Selby

Here I am Rune

Distance 6.7 miles

Total 2806 Locks  130 Tunnels

Running total mileage 3957.9 miles 

So our final bit of Tidal water went OK today, about 1 hour and 15 minutes brought us from Barmby Barrage back here to Selby. It was interesting to see just how fast the river was flowing with an incoming Spring tide, I think on yesterday’s posting I said that it was possible to zip through Selby at 7mph if you got your timings wrong, I would say that you would go through a lot faster than that! 

We left Barmby at the recommended time of round about an hour before high water at Selby, well we left it a bit longer than that and didn’t set off until about 45 minutes before high water at Selby, even then the tide was still flowing pretty quickly. To get clear of bankside obstructions it is necessary to give the engine a bit of drive (only about 1700 rpm) when you first come out of Barmby Lock, well that short burst gave us a speed of about 7.5mph which was a lot faster than I wanted as it would have got me to Selby very much too early. I cut back to about 1400 rpm and was still travelling at 6.6mph so dropped right back to tickover which gave us a speed of about 6.2mph, I couldn’t go slower than that, as if the boat isn’t actually travelling through the water (the above speeds are speed over ground) then you lose all steerage.

 We held much the same speed (both in rpm and speed over ground) pretty much all the way to Selby Road Swing Bridge, getting there at about 9.15am, which should have been high tide. At that point I put the boat into neutral and let it drift with the tide, still travelling at 3mph. As we got towards Selby Lock the flow had slowed to about 2mph but it still meant that I wasn’t able to steer straight into the lock, it was necessary to turn the boat around to face into the current to then turn into the lock (I had been hoping that I wasn’t going to have to do that). There were two cruisers in the vicinity waiting for the railway bridge to be swung for them, so the turn had to be completed early since there is a period of time when turning that you have no control over the boat as it is swept sideways and I suspect the cruisers owners would have been too happy with a collision with 18 tons of narrowboat, we’d win that particular contest but it would do a fair bit of damage to them.

All went OK however and we will now be here in Selby probably until the weekend.

The two cruisers waiting for the rail bridge to swing.....

.....and RUNE just drifting towards Selby on the tide.