Winsoming from Windsor to Hurley

Potential customers of our 17 foot pedal-powered boat, Winsome, sometimes ask us whether the boat is roomy enough to carry overnight camping gear on longer cruises. We assure them that it is whilst admitting, slightly shamefacedly, that we have never actually tried it. We have so far opted for overnight accommodation in waterside pubs and B&B’s on our occasional longer cruises. So, when summer arrived in the UK for
the first time last week, we decided to experiment with a 2 day cruise camping overnight.

We were keen to try an ‘un-Winsomed’ stretch of the Thames and so settled on launching at Windsor and pedalling 15 miles upstream to Hurley lock where we found we could book a camping pitch on an island.

We launched the boat at Windsor Leisure Centre.

Their public slipway (free) was excellent with plenty of room for parking and offloading and mooring alongside. The only people we saw were a couple of friendly Traffic Police having their morning break and they were keen to learn about Winsome.

Having launched, we had to park the car in the adjacent Pay & Display car park. The meter only allows you to pay for 24 hours (£10) but the carpark staff said that, as long as we paid for 2 days and attached two tickets to our windscreen, all would be well. Although that cost us a total of £20, we considered it cheap for the combined use of a Thames slipway and overnight parking.

Earlier experimentation had shown that our sleeping bags and mattresses (packed in Waterproof Dry Tube bags) would fairly easily stow in the fore and aft buoyancy chambers without overfilling them. We slung the tent under the engine ‘bridge’ under one side deck. That kept it well clear of our pedalling. The stove and cool bag went behind one seat and the food box and clothes bag behind the other. With the bulky stuff out of the cockpit or stored behind the seats, the boat didn’t seem unusually full at all.

At 11.30am, with everything stowed we pedalled off under Windsor Bridge. In the stretch by Windsor Racecourse, we encountered an Environmental Agency Boat floating midstream with a flashing blue light and a strange set of bubbles astern. As we passed, a couple of divers surfaced. Sadly, we discovered from the lock keeper at the nearby Boveney lock that they were police divers searching for a man who had gone missing after diving off a trip boat the previous evening. A sobering start to our trip.

We needed to make it to Hurley Lock (15.2 miles) by 6.30pm to collect the key for the island campsite before the lock keepers went off duty. We were therefore pleased to discover that we were easily averaging between 3.5mph and 4mph against the stream but a long wait at the first two locks reminded us why canal folks measure distances in ‘lock miles’ and why we couldn’t afford too many stops en route. The idle time at locks reduced our overall trip speed to 2.8mph.

Winsoming on the Thames on a glorious summer’s day is a delightful experience.

For a start, every bend in the river brings new interest – grand houses,

beautifully cut lawns, ancient churches and priories,

famous bridges, impressive weirs and, best of all, some beautiful traditional riverboats.

And inbetween you pass through silent wooded stretches with a glimpse of a mansion (in this case Cliveden) in the distance.

The only thing which spoils the experience is the number of high-rise, gas guzzling, white motor cruisers which thunder by (sometimes two abreast) in complete oblivion of the noise, fumes and disturbing wash they create. Do they leave such an ungainly wash because of their huge square sterns? We noticed that the traditional river trip boats with their elegant counter sterns created minimal wash despite being 2 or 3 times the size. Maybe, the Environment Agency could start to charge licence fees according to hull shape and engine size….

As on our previous Thames trips, we found the 7 locks (whilst time consuming) formed a timely break from pedalling.

We enjoyed putting our feet up, chatting to the lockkeepers, responding to the inevitable Winsome interest and passing the time of day with other river users. We’d still like to find an alternative to hanging onto the slimy green chains as the lock fills/empties. Getting wet gloves on and off is tedious and hooking the chain links with the boat hook or other hooked implement can be fiddly. The rush of water filling the lock looks alarming (from our lowly position) but disturbs Winsome’s equilibrium surprisingly little.

