From David@scars.demon.co.uk Sat Aug 28 20:00:51 1999 Date: Sat, 21 Aug 1999 20:08:42 +0100 From: David Long Reply-To: Canals To: Canals Subject: Trip Report: The Meuse, Ardennes & Oise - after the balls-up was over.... My Reports in June saw the nb FALCON run from Reims to Douai, and then form the "convoy" linking the two sites of the 1999 World Canals Conference at Lille and La Louviere. Following that debacle (there were supposed to be a score or so other narrow boats shipped across, plus local craft), I thought to put misfortune behind us.... Michael Clarke, who lives not far from La Louviere, where we'd left FALCON three lifts up the set of four under instructions from a local official, kept an eye on her. He was panicked by one of the lift-keepers one day, who 'phoned to request he come immediately to the boat, as it was listing dangerously. It turned out that she'd merely been "beached" on the sloping concrete canal side by a passing boat... - one heave from Michael's foot, and she was floating clear again. Michael also kindly did one or two little maintenance jobs I'd not managed in our rush to get a lift towards home. Our plans for the summer were that "someone" would move FALCON up the Meuse, Canal de l'Est and along the Marne au Rhin to Nancy in time for our long cruise in August, which would leave her handy for my brother to do the Nirvenais. It didn't quite work out.... One volunteer had to withdraw, other "nibblers" failed to bite, but I managed to get some seasoned canal folk to do as much as they could in the fortnight before we arrived. They drove out to La Louviere, Michael did his best to get them started... but they didn't move for the first week. Then, when they did do the Sambre down to Namur, they suffered engine mount bolts shearing soon after getting onto the Meuse. Vibrations appear to have built up in the 300+ miles FALCON had done since getting her re-worked propellor fitted, and the weakest point obviously went. Thanks to Michael Clarke again (and despite a misdiagnosis which means I have refurbished UJ's on my prop shaft), repairs were eventually effected - but leaving no time for serious progress towards Nancy. Our crew sat tight, and awaited our arrival at the beginning of August. We arrived and took over on the afternoon of Monday, August 2nd. We set off for Paris, as we thought, via the Sambre. That meant going back over most of the distance they'd done - Namur to Charleroi. That's not a pleasant section - high concrete banks, not very clean, and leading to the Scrap Metal Centre of Europe (much of it moved about by 1000t peniches), which is rather unattractive from the canal. Only when we went through the first lock beyond Charleroi, when the Sambre starts to get pretty, that we were told that the canal was closed in France.... No Notices we'd seen en route, and the VNF, the French waterways authority, do not publish closure lists for their Licence Holders. Rather a miserable night - it had rained in the day... and the repair to the engine mounting had sheared off! I got up early next morning at the only mooring we could find - under a busy railway bridge. Using a generator troubled no one, so I bodged up a way of adding strength to the mounting using my drill. It seems to have worked - THAT mounting has given no further trouble.... By the time another pleasure boat appeared to go down the lock, we were ready to retrace our steps to Namur. The Sambre is much more pleasant downhill. We weren't able to cruise at max. - the broken mounting had set up yet more vibrations, so successive sets of bolts shook loose and had to be tracked down and tightened up.... After a couple of days, at Dinant, I'd cracked it, and we made much better progress thereafter. There was only one further complication - a piece of "Duck" tap decided to return to nature. It was being used to pad out the neck of the air intake to keep the filter in place - it managed to get sucked into said air duct! - that stopped us dead as we approached a Meuse lock. I steered to the side, threw a rope to a passer-by, and he hauled us aground! It took longer to get afloat again from the stone and concrete bank than it did to track down the problem and sort it out. At Dinant we had a lovely big bowl of moules mariniere, and really good chips. It's a very busy place for visiting craft, so we'd been lucky to get a mooring on the pontoon. That made life easier when the trip boats and peniches passed by. We reached Charleville on Monday 9th. The moorings were full, but a very kind German boater helped us moor up outside the local canoe club... from where he had to help Jacquie shift FALCON next day. He wasn't just kind to us - he'd towed another boat into the moorings... and used his angle-grinder to take a section out of the owner's ring spanner when the repair required an open ring spanner (what's the proper term for that?). Tuesday morning I toddled off to the station, to make what turned out to be long-winded, if quite pleasant, trip back for the car near Namur. It took over six hours to do the round trip. At Compiegne at the end of the week we discovered it would take eight hours, via Paris and Reims, to reach the car again... whereas there was a direct 2-hour express from Compiegne to Namur! Thanks to the car, however, we were able to replace an empty gas bottle, renew the wine rack, and get in supplies for the next few days. That afternoon we set out again, reaching the Ardennes Canal junction with the Meuse at Pont a Bar at about 6.30pm. We moored up where any peniche arriving too late to lock through would want to tie up - and hoped that the one which went through just before 7.30pm was the last that day. It wasn't, but we didn't mind the 300t laden peniche which lumbered up at 8.45pm leaning on us for the night. It meant we were awake with him at 6.30am, however! The Wednesday was the day of the eclipse - and we were in the path of totality... but it was very overcast. We wondered how the folk in Charleville-Meziere would take that after all the elaborate plans they'd been making to mark the event - tableaux, dancing etc.. After a pair of locks we passed through a short tunnel - at the end of which I'd found a couple more bolts to tighten up.... By now it was around 11.30pm, and the total eclipse would be reached within the hour. Already folk were finding their viewing points, and looking expectantly towards the place where the sun would be seen, if it weren't for the clouds. Most had the special glasses which French opticians were handing out free to