Foxton Locks - brass plaque please!

We did it today! On a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon my brother Philip and I set off for the staircase of 10 locks (two lots of five). With the windlass in his hand he set about winding the paddles with the sound of 'red before white and you'll be alright' whistling on the wind.

This was my first experience driving into the locks and well, it went alright, a few crashes and bumps from side to side but that is all in the spirit of boating I feel. The locks can appear daunting places as you descend with great gates looming or vice-versa, enter a lock with gates taught from the force of water above.

Honestly the gates must be about 40ft high and with water piddling in I kept the boat far forward from the cill to avoid tipping and filling the boat with the cut. I had planned my quick escape route just incase all things went skew-wiff... dash along the gunnel and head for the little ladder to dry land.


The trick was to judge the forward power, in to neutral to glide into the next open lock and reverse to pull the lady to a halt and prevent hitting the gates with force and bouncing back, which I achieved to do quite a few times as it so goes.



We took the final lock, under bridge 61, next to the lovely boater pub aptly named 61. We waved a farewell to the lock-keeper who was super helpful and a lovely passer by lady who joined in with the opening and closing of the gates. We tied her up next to a couple of boats with house cats and popped into 61. With just enough time for a snack at the bottom and we set off for the car back to Leigh making his special stew at home. What a love.


until next time....