Even Margaret gets stuck
by: Myron
Monday, the Boat team intended to go to the ocean but found the Ryford flood gates and paddles shut. The pound below the floodgates was about 8 inches down. By equalising the two halves of the pound the levels were ridiculously low. We had gone upstream while the levels equalised. We could go no further than Hilly Orchard bridge. Margaret would just not go further. When we went the other way through the now operable floodgates, we had all sorts of problems all the way to Ryford locks at which point we gave up and went back, after waiting an hour for the levels to come up a bit. The journey back was not quite so bad.
The other objective of the day was to give three of our crew members familiarisation on Margaret. The really good thing about the day was that John Sirett, John Ferris and Bob Poole all had a real baptism of fire on Margaret and all did well. I hope they’ll not come across conditions as bad as that for a long time.
Note to self. If you find the Ebley flood gates and paddles all shut in the summer, then set the paddles as per standing instructions and find something else to do. DO NOT GO BOATING.