anyone who asked. Soon we were able to see, through thinner cloud cover, the eclipse commence. My film ran out as I took shots - Jacquie threw me a replacement... which bounced on the cabin top and fell into the water. A peniche was coming towards us, so an immediate recovery was impossible - and we got beached as we sat waiting for it to pass. Fortunately the film was in its box, so was still floating when we'd turned to find it. The delay was fortunate - if it hadn't occurred we would probably actually have been in the next lock at the moment of totality. As it was we were still in the open. It went quiet, and very dark (the sensors on the lights at the lock switched the lights on) - and then, behind the sun, as it were, we saw a kind of dawn advancing through the gaps in the cloud, and suddenly it was light again. For a little while after we watched a flock of birds flying seemingly in confusion in its wake. It had, however, been too cloudy for me to take any shots of the period of total eclipse. Our intended destination for that day was Le Chesne, at the top of a ladder of 26 linked automatic locks. We arrived there around 4pm - so decided to do as much of the flight as possible. A Dutch cruiser arrived as we went into the first lock. We went through in fine style. Despite an increasing alcoholic intake, he was very adept at nudging the bar at water-level which signified our entrance and exit from each lock. His crew went ashore for a stroll for the first few locks. By the time they returned, with posies of wild flowers for our boat and theirs, we had a very efficient system going, with us operating the lever to close the upper gates and open the paddles in the lower ones. They settled down to a few beers, while we stayed sober and vigilant. We would have completed the flight before the 7.30pm closure time, but moored up above the last lock as there is no possibility of mooring below it and the next lock, as the Aisne flows across the next pound. That evening, on our evening stroll, we found a barn full of locals around a table, celebrating the eclipse. The Dutch left early - I had the water pump to resecure.... We got going after breakfast, and continued down this beautiful canal. Lovely lock keepers' cottages stand empty, waiting for the VNF to cash in on their assets. We arrived at Rethel for a late lunch - the town had obviously had fun on the day of the eclipse, judging by the events advertised. We pressed on, finally mooring up along from a peniche awaiting loading at a grain silo lower down. Some towns set up traps for boaters, with mooring places, with electricity and water if they're really keen, and picnic tables - but not where we stopped. By next day we were off the Ardennes, and on the Lateral a l'Aisne (though we'd been that since the morning before). We arrived at Berry au Bac for the 12.30 lunchtime break. We were locked through when Jacquie returned from the Boulangerie at 12.50pm. There is then a lovely, lock- free section winding through the woods towards Soissons. We moored up above the double locks which take you down onto the River Aisne itself, at Mailly sur Aisne. There's a big wide, with willows providing shade - but no facilities. These, we discovered, were at an empty pontoon down on the river itself. If we'd known, we would happily have locked down, and motored back up the 2.5km of river to this spot.... As we pulled out next morning, a laden peniche came round a bend a few hundred metres away. We were fortunate in our timing. We would not have been able to get past him before the locks, and that would have delayed us by at least an hour... in the rain. As in June, we were to suffer heavy rain once on the Aisne. Still, thanks to earlier showers, I was at least in my waterproofs this time. I was, certainly, better off than the poor chap we passed later - he was steering, on an exposed deck, the front section of a divisible tanker. On the Seine, and some Northern canals, they travel as a unit about 120m in length. When they reach the Nord or the Aisne they split in two. The master in the rear half has the luxury of his high cabin - his Mate suffers out in the open. No wonder he didn't allow me much leeway! The vessel had obviously been split before the rain started, and doubtless his waterproofs were nice and dry with his Captain, leaving him cold and wet in his jumper and shirt. At Soissons Jacquie shopped whilst I went to check trains for Charleville for when we arrived at Compiegne - it didn't look hopeful. Still, by the Saturday night, after 457 kms (65 of them twice!), we were at Compiegne. There we discovered that our intended mooring, in the base of the Touring Club de France, that visitors were no longer welcomed as on previous occasions. A sign directed us to the "Halte Fluvial" lower down. There was no halte - only a section of bank where pleasure craft moored up to the river wall. No facilities - not even mooring rings - in a town of such historicity as Compiegne. No wonder folks didn't stay long there to spend their Francs. It was bouncy, to say the least. A local motor boat owner ignored the speed restriction signs, and bounced us worse than most commercial craft - except for the idiot empty peniche masters who came racing out of the lock below, determined to beat whoever they'd cleared with to the next lock. They didn't respond well to criticism. My brother Geoff was taking over from us at Compiegne. Their intended route was to complete the circuit back to Reims by going down the Oise to Conflans Ste Honorine on the Seine, and thence to Paris, returning via the Marne. Before they took over, we went in his car to Charleville for my car, and took his to our moorings, ready for his arrival there at the end of his trip. Our friends there, however, dropped the bombshell - the Marne is closed until September 5th! We ate well at a Logis de France (a Menu around 130 - 150 Frs in one of these has always been found to be of very good quality and value) that night. Next day we filled the FALCON with diesel and water, whilst Geoff went for the essential supplies they needed - beer, wine, and a little food. We handed FALCON over in mid-morning and set off for the ferry. -- David Long Sankey Canal Restoration Society http://www.scars.demon.co.uk/scars/ Updated August 1999. --- The UK Waterways Network - http://www.ukwaterways.net/ * bringing the inland waterways community together * You are currently subscribed to canals as: george@adiva.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-canals-407N@ukwaterways.net