hello there welcome aboard my narrow boat home the Naughty Lass today we're gonna
travel along the Huddersfield broad canal which is three and three-quarter
miles long and nine locks to take on one of which I'm gonna show you in detail
how I do it as a single-handed narrow boater - I don't mean I've got one hand - I
just mean I'm on my own - anyway! there's also a lift bridge to contend with and
just some general info about the area starting with the pub of the week in
Huddersfield so let's head down to the train station in the heart of the town
to find out a bit more
if you're by the station and you need a pub I do recommend the king's head over
the head of steam just because it's better kept I think in there they've got
wider selection of beers I think it's actually a little bit more friendly as
well and if the king's head isn't lively enough for you
you can always pop along to the parish which is a rock metal bar with loads of
good vegan drink and food options and if you want to explore the canal itself...
a lot of it is hidden away but if you just head out from the center down the hill
look for the Sainsbury's just over here or the university buildings and you're
in the right area
so this is Aspley Wharf - you have to
pay to moor here I'm afraid but there are free moorings if you carry on that way or
if you stop at the University [near lock 1E of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal]
I found out that a lot of these moorings here are actually '72 hours free' and then you
have to pay the marina - so you need to keep going a little bit further to find
some visitor moorings that you can stay at for free but yeah it seems like a good place
to stay loads of boats and a good community
and as I take my boat around
the back of Sainsbury's I can see directly ahead of me an unusual sight on
the waterways
this is a proper lift bridge — it doesn't tilt upwards, it
literally lifts in place
It's called the Turnbridge Locomotive Bridge
Now upon a time this bridge was operated by windlass and would have taken a long
time I think — thankfully it's all electric nowadays so I should be able to
get through this on my own no problem
as the bridge lifts in place
you can see behind that there's some cars turning round and zooming off
another way but some are staying to watch the spectacle with me
This is unique— I've never seen a bridge like this where it literally just lifts up - amazing
cheers mate!
All right here we go
close bridge
yeah I don't mind that one because that bridge allows you to walk
back over the side so you'd have to worry about mooring on that same side
I've got 24 locks to do from... Huddersfield to Sowerby
Bridge and that's going to take me via the Calder and Hebble navigation which
I've never been on before so yeah I really want to share the experience with
you - how nice of me eh?!
but I've only got four or five days to complete the journey and that might
sound like more than enough time but the way I mess about with my vlogging it does
take a little bit longer and yeah just to allow for any problems and also to get my
laundry done!
So yeah...
better crank it!!
right just coming up to the first of nine locks and although there's some
hills ahead of us we are going down - down to the river...
[sings] 'down to the river to pray'
I'm not gonna pray... well hopefully I won't have to!!
Not only do you have to watch out for
other boats coming the opposite way or following you into the lock you've also
got a watch out for wildlife and I do notice a lot of ducks and swans all of
which really enjoy fishing in and around the locks for whatever scraps they can get
luckily these young mallards stayed outside the lock and didn't follow me in
so I didn't have to worry about them getting in the way
I've recently been asked how I tackle a look on my own so I thought I'd break it
down a little bit for you here
all right step one! Check the lock itself [all clear]
open the ground pedals but first I've got to use this which is a security key you have to
lose them quite a lot around these parts because of vandals — although I
still can't work out who would vandalize who would actually be a vandal and have
one of these I think that's stretching it — anyway, so I've got to undo that
and then I can remove this hopefully...