We are more affected by the turbulence (and fumes!) created by the boats leaving the lock ahead of us. We like to nip out first, when we can, given that our initial acceleration is a lot faster.

Passing under Marlow bridge at the 12 mile mark, our legs started to feel tired for the first time. We became more aware of the hot sun and the strength of stream against us and our pedalling speed dropped below 3mph. We passed the famous Compleat Angler Hotel and thirstily eyed their attractive terrace restaurant. However, the pristine white table cloths, besuited waiters and well dressed clientele sipping champagne sent out a less than welcoming message to a couple of sweaty pedallers in shorts and sunhats. Instead, the crew produced a couple of chilled beers out of our onboard cool bag and on we sped, refreshed, to tackle the last two locks and last 3 miles of river arriving at our destination, Hurley Lock, at 5.30pm.

At Hurley, we camped on an island behind the lock (£7.50) and were delighted to be able to pitch our tent within feet of the boat.

Our “neighbours” (a large family from Reading) welcomed us, showed us the ropes, lent us their mallet and generally made us feel at home. A short stroll into the village brought us to the Rising Sun Inn where we ate and drank well before returning tired and happy to our camp.


Our second day dawned early (courtesy of the Heathrow flight path!) and we managed to have breakfast in the sun, strike camp, re-pack the boat and be ready for Hurley Lock when it opened at 9am.

As we turned for home, we immediately noticed the difference of pedalling ‘downhill’. With fresh legs, we found ourselves batting along at an easy 4.5-5mph, recording a 6.8mph maximum speed at one point (showing off probably). We certainly surprised the friendly Irish skipper of a narrow boat (also heading for Windsor) when we stayed ahead of him fairly effortlessly for the entire morning until we reached Maidenhead and stopped for lunch.

With the weather again so hot, we were delighted to discover that wrapping our water bottle in a wet sock (and dunking it over the side at regular intervals to keep it wet) kept the water at a pleasantly cool temperature for drinking. The wonders of evaporation.

Even though we were effectively retracing yesterday’s steps, we found that the return trip was entirely different.


Having left Hurley Lock at 9.15am and had a brief lunch stop, it looked like we’d be back in Windsor by 2pm. However, at our last lock (Boveney), we were waved inside by the keeper who informed us that the river ahead was closed and we would have to stay in the lock until it reopened. It transpired that the police divers had found the body they had been searching for and were currently recovering it. The news was sobering and we chatted about the tragedy with the crew of a trip boat who were sharing the lock. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to see how one could quickly recover a man in the water from such a large boat.

We eventually arrived back at Windsor Leisure Centre at 2.45pm and unpacked and recovered the boat, lashed it on the roofrack and were heading reluctantly for the M4 within 30-40 minutes.

Next time, I think we might try 2 nights camping and a 60 mile trip (downhill) if we can find a train or bus service to get us back to rescue the car. Winsome still has plenty of the Thames left to explore.

Whither Winsome?

Fans of Winsome may be wondering what happened to us. Well, we’re back and ready for a fresh Winsoming season.

In 2007, we covered 500 miles in our 17 foot, pedal-powered boat. As readers of this blog will know, we pedalled the Montogomery, Llangollen, Lancaster, Kennet and Avon, Gloucester & Sharpness and Grand Western canals, the River Thames, Cardiff and Bristol city harbours, the Norfolk Broads and Lakes Windermere, Coniston and finally Derwent Water. The boat and her sister ship also traversed Loch Ness and the Caledonian Canal in aid of charity last August.

The new season has kicked off well with several sunny evening trips from our home port of Pencelli on the Mon & Brec canal a few miles along to our local pubs at either Talybont-on-Usk in an Easterly direction or Groessfordd to the West.

We are booked into the Saul Canal Festival (4th-6th July) and will be offering people the chance to try out the boat there. We also plan to attend the Green Boat Show in Norfolk again in September. Anyone who would like to try the boat is welcome to contact us.

We hope to visit Henley and Marlow this summer on a 2-3 day trip and are also looking at the possibility of pedalling from Dartmouth to Totnes if we can judge the tides right.

