We were reflecting yesterday, on how boats, like houses, cars, and caravans at home, are getting bigger all the time.
This is a curious thing, as it’s quite clear that the skills of the skippers haven’t increased commensurately and we are discovering to our advantage that the spaces left in an apparently crowded mooring are more than enough for more modestly sized craft to squeeze in.
We are more than happy too, to sit on our very modest cruising speed, but it’s surprising what a difference one or two kilometres per hour can make to a day’s travel time.
Today for instance, we left an hour before most of them, and were the thirteenth pleasure boat to arrive at the first lock, which after about an hour’s wait, had space for two ships, a ferry, and twelve pleasure boats.
During the next half hour or so, another three boats arrived as well as a large ship for us to share with. The speed differential meant that they were already descending the next lock by the time we arrived, leaving us with the surprising statistic after having travelled for seven hours, of being stationary for three of them.
There are times when of course we would like the added security of perhaps another kilometre or two per hour, and yes, the early bird gets the worm when it comes to finding a place to moor for the night, yet here we are neatly squished between two of the big guys who arrived hours before we did, and for a day or two at least, tied to the dock, we’ll be cruising at exactly the same speed.
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