 Meaford locks in the rain now, where’s the fun in that. No wonder we didn’t see any more boats that day. Just before we turned in for the night I checked my emails, oh no, another closure….. boat sunk in Meaford locks, rescue squad arriving to assess at 9am…..was it those poor bedraggled holiday makers, or had they got through.
Only one way to find out, as soon as we’d had our first cup of coffee we walked up to the flight. Bottom Lock all clear,
Second lock, the pound looked low,
Oh dear as we rounded the corner we saw a sight we didn’t want to see again
It was our unfortunate holiday makers,
There was already a gathering of CRT men, I suspect they were the local volunteers and the hire company staff on sight
The engine had obviously been under water
But the bow was clearly stuck on the cill,
No one could be quite sure how it happened, apparently it happened very quickly. The lock had obviously been full as they had been able to open the gate and had started to leave the lock, when probably due to low water levels they had caught on the cill. Unable to close the gate to add more water as the leaky lock gates then drained the lock and the boat tipped back. It must have been terrifying. Apparently they all got off safely.
And with the top gates open the pound above drained completely.
You can see why it’s so horrible cruising when the water levels are low with so many stones on the bottom.
We debated about whether or not it was acceptable to post pictures of a boat in distress, but as neither the crew or the boat are identifiable we decided it was a salutary lesson to us all. We don’t think the crew was actually at fault, possibly just inexperienced, What they should have done, was let more water into the pound above the lock to refloat their boat. But would we have thought quickly enough to do that in the heat of the moment, who can say. The RCR (river canal rescue) turned up at 9 and they set about planning how to sort it out. So we returned to Firecrest for some breakfast. We planned to walk back up later to see how they were doing, but we couldn’t quite believe it, by lunch time the boat was rescued the pound refilled and boaters were on the move once more. The hire company even managed to get the engine running on the sunk boat and were cruising it back to base.