Look out for us.

Winsome on Derwentwater

At the kind invitation of the Camping and Caravanning Club, we took our pedal powered boat, Winsome, up to Derwentwater to take part in their Open Day for selling their Exclusive Holiday Lodges at Lakeside, Keswick. The photo show one of the residents kindly cleaning the jetty for us!


The weather was overcast but dry and the lake was calm and very inviting for pedalling.


Unfortunately, very few lodge owners or visitors were around but, given that Winsome is named after my late aunt, Winsome Baty, we welcomed a visit by some of her other Baty relatives and friends who happened to be holidaying in the area.





They enjoyed trying out the boat and chatting about the design. It's always encouraging when keen cyclists give Winsome the thumbs up.



Later we pedalled over to Nichol End Marina where we enjoyed some excellent home made soup and a reviving cup of tea.

After giving one of the lodgers a go in Winsome, things went quiet again and we couldn’t resist the pull of exploring the lake. En route, we chatted to becalmed sailors, dodged the steamer's alarming wake, amazed people with our speed (Winsome definitely moves faster on lakes) and enjoyed watching paragliders gradually descending from Cat Bells in the still afternoon air.



Derwentwater is beautiful but maybe a little on the small size for dedicated Winsome pedallers – getting to the South end and back took not much more than an hour even with a detour to visit the Keswick jetties and boat hire. Still, the cups of tea at Nichol marina and the many tiny islands offer plenty in the way of exploration for the more leisurely, short hop Winsomer.

Winsome at Saul Junction

The Saul Canal Trust is keen for us to bring Winsome to their 2007 festival at the end of June. Understandably, they were anxious to check the boat out first from a safety point of view, given that we are keen to encourage members of the public to try the boat out.
So, on Easter Monday, we took the boat to Saul junction on the Gloucester and Sharpness canal to let the festival organisers try her out.

Saul is a lovely spot, the canal is surprisingly wide and the sight of interesting passing boats instantly gives the keen Winsomer a hankering to get on the water and go places – upstream to Gloucester docks or downstream to Slimbridge and Sharpness.

First of all, we gave a number of Canal Trust members a go in the boat. They were all narrow boat owners but seemed enthusiastic about the different, more flexible and slightly more active experience which Winsome offers even a seasoned narrow boat owner. The comfort of Nick’s reclining seats and the touch sensitive tiller attracted particular praise!

Promising to return later, we then set off downstream to Slimbridge where we had been promised we would find ‘The Black Barn’ café.



There are numerous bridges over the canal with operators on duty and a red/green traffic light system in operation. It transpired that the system was for powered boats only and we discovered that the operators tended to ignore us in the hopes (probably) that we could squeeze under the bridges without the hassle of them opening them. Fortunately, we found that this was indeed the case although squeeze was an apposite term – we developed a technique of pedalling fast up to the bridge with the crew trustfully relying on the helmswoman shouting “DUCK” just before his head hit the oncoming bridge. We both then slid down in our (very comfortable) reclining seats until our heads were just above the gunwale and shot the bridge in impressive fashion (continuing to pedal risked banging our knees!).

Apart from shooting bridges, much of the interest (to us anyway) on this canal was the other boats, including huge commercial barges.

After 50 minutes, we arrived at the Black Barn café and moored alongside and purchased a welcome cup of tea and sausage roll. The photo shows the skipper consuming the same.




The return trip to Saul passed without incident. The GPS showed Winsome travelling significantly faster (when we pedalled at our ‘normal’ cruising speed) than on our considerably narrower and shallower home waters. We had noted this effect on Lake Windermere previously. The Mon & Brec canal is only 4 foot deep and very narrow and one can see (let alone feel) the volume of water which Winsome (and her pedallers) have to displace in order to move along.

After providing more Canal Trust members with go’s in Winsome, we reluctantly took the boat out to go home. But our appetites are now whetted for a passage to Gloucester docks – and even maybe linking through to the River Severn and up to Tewkesbury – an overnight passage beckons….

