Day 1: Bradford – Bathampton

Locks: 1  – Miles: 9

Towing down to Sally Narrowboats went fairly smoothly. Some of the roads weren’t in the best condition, which isn’t ideal when towing, but we got there without the solar panels falling off.

After a pretty smooth launch – around 1 hour of loading items from the car into the boat, then getting it in the water and everything connected up – we set off out of the marina and started heading west.

Between the slipway and Bradford-on-Avon we had problems getting the boat to go where we wanted with the remote steering system we’d built for the electric motor. Eventually we had to concede defeat and disconnect the system, instead opting to steer from the stern.

After swapping to steering from the back things went a lot more smoothly. By the end of the day we’d used a fair chunk of battery capacity, though. The weather being overcast and there being a lot of trees didn’t help with the charging.

 

Day 2: Bathampton – Bath – Avoncliff

Locks: 0  – Miles: 9

In the morning we set off towards Bath. The weather started off as partially sunny. There was quite a bit of cloud, but the amount of trees for the first part of the morning messed up our running for most of the initial sunny spells, too.

The weather got more consistently sunny as we got into Bath. We found a mooring with no overhanging obstructions and left the boat to absorb some sunlight while we spent a couple of hours in the city.

In the afternoon we headed back to Bathampton, where we picked up some family members for a short trip to Dundas aqueduct. The weather was decent for the rest of the afternoon and we eventually moored up near Avoncliff after going over the aqueduct there, finding another sun trap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 3: Avoncliff – Bottom of Caen Hill Flight

Locks: 16  – Miles: 12

Another day of partially sunny weather conditions. A couple of locks allowed for charging during the pauses in running. We continued heading east, climbing through the first couple of locks at Seminton before reaching the locks leading to the Caen Hill flight.

Before climbing the Semington locks we stopped for lunch, making the short walk into the village to eat at the Somerset Arms.

We stopped a lock bellow the start of the main flight of locks. Unfortunately it started raining – a showing of things to come for the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 4: Caen Hill Flight – Devizes

Locks: 23  – Miles: 10

Day 4 had the worst weather by far. We went up a lock to join the queue waiting for the Caen Hill flight to be unlocked. Luckily the boat at the front was another fibreglass boat – a Dawncraft 32 – and we were able to share with them and enter the locks first.

The rain was a bit on-and-off for the first few locks, but around half way up the flight it started raining heavily and very rarely let off. The waterproof clothing started failing after a couple of hours and working the locks got quite uncomfortable.

We decided to press on after clearing the main flight and continue through the remaining 6 locks to Devizes before stopping. The weather dried up slightly as we moored up at the wharf in Devizes and we stopped for lunch.

Before we stopped for the day we traveled further along the canal to find a nice mooring spot with a few other boats.

Although the weather was cloudy and mostly rainy we didn’t use a huge amount of power in the locks – so we didn’t end the day with empty batteries just because there wasn’t much sunlight.

 

Day 5: Devizes – Honey Street – Devizes

Locks: 0  – Miles: 11

As this trip was effectively a test-run of the electric system we were playing things fairly cautiously. We knew we needed to be back at the top of Devizes in order to get back in time and we didn’t want to risk going to far then not having the weather to make the return leg.

For this reason we only went as far as Honey Street on Day 5 before turning around. This section of canal was lined with lots of reeds. There was quite a bit of wind, which resulted in some quite difficult conditions for the cruising back to Devizes. In the wind we missed the power available from the petrol motor a little more and the lack of sun mixed with overhanging trees made things harder.

We had lunch at the Bridge Inn near Horton. The sun was out at this point and we managed to gain some charge over the mealtime. After this we headed back to the wharf at Devizes where we moored up and stayed for the afternoon and night.

  

Day 6: Devizes – Semington

Locks:   – Miles: 

We headed back down the locks at Devizes during the day. The weather was sunny for most of the day. Where the locks had been uncomfortable due to the wet weather a couple of days earlier, they were instead uncomfortable due to the heat this time around. Luckily we found another boat to share with and the volunteer lock keepers helped a lot with the main flight of locks.

We stopped between the two Semington locks – near Semington dock – and revisited the Somerset Arms for dinner.

 

 

 

 

Day 7: Semington – Bradford-on-Avon

Locks: 1  – Miles: 

We did some heavier stress testing of the system as we neared the slipway. As nothing had exploded we headed back towards Bradford instead of stopping at the marina and heading home straight away.

In Bradford we had lunch on the boat and emptied out the toilet. It was then time to head back to the slipway and get the boat back onto the trailer.

 

Video compilation: