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NB Dawn breasted up to TheWayfarer, ready to leave for Gargrave.

The canal at Gargrave is closing for winter repairs, I need to move DAWN down to Skipton so that Pennine Cruisers can do some work on her. Edward who has the boat WAYFARER need to be on the Bingley side of the repair work. The plan was to tow WAYFARER to Skipton.

Sue gave me and Josh a lift to the boat and we were ready to leave Just after 10 am. Edward had already turned his boat round, so we breasted the two boats up, and headed down to the first of the Gargrave locks.

When we arrived, BW had there broad beam boat with a crane on, there already, as they saw us coming, they took there boat into the lock and started to unload her. Even though Edward had his BW uniform on, they were reluctant to talk to us. We ended up waiting over half an hour for them to move out out of the way. They reversed out of the lock, but refused to move far enough backwards to leave us room to get into the lock, with out untying the boats and manually pulling WAYFARER in, we then maneuvered DAWN in.

The other 5 locks of the Gargrave flights, where covered easily. We stopped for while after going through the village for Edward to take on coal, from the coal merchant. We took a couple of sacks for DAWN.

The fun part of going breasted up is the steering and stopping, going etc. OK just about every thing. As Edward boat WAYFARER did not have a working engine, there was no water being pushed past his rudder, its effect on direction, was about non-existence. So DAWN was not just powering both boats, but was also steering both boats. So:

• Accelerating - caused both boats go towards the bank on WAYFARERS side, as WAYFARER acted as a brake on that side.

• Reversing - caused both boats to go towards the bank on DAWNS side, as WAYFARERS momentum, kept it going and it tried to overtake DAWN.

• Going steady - still caused the boats to slowly go towards the bank on WAYFARERS side, as it acted as a brake on that side.

The rudder only made slight changes in directions, the best you could hope for was to go along the canal, crab wise. The technique we used was;

Turn left - Accelerating DAWN, it tried to overtake WAYFARER push both to the left.

Turn right - Put DAWN into reverse, this slowed DAWN down, caused WAYFARER to try and overtake DAWN and push us over to the right.

Bridges - As the boats will be approaching crab wise fashion, they would be to wide to fit through the gap, so we approached as if WAYFARER might hit the side, at the last moment, we put DAWN in reverse, this pulled WAYFARER away from the bank, also straightening up the boats, making a narrower profile that would now fit through the bridge hole. (Just to make it more fun, WAYFARER had a tallish chimney we could not move, which we had to be careful of under bridges.)

The only fun we had was after going through a swing bridge, there was a right had turn, which normally means braking DAWN, but as we were now at a standstill, we could only accelerate DAWN which meant we went left and the rudder was useless. To compound the problem, there was some moored boats (new) in the turn. There was also a gentle breeze blowing us towards these boats. So we ended up drifting towards them, meaning we had to gently fend our selves of and gently ease our selves past them before we went on our way.

BW broadbeam blocking the lock	Another shot of the broadbeam	DAWN and WAYFERER waiting, breasted up.
Another shot of both boats waiting.	Both boats at the coal wharf	Edward organising the coal.
The next lock is just round the corner, Josh readies him self to jump ship, to ready the lock.	Edward looking rather cold.	The back of Josh.
Both boats in the lock	Both boats going slowly down.	Edward at the front, ready to fend of what ever boat may hit the side as we go through the swing bridge - Josh has already opened the swing bridge.
We tried for a while to toe WAYFARER, we seemed to go faster, but direction was more difficult to predict, we really needed a bigger rudder on WAYFARER.	Just a blur, me moving through DAWN, taken by Josh.	Skipton as seen from DAWN.