oh
it's finally moving
there we go and I've got access to the spindle there
of the ground paddle and I'll just open that to let some water in [to the lock]
but as you can see there's quite a lot of leakage in this lock so it shouldn't
take long to fill this one
Step two I've opened the paddles on the actual
gates as well
this angle is captured from my iphone right the end of the gate
and normally I've got it on my person vlogging myself and I have a microphone that
plugs in — it's just fallen down and because the makers of
this microphone haven't developed a bluetooth version I'm just have to put
out with it for now
step three is to open the gates I think I'm just gonna
open one and it's gonna be this side so I can bring the boat in here and just
moor up on that side
the ladder is slightly closer to
where the back end of the boat is, that's what I'm thinking
okay so this is me coming
into the lock in my boat if you watch out for that gate there that's currently
in the closed position you'll see it open slightly as I go past it
that's just sometimes what happens
so I will have to close that again
I'll have to close both gates and sometimes you might as well open both of them anyway
You're supposed to use the boats engine to slow the boat to a halt but in doing so you
can find that the boat drifts out a little bit so unlike me
always have your centre line ropes to hand at the back
I normally do but for this video obviously I decided to give myself a bit
of a challenge so here I have to walk all the way along the gunwhale which I've
actually painted with a good non-slip surface thankfully and yeah here we go
I'm very happy about this here's my rope and I can jump off
when tying the line for your boat sometimes you'll have to to tie it with
a knot sometimes you have to just wind it round a ladder like this it's just
it's there's so many different ways and it's almost a whole nother vlog to
explain it while I'm on this side I'm going to drop these paddles as well
look at that - one handed!
put that back in and I've just got to screw it back so these two don't come apart
step four is to now close the gates
it can sometimes be difficult to operate lock
gates but here you can see I'm just using my weight to pull the gate back
and then again just leaning on it that's the easiest way to open a locked gate
it's just to put your back into it!
now due to the wind sometimes or the the
gates not being balanced enough these ones won't shut until I start letting
water out of the lock so here we go here's the moment where the gates are
now closing because I'm letting all the water out on the other side problem I've
got however is that I'm trying to tie my rope to the middle part of the lock and
I can't because there's no bollard or whatever it's called to tie up
on to - another danger is you don't wanna get too close to the back of the lock for
obvious reasons like you don't want to catch on the cill going down and you don't
want to get the rudder stuck in the middle of the lock - it's not cool guys!!
Right so now my boats drifted all the way over!!! I can get out using this ladder here
It would probably be a lot easier if I didn't try and film everything!
The water's level so I've got to open these gates here
or just one
I could probably squeeze in here
as long as I'm not going to be
damaging that part of the lock
the mitre or whatever it's called on the
edge there because that's where the seal gets widened that's where you at the
leakage because lots of boats just ram it and damage them so perhaps I might
open this one this time
There we go that's plenty of room for me
I still have to come back for the final steps which are to drop the paddles
don't have to worry about the security bit on this side because there aren't any it
was just on the upper top gates so drop the paddles and then shut the gate and
then I can get back on my boat over there and carry on
And not have to film
this sequence again!!
One of my least favourite things about doing locks on my own
is this part — mooring up after you've been through the lock to go back and
shut the gates but it's got to be done as a courtesy to other boaters
Right now I've only got to do that no seven times and then I finish this 3 and 3/4
mile canal - easy!
this lock's actually got the paddle missing on this one some boaters tell me
it's because the CRT (the Canal and River Trust) come along and take it out and
just basically get rid of it if its not working
I know we're strapped for cash
on these canals but
surely they wouldn't do that would they?
right made it through most of the locks just got one more left to go but this
one leads on to the river right so this is the last lock of the Huddersfield
broad canal that's three and three quarter miles done and now we're onto
the river Calder there's a weir here that I've got our avoid obviously and myself
Holly and Rory who are on their boats there we're gonna go over this way
So the next leg of the journey on the Calder and Hebble will see me trying to
work out the unique paddle system on the locks they've got there and up to
Brighouse to check that place out and also Sowerby Bridge as well but before I
go I want to give some special shoutouts to people that have just joined my
crank it crew in fact these guys have been crank it crew members since November so
thank you to the following people for supporting these videos
first up we've
got Iain Harber then Ali O'Connor Jonathan and Karen Warren JP Reardon and
Ste Cosgrove thank you all so very very much for basically funding this
lifestyle that I've got on board because I don't have any money coming in
from anywhere else at the moment so yeah so appreciative and thank you so much
for joining the crank it crew! hope you enjoy it
thanks for watching this video
and I'll see on the next one - bye!