Winsome’s Day Out at The Welsh Assembly

The Welsh Assembly run an all party ‘Waterways Group’ in partnership with British Waterways. The group’s brief is “Improved Quality of Life through the Sustainable Development of the Waterways of Wales”.

We had been invited by Marc Evans of Civitas Cymru to give a short presentation on Winsome at the next meeting of the ‘Waterways in Wales’ group on March 13th.. Winsome is certainly about “quality of life” on the Welsh Waterways, she definitely represents a sustainable mode of transport and, most importantly, she provides a perfect alliterative fit to the Group’s title! Maybe this is why Marc also asked if we’d be happy to make Winsome available for a photo call with Val Lloyd, the Assembly Member who chairs the working group.

So, Tuesday morning (February 27th) found us pedalling furiously in a blustery Force 4 and intermittent driving rain, across the broad expanse of Cardiff Bay headed for The Welsh Assembly. The Cardiff Bay Harbour Authority had been signed up to look after us for the morning and their friendly and helpful wardens did an outstanding job – from greeting us on the River Taff slipway until shepherding us home 3 hours later on a very rough and wet windward passage back across the Bay. By this time, despite the generous provision by the crew of a large (and fairly clean) handkerchief to dry the helmswoman’s spectacles, identifying the navigation buoys at the entrance to the Taff river had become a serious challenge.

This was probably the roughest conditions we have experienced in Winsome (although the nautically-robust Newlands have surfed in over a lively Cardigan Bay bar before now). We were really pleased with how stable she felt and how little “green stuff” we shipped. With the flow out of the river Taff, we also set off at a surging 5mph leaving the Harbour Authority power launch surprised to discover what it took to keep up with us!

Twenty minutes or so later, we arrived safely and tied up at the ‘Pay&Display’ jetties below the Senedd and retired (with our harbour authority friends) for a hot cup of Cappuccino before returning for the photo call with Val, Marc and friends. Val is not a boater but enjoyed (we hope) experiencing a craft which was dry and stable, had comfortable reclining seats and didn’t immediately demand any insider knowledge or specialist jargon. We just felt sorry not to able to give Val a more gentle introduction to Winsoming in the altogether calmer waters of Winsome’s home port - the Mon & Brec canal at Pencelli. Although it rains as much here as in Cardiff, our 20 foot wide canal struggles to develop any decent waves even in a gale!

Photo call over, it was back to the café for an enjoyable lunch learning about Marc Evans’ interesting company, Civitas Cymru – then, lifejackets, waterproofs and hats back on and out into the driving rain and wind for our return passage under the ever watchful eye of our patient Harbour Authority friends. As we busied ourselves sponging the rainwater out of Winsome’s bilges, they asked us (politely) whether we would prefer a tow home but my late father (a life-long sailing man) would have turned in his grave at the idea of his daughter accepting a tow simply because of adverse weather conditions – no, it was Winsoming back across the Bay for us into the strengthening Westerly wind and, as ever, we enjoyed it.

We also discovered just how quickly we are able to get Winsome out of the water, stripped down, loaded onto the roofrack and lashed down when it’s pouring with rain and we are both 100% focussed on getting home as soon as possible for hot showers and tea!

Winter Winsoming on Windermere

For a couple of days in mid January, we rented an historic cottage from the National Trust on the shores of Lake Windermere complete with its own stone jetty. The cottage – Low Strawberry Gardens – got its interesting name from a period during which the owner catered for a water-borne market in strawberry teas for Bowness-based tourists in the 19^th century.

We were able to launch Winsome (somewhat spectacularly) from her dolly over the side of the jetty. Although the jetty is also a slipway, when it reaches the water it degenerates into an irregular pile of rocks, preventing a more normal launch.

