Selby (Again)

Monday 17/7/17
Woke up to another glorious sunny morning in Ripon, perfect weather for a cruise down the river.
I had a chat with the lady responsible for the upkeep of this short canal, apologising for our overstay, she replied it was ok as it was quite and had been all summer so far, she was concerned that rumours of leaky locks etc were putting people off making the journey up river. Anyone reading this who may be considering this trip should not be put off as it is no worse than other canals and is a lovely place to stay and explore.

Ripon Basin just before our departure

The Motley Crew

We had to wait for two crew members to join us, John Lockwood and Dave Miles, they left one car at Naburn Marina (who kindly allowed them to leave the car in their secure car park overnight) and then drove up to Ripon to leave a car there.
They arrived around lunchtime and we commenced our journey down the canal towards the river through the two locks below the town.












We arrived at the river lock at Oxclose to find two other boats waiting to come up but as the lock was full they kindly locked us through first, however the tail gates proved difficult to open so I climbed up the ladder out of the lock to assist and rejoined the boat below the lock.
The conditions were perfect for river cruising and we soon passed Newby Hall and gardens, thronging with visitors who all gave us a friendly wave as we cruised by.

Approaching Newby Hall from upstream

We passed through Westwick Lock and on to the confluence of the Swale, here we passed a couple in a Kayak on their way downstream, then onto Boroughbridge passing under the busy A1M before reaching Milby Lock. This was our last lock of the day and we carried along downstream passing the occasional boat coming the other way.

Dave is a member of the Leeds and District Angling club and knows most of this stretch of the river intimately and it  was interesting discovering the best "pegs" for fishing and also noting how much time and effort goes into maintaining the banks for access etc.

We arrived at Linton around 6 pm, almost missing the weir cut due to my not concentrating on where we going and too busy discussing all the other boats moored around.

Dave had suggested that we go for a curry at the pub in Linton so we readied ourselves and set off. As we were passing the lock a small cruiser arrived to go through, two females disembarked to operate the lock, they had obviously had a good day on the river and were somewhat the worst for wear and were struggling  to operate the gates so we duly offered our assistance and soon got the boat through, the two guys on the boat had also had a drink or two and didn't bother to rope the boat up and sustained a few heavy blows on the lock walls. One of the girls came back to the lock to see where the boat was and tripped as she approached the lock, just managing to grab the lock beam and avoid a  very nasty fall into a very deep lock!

We continued into the village and reached the pub, The College Arms, in the village of Linton. The pub is unusual in that is attached to an Indian/ Bangladeshi restaurant, they allowed us to sit, with Scruff, and order and eat our meal in the bar. The restaurant is called Saffron and the food was superb particularly when accompanied by a few pints of well kept John Smiths Cask.

We stayed overnight on the pontoon mooring above the lock, waking up to another fine morning. We had a brief stroll around the area examining the works being undertaken to install a huge Archimedes Screw, presumably to be used for power generation, adjacent to the one in current use alongside the weir.
There was a small tent pitched close by and as were looking over the river, a very tired looking young couple emerged blinking into the sunlight and stretching their arms, they were the couple we had passed in the kayak the day before and had decided to abandon their trip down to York from Ripon as it had been a very long day to reach Linton, they were now waiting to be picked up to go home.

We got through the lock and commenced our trip down the river, with more "tales of the riverbank" from Dave, before taking it steady through York due to the number of trip and hire boats.

We passed under the A64 and alongside the bishops palace at Bishopthorpe before arriving at Naburn Marina to drop off our crew and take on some more fuel.

Our intention was to stop at Naburn until the early tide on Thursday morning but on arriving we met the lock keeper who informed us that the next locking was about half an hour after we had arrived so we decided, because they were still Neap tides, that we should carry on down to Selby.

A busy Naburn Lock

"Wind over Tide" on the tideway below Cawood

We locked through and set off along the tideway, stemming the tide as far as Cawood at which point the tide turned and we quickly picked up speed, reaching Selby in around 2 and half hours. The turn into Selby lock was a bit of a disaster, the boat in front of us turned well before the lock and reversed with the tide until he passed the lock entrance then pushed against the tide and into the lock, I started my turn at this point to do the same but the river was narrow, as I completed the turn and the tide pushed us into the wall above the lock, I had no choice but to turn again back into the tide, the bow caught on the shallows causing the boat to keel due to the pressure of the water rushing through, fortunately I managed to rescue the situation by reversing quickly back into the river giving myself enough time and room to turn into the lock, thankfully none of this was witnessed by anyone watching from the lock as we came into view just as I was turning into the lock and got in without touching the sides!. Needless to say it was with great relief when we tied up to ready to be lifted off the river.
We are now moored up in Selby again, and today (wed 19/7) we decided to have a trip into Hull by train and explore the City of Culture.