Today saw the start of our Helmsman course with Paul Harrington from Derbyshire Canal Boat Tuition. Our training took place on ‘Cornerstone’ a 47ft cruiser stern canal boat. Paul, our instructor has spent his career at sea, on rivers and canals. I have to say he made me feel very safe, and yet we were able to have good fun at the same time.
We boarded Cornerstone at Swarkestone and once settled with a nice hot coffee, we learnt the following skiills:
- Difference between lifejackets and buoyancy aids
- Risks and avoiding personal injury
- Pre boating checks (including weed hatch and propeller checks)
- Rope work
- Knots (I really struggled with this whilst Mr Robinson was busy making ‘monkey fists’)
- Securing to bollards, ring cleats etc
- Canal etiquette and boating terms
- Lots more!!
We then tootled off down the canal from Swarkestone to Shardlow, learning on the way how to deal with the different locks and techniques for berthing and unberthing, springing on and springing off.
Despite the freezing weather and discovering too late that walking boots would have been better than trainers, we had a fantastic day and were both absolutely buzzing, it was great to be out on the water.
Sadly, I did manage to crash Cornerstone into the side of the canal. I was trying to navigate through quite a tight bridge and hadn’t realised that the bridge was actually on a bend and so as I was coming out the other side, I panicked as the ‘stern’ was getting close to the side and instead of slowing down, I sped up not noticing as I was headed straight for land! Paul the instructor was very patient with me and made me carry on through the next bridge so that I didn’t lose confidence. What was actually really funny was that we crashed at the exact moment Mr Robinson was having a wee on the toilet.
Mr Robinson, who was a natural out on the canal, particularly enjoyed learning about springing off .
See our gallery section for more pics from the course.
You can read more about the tuition course here https://www.dcbtuition.com/
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