A Canal, a Bridge and nowhere to go!
We had intended to explore the Southern end of the beautiful Nivernais Canal. Last year, we explored from Auxerre down to Clamency.
We knew that this could be difficult because the cruising guides list the maximum "tirant d'aire" [air draft] as 2.78metres. Now, we are 3.22metres at the centre of our roof and knew that the problem bridges were arched with good clearance in the middle and only 2.7metres out at the extremities which are 5.2metres apart.
All went well for a while and we glided slowly through the first couple of bridges, dead centre, and cleared the bridges with the aft edges of our roof by a few centimetres.
Then we came to a bridge which was lower. I asked Penny to go to the bow and look back, to see if there was enough clearance. This turned out to be a mistake. She called that we were probably not going to fit. So, I went into neutral, but when the propellor is not turning, the level of water rises a little and so this happened, there was a "crunch" and we damaged a section of roof where our front roof joins the back sun roof. The damage was not too bad and less than the sound had indicated.
We decided to continue and overnight at a town called Cercy la Tour. But, when we reached the bridge before the town, it was even lower than the previous bridge which caused the damage.
So, we decided to pull up and stay the night and turn around next day.
Problem!
The first problem was the width of the canal. Only 12metres whereas we are 16metres without the rudder and bowsprit. So, we could not turn around where we were. It would also be extremely difficult to reverse 6km backwards because Anja's rudder does not work in reverse. We could not ask the Eclusiers to drop the level in the canal because of the water shortage and the fact that we were in a very long reach of water (millions of litres of water would only drop the level a centimetre.
I rode up and let the Eclusiers know what was happening. I also took the tape measure and carefully checked the dimensions of the bridge. I worked out that we could fit, provided we were exactly in the centre of the span and did not move more than +-3 centimeters from that course. There was a little elderly lady sitting in her front yard and watching me very curiously as I clambered around the bridge, tape measure in hand on three separate occasions.
Repairing the damage proved quite easy and, in the process, I was able to lower the sides of the roof by a further 1cm. Then fiberglass filler, screws and epoxy resin completed the job.
Next morning, we successfully negotiated the bridge with centimetres to spare. Very slow but very nerve racking.
Then came another chore. Turning around at the town. The expanse of water was wide, but there was a very narrow channel. I hoped that our very shallow draft (85cm) would enable us to use some of the shallow water for turning. No! the propellor was touching the bottom. We made it in the end by turning in the other direction with the propellor nearer the shore and the bow passing over the really shallow area. We accumulated quite a crowd of onlookers from the small town.
We made it and then had to go back under the really low bridge. We successfully achieved that too.
Then, we returned to Nevers which is 15km away and at the start of the Nivernais Canal and at the junction with the Canal Lateral a la Loire.
We were very apprehensive when approaching the bridge that had damaged the roof. We also noticed that the channel underneath it was not aligned with the centre of the arch, so in fact, one had to scrape alond the side of the 5.2metre channel under the bridge. We made it with a mere 2cm of clearance from the roof!
So, it was just not worth the effort of exploring the bottom of the Nivernais with mere centimetres of clearance on the bridges. We spent a pleasant night moored on the beautiful Loire River and stocked up on provisdions fromn the extremely close Super Marches and a very convenient hardware store. Then, after some exploring of the pretty town, it was back to the Canal Lateral to continue the journey South West.
Best Regards, Dave and Penny
