Legends from our own lunchtimes

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Running down the Freeway
Saturday 27th July - Ryalcourt to Douai


Following yesterday’s note, the first ships we saw today were “Freedom” pushing “Freeway” carrying a total of six hundred tons of payload.  Sadly, because everyone wants to get in front of the big load, no matter how illogical that might be, their eighty metres total length fitted into a ninety metre long lock without leaving enough room for us even if we’d taken a big run at it. 

Having to wait at that first lock of the day sealed our fate,  We would be following the ship all day, catching it at each lock and because traffic was quite heavy, we’d have another short wait while the upstream bound ship completed it’s locking process, before starting it all again.

It doesn’t seem much, that twenty minute or so wait, but particularly when it’s windy and the raining, by the tenth lock of the day it takes all of one’s resolve not to find it a teensy bit tedious, which is quite possibly just one extra reason why after that particular lock, we were quite looking forward to stopping for a day or two.  
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