Day of near Disaster

Started the day early to get a good start in nice sunshine. But life is full of contrasts thats what gives meaning to life and today things didnt go too well.Lets start with a nice sunny picture of us at Shardlow taking on water at about 0730.

We teamed up with a another boat from Canal Time to go through the double locks with. A family who had not taken a boat out before. At Weston on Trent lock, which is deep something happened which led to a Tsunami of water passing through the boat Not sure exa ctly what happened as I didnt see anything exactly but did notice that the guy from the other boat had the gate right up before Joanne had lifted the ground paddles. On these locks the water entry from the gate paddles is high on the gate but thought I was far enough back to avoid problem. When Joanne got back on the boat the full scale of the flood was apparent. Equipment from the front had been swept into the saloon and the floor was sodden back to the rear of the boat. Of course you should shut front doors when going through locks although i have never had a problem before. Moored up and lifted carpets. Floor boards were also sodden so I lifted boards and put them on bank to dry. The rear of the boat uder the bathroom was several gallons of water. Picture below.

Called out RCR (the waterways AA)as the quantity of water was too much for our Pella hand pump. As always they were very good and pumped the remaining water out.  So we are left without any carpets or floor coverings except the bedroom which we salvaged. The bathroom area is still drying. The good thing is Joanne wanted a new carpet and I want so sure-that deciscion is now out of my hands. I supose the second good thing is I had chance to examine the floor of the boat and was pleased to see that the ballast weight slabs had been raised of the metal by spacers. This is something builders often miss as it cant been seen once boat completed. Its necessary to allow air to circulate. So we went on our way through Swarkestone and Stenson when we nearly had our second disaster at Stenson Lock. Double width and 12 ft deep and the worst lock i have ever encountered! First nearly lost control of boat while waiting for it to be emptied such was the turbulance I thought it would either break the ropes or snap off the centre line stud. Then entering the lock the person with us, an experienced person, dropped their windlass in the canal-first time this has happened to them. Then somehow I got the boat jammed under front gate, never done that before either. Quick thinking by Joanne dropped the paddles and all was well but it was close.

We are now moored at Willington near Burton and hoping for a better day tomorrow. Picture below of current state of sitting room.

What i think happened to cause the flooding was that water cascaded onto the Canal Time boat and due to its closed in style at the front bounced off it into ours. Thats the only explanation I can give for neither me or Joane picking it up earlier.
Anyway-it could of been worse. Show tomorrow.