We’ve taken 4 days to get up the River Yonne from Montereau to Auxerre. The river is one of the major tributaries of the Seine. Eventually its headwaters are taken over by the Canal du Nivernais – about which more next episode.
The river is generally wide and beautiful. It’s s similar in size to the Stour at Christchurch although it is deeper and hugely longer. Altogether we covered 187 Kilometers on it, passed up 28 locks and under innumerable bridges. All of the locks are to Frecinet guage which takes large barges but not the huge ones on the Sein. All of the bridges were over 4.8M above the water so we had no difficulty getting through.
The locks are all electrically opened and closed though on most of them the lock keeper has to stand by the appropriate gate to press the buttons. Most of them also had to manually operated paddles. The overwhelming difference from the locks on the Seine is that most of these have sloping sides. Doesn’t sound much of a problem does it? Well it certainly is for a boat like Rosa that has twin rudders that stick out sideways. Any attempt to get close to the edge in a sloping sided lock simply hits a delicate fibreglass rudder hard on the concrete – possibly damaging it. Going down would be even worse as the weight of an 8 ton boat could end up coming down on the rudder sideways if it were to catch in a crack or irregularity.
So what do you do?
Well the first answer is that most of them (all those above Champflurie) either have at-least one straight side or have pontoons attached to sliding contraptions. You just tie yourself onto the pontoon and it gently carries you up or drops you down. Ever so easy and absolutely stress free. Unfortunately, the first three locks (Cannes, Labrosse and Barbey) don’t have pontoons. The next one (Port-Renard) has straight sides. The next two (Vinneuf & Champfleury) should have pontoons but in the case of Champfleury it has been ripped off and carried away by a barge. This is obviously an ever-present danger as many of them show signs of significant collisions leaving them with sharp buckled aluminium corners rather than gently rounded wooded strakes. So if you follow in our footsteps – be prepared for nasty surprises.
So what do you do if sloping is all there is. Well in our case we have a bow thruster and that has allowed us to simply stay in the middle of the lock without mooring. Once we explain the problem (“Mes gouverneilles est monté incline” la (pointing wildly) seems to do the trick. They understood immediately and had no problem with us doing so. Most were kind enough to go gently with the sluices too so we had less buffeting to cope with. For us it worked very well.
Another possibility is to moor up alongside another boat (such as a steel barge) that has no problem with these horrible locks. There weren’t any when we went through though.
We met Chris on Karenza who had a long piece of timber which he uses to lever himself off. He feels that a punt pole would be a better option but unfortunately these are few and far between on the French canals.
Time through the locks was generally about 15 minutes. Pretty much all of the lock keepers were friendly and helpful. Some were exceptionally so. The locks work 7 days a week in high season. The lower ones seem to start at 0800 and go on to 1900 and somewhere about Villeneuf it changes to 0900 to 1900 with a sacrosanct hour for lunch between 1230 and 1330.
On the Wednesday we didn’t start till 1500 as we were waiting for Mike and Linda to determine if they could beat the French Fishermen’s strike. In the end they couldn’t and had to turn around at Dover and go home. I hope all those fishermen catch nice big juicy submarines in their nets.
Having only a short time, we only went a few locks. D started feeling very feverish at about 1700 (probably from eating too many Oysters the previous day) so we stopped at a convenient point on the bank at Misy-sur-yonne. It was probably a private mooring belonging to a nearby house but there were no nasty notices and nobody bothered us.
There are some lovely little towns on the Yonne. We stopped at Sens on the second night. The advertised port de plaisance is (in common with most of them) nothing of the sort. They are just bases for private bouts. None seem to have visitors pontoons and none seem to welcome visitors. The Town Quay (on the right bank just downstream of the second bridge) offers a safe haven with good straight concrete sides, decent depth and strong bollards. Unfortunately drinking water was nowhere to be seen. Electricity was availably but only at a single post so with 3 other boats already there, we couldn’t get close enough to run our wire. There was no way of getting an Internet connection. There is a BP garage just above the quay if you’re short of fuel.
The town is well worth a visit. It has lots of old buildings, loads of the usual shops and a really special Friday market. The cathedral is one of the most stunning buildings I have ever seen. It is impressive from the outside but when you go inside it takes your breath away. It’s not ornate but God (if he exists) knows I’m not religious, but even I could feel the spirituality of the place. It makes you talk in whispers. All the windows are in stained glass which is ancient but incredibly detailed showing scenes that even I can understand. See it!
Having shopped at the market, we didn’t get away till gone 10.00. The first lock took nearly an hour to get through because the keeper was lecturing to a party of school children about every detail of his pride and joy. We hoped to reach Joigny which is just past St Albin lock but a keeper tipped us off that it was broken and we couldn’t go through. So we changed plans and made a short passage to Villeneuf instead. The town quay is free but there was no water anywhere and the single electricity post didn’t work. Yet again, there was no way of connecting to the Internet. The town is interesting – it’s one of those slightly dilapidated places that has seen glorious times in the past but has fallen on harder times recently. It was the residence of the kings of France in mediaeval times and has huge gates, towers and ramparts defending it – much of which is still there – at least foundations and the three huge gatehouses. The shops are not very extensive and the cathedral although impressive, has not got the same spark as the one at Sens.
We set off early on the Saturday morning only to be greeted by a huge double barge coming out of the first lock. The keeper waited to greet us and allow us in but said that he had to go and help the barge through the next lock down-stream (commercial vessels have priority and he manages both locks). So off he went in his VNF white van – not to be seen again for an hour! You really can’t rely on being anywhere at a particular time on the canals!
We stopped at xxx for lunch with Karenza and Chris & Hilary gave us a great lunch. After lunch we did a few more locks up to Migennes where they went off down the canal de Bourgoyne and we carried on up the Yonne towards Auxerre and the Nivernais.
L had been driving into and out of the locks all day and was beginning to get good at it. Unfortunately, when we got into the next lock she was already into her (perfect) approach to the port side wall when we heard a shout. The lock keepers son was there waving us forcefully over to the other wall where he would take our ropes. Thinking he was acting with the authority of the lock keeper, Lindsay veered over to the other side and almost lost control of the boat scraping the life-raft cover on the wall. This knocked her always shaky confidence right back. As we were leaving, we saw the boy getting a good telling off so he had obviously been “playing at lock-keeper” without the knowledge of his father!
We carried on uneventfully to Moneteau where we stopped at another free – but water, electricity and Internet free mooring in a pouring thunder storm! A glass or two, the heater on, and a meal of squid stew has restored our spirits.
The journey to Auxerre should have taken a couple of hours – but it took closer to 4. The first lock was fine. But the next one was closed because the keeper was elsewhere. He rolled up nearly an hour after we arrived and ambled us through in 25 minutes. No explanation offered and we didn’t ask for one – just played it cool.
At the next lock we had to wait 20 mins while 5 private barges came out.
The other 2 locks passed uneventfully but stressfully as the cooling problem I had just below Paris came back. We limped into Auxerre. I tested it and once again it was nothing to do with the input side. The seacock and impeller were working fine. I backflushed back from the exhaust connection and everything now seems to work fine again. Nothing seemed to come out though so it’s probably waiting to bite me again in the future. If it does it will be serious engine strip-down time. My heart sinks!
We haven’t seen Auxerr yet. It’s raining so we will leave that till tomorrow. We’ll probably leave Tuesday morning after the market then go on to Clamecy to pick up Richard and Janet.
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