First Voyage advice please

[regthecat]

Hi All,

Taking delivery of my boat on 8th April and I intend to spent about 9 days bring it from Yelvertoft Marina to Rickmansworth. Any advice on locking, places to moor overnight, what to look out for, nice places to stop etc. It'll be my first ever time doing a trip like this so any help and advice appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

[mrsmelly]

2 minutes ago, regthecat said:

Hi All,

Taking delivery of my boat on 8th April and I intend to spent about 9 days bring it from Yelvertoft Marina to Rickmansworth. Any advice on locking, places to moor overnight, what to look out for, nice places to stop etc. It'll be my first ever time doing a trip like this so any help and advice appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

 

Hope it all goes well and you have a great first trip. The most important bit of advice I can give is to ensure a good stock of wine/beer/gin and tonic and two corkscrews and bottle openers. Enjoy.

[matty40s]

1st night down the Watford Flight and atop at the New Inn. 

Day 2, Stoke Bruerne 2 pubs 

Day 3 Down SB locks Through Milton Keynes . 3 Locks or the Grove Lock pub.

Day 4 Marsworth or Bulbourne.

Day 5 Berkhamstead Rising Sun

Day 6 Kings Langley or Cassiobury Park

Day 7 Rickmansworth

 

This leaves you plenty of spare time for half days and rain stoppages 

[Peter X]

Yelvertoft to Rickmansworth in 9 days is a relaxed pace (to me anyway, some would see that as hectic!), about five hours boating a day, but you might like to get a bit ahead of that schedule so that it stays relaxed if anything happens to delay you. Canalplan is a very useful site for planning a schedule for a trip, or listen to matty40s, he knows what he's talking about.

It sounds as if you have little boating experience and you don't mention crew; it's quite possible to do it single handed but if you are, please read up about the techniques for that, there are lots of articles on this forum, or ask about any specific concerns. I would advise that at least at the start of your trip you have someone along to help you, preferably someone with some inland boating experience, but anyone with a bit of common sense is better than no-one, although I can think of at least one experienced boater on here who prefers to go single handed. Not owning a boat myself, quite often I offer myself as crew for this sort of trip, but I'm busy in April.

You'll need a properly equipped boat that works of course, so it's best before the trip to try it out a bit and fix any known problems, but there are plenty of places along the way that can help you.

Your route takes you down the GU and will involve doing a lot of wide locks, by the end of it you'll be pretty confident with them. Features you'll meet early on are Crick tunnel, the Watford staircase lock, Buckby locks and the long Blisworth tunnel. All perfectly doable. If you turn up at the Watford staircase during the day there are volunteers there to help you through and I expect they'll be happy to teach you a bit about lock operation.

[Dharl]

On ‎17‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 11:44, matty40s said:

1st night down the Watford Flight and atop at the New Inn. 

Day 2, Stoke Bruerne 2 pubs 

Day 3 Down SB locks Through Milton Keynes . 3 Locks or the Grove Lock pub.

Day 4 Marsworth or Bulbourne.

Day 5 Berkhamstead Rising Sun

Day 6 Kings Langley or Cassiobury Park

Day 7 Rickmansworth

the 3 Locks other side of MK gets my vote...

 

As Peter X says, particular if your first ever trip on the inland waterway ask an experienced person to join you for some or all of the way to help out with passing on the experience.    Another option might be to volunteer your services as a lock wielder or crew (check out the Crew Swap feature) for a day or two in order to get some experience on the water way.

 

Best of all relax, don't rush ANYTHING and enjoy yourself!