We had a GPS to monitor our speed and noticed straight away that we were going about ½ mph faster than we do on our canal. Although we hadn’t expected this, it makes sense because on a narrow canal I guess you expend energy moving the water along the channel, and on open water I suppose this effect is much less. In any event, for the same (low) energy input we were able to maintain a steady 4.5mph on Windermere, whereas we tend to cruise at 4 to 4.1mph on our canal.

Flush with this discovery, and freed (so we thought) from speed limits, we tried a short sprint. We found we could do 6.5mph fairly readily and peaked at 6.8. Not bad. We later learned that there is a speed limit on Windermere: 6mph where we were and 10mph elsewhere on the lake. Fortunately, our high spirits went (we have to hope) unnoticed by the authorities. In any case, true to form, Winsome leaves no discernible wake – which is more than can be said for the passenger boats that ply up and down the lake every day throughout the year.

The next morning dawned bright and clear and, in a gesture of majestic blasé, we decided to nip across the lake to Bowness before breakfast for our morning paper. This took about 15 minutes, or would have done but for a minor pilot error which saw us coasting merrily inside a perfect circle of hazard buoys. We managed to reverse out unscathed, grateful that the manoeuvre would not have been widely observed at 9:00 am on a January morning. Fortunately, reversing in a dead straight line is pretty easy in Winsome.

After returning to our cottage for a sumptuous breakfast (complete with morning paper), we set off again in Winsome northwards to the top of the lake, a distance on the chart of about 5 miles. The weather was mainly cloudy, with patches of sun that rarely seem to include where we were

It took us just over an hour to reach Waterhead. The lake was deserted on the way up except for the passenger boat that runs regularly up and down the lake and creates an exciting wash which, “taken at the flood”, can provide a sensation akin to surfing, but taken at right angles is less comfortable.

We passed a number of properties with wonderful boathouses just yawning for a Winsome. One of these is Wray Castle – a Victorian construction with turrets and mock castellation – reportedly rented in the summer by Beatrix Potter’s parents when she was a child. It is a much grander property than the house used in the recent film, and even in the 19^th century must have cost quite a bit to rent. But perhaps property rental at that time was not so much a commercial venture for the landlord – more a way of offsetting the cost of running his own country house.

We tied up at the jetty at Waterhead and went in search of a light lunch…

We returned to Low Strawberry Gardens late afternoon and lit a large log fire!

The following day dawned somewhat murkier than the previous one, with a very light drizzle or mist and indifferent visibility. We decided that we would still go fetch our paper, and something for our tea – which we thought at that stage we might well be taking early. Our passage across to Bowness was uneventful, but definitely damper than before.

Given the damp weather (but not wanting to miss out on exploring the lake), we decided to pedal right down the lake to the Southern end and land for tea (hopefully) at the rather grand Lakeside hotel.

This was a lengthy passage with persistent light rain and a westerly breeze of variable strength. The lake was pretty calm the whole way. We were trying out yet another cheap poncho we had bought in Ambleside, and yet again it did not quite work. The waterproof trousers did, however, keep our legs dry and we looked quite a bit wetter than we actually were.

After about 80 minutes of easy pedalling clocked at a steady 4.4 mph, we arrived at the Lakeside Hotel which, in its own words, “overlooks nothing but the lake”. We barged into their very fine conservatory bistro overlooking the lake looking like drowned rats and asked as confidently as we could for some tea. No problem. Tea for two at the Lakeside is £6 but this includes 4 pieces of ginger-flavoured shortbread biscuits to die for. I would personally have plumped for one of their enormous open sandwiches, but my partner was not feeling hungry enough.

We returned to our cottage about 4 and fetched Winsome out of the water at the nearby wooden jetty and beach in order to load her up for the trip home while it was still light.

From the Swan Hotel at Newby Bridge in the South to Ambleside in the North, Windermere offers a good 13 miles of cruising, a decent day out for Winsome if you are able to stay the night at the other end. For everyone else, the perfect spot is exactly halfway up the lake, where a full day’s cruising with stops will take you to either end and back. You really should try it, especially if you have a Winsome. It’s even enjoyable in January.