Winsome at the Saul Canal Festival

We spent last weekend demonstrating Winsome, our 17 foot pedal-powered boat at Saul canal festival near Gloucester.

The Saul Canal Festival & Folk on the Water Weekend is a fund raising event organised & operated by Cotswold Canals Trust Volunteers. All surplus funds are used to further the restoration of the waterways link between the Rivers Thames & Severn.

Conditions on Saturday were extremely windy. Because of her sleek hull shape, Winsome barely notices the wind as long as we are pedalling straight into it. However, we really struggled to make a U turn into the wind in the narrow confines of the canal at Saul junction – the minute we turned across the wind, the bow would catch the wind and spin back to leeward. This made life interesting with 20 ton narrow boats bearing down on us – sometimes from both directions. However, inspired by the Dutch tradition (see below), the crew deployed a paddle as a makeshift lee board whilst turning and the problem was effectively solved. Phew.



The afternoon saw us take part in the “Interesting boats parade” complete with tannoy commentary. Unfortunately for us, the parade moved at such a snail’s pace that a light boat like ours couldn’t maintain steerage way in the gusting 4-5 wind. With a crowd of other parade boats which were several times our length and weight, this was somewhat alarming.



We opted for being the last boat in line so we could drop back far enough to create open water and then pedal at a reasonable pace to maintain steady steerage way. Because I slightly overestimated the gap we needed to leave (according to the view of the crew), we ended up passing the parade viewpoint at a cracking 5-6 mph (into the wind) which clearly impressed the waving, cheering crowds ashore!



We were pleased by the interest which Winsome attracted from cyclists, narrow boat owners and the occasional sailor. As ever, the experience of actually going in the boat created a new set of Winsome converts. Even in the blustery wind and rain showers, she continued to surprise and delight.

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 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….