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Waterways in Europe A Guide to Inland Cruising by Roger Pilkington
Waterways in Europe A Guide to Inland Cruising by Roger Pilkington
Hard cover Notice the marks on the covers, the last two pages have a discarded stamp, last blank page is torn.
Copyright St. Aubins Productions Ltd. 1972
279 pages Indexed
Table of Contents
Foreword1
BASIC BOATING ABROAD
The Boat9
Formalities10
How Far, How Long12
Equipment15
Under Way19
Lockmanship31
Mooring41
Supplies44
THE WATERWAYS
Intracoastal Waterway, France-Belgium-Holland51
Port of Calais51
Canal de Calais53
R. Aa53
Canal de Bourbourg53
Canal de Furnes54
Canal de Plasschendale55
Canal de Bruges56
Canal de Bruges a Gent57
Gent Ring Canal68
Gent Ship Canal59
River Rhine and Connections61
R. Rhine61
Spoy Canal or Cleves Waterway77
Wesel-Datteln Canal78
Rhine-Herne Canal79
R. Moselle79
R. Lahn86
R. Main89
R. Regnitz95
R. Neckar97
Dortmund-Ems Canal and Connections102
Dortmund-Ems Canal102
Left-Handed Canals105
Mittelland Canal106
R. Weser107
R. Fulda113
Waterways from Antwerp115
R. Rupel115
Brussels Ship Canal115
Canal de Charleroi117
Canal du Centre118
R. Nete119
R. Dijle119
Canal de Louvain119
Albert Canal120
R. Lys122
R. Scheldt123
R. Meuse125
R. Sambre134
Through Routes, Belgium to the River Seine136
Canal des Ardennes136
Canal lateral a l'Aisne136
R. Aisne138
R. Oise139
Canal de l'Aisne a la Marne141
Canal lateral a la Marne142
R. Marne142
Canal de la Sambre a l'Oise143
Canal de St. Quentin144
Canal lateral a l'Oise144
Calais to Paris145
River Somme 148
River Seine150
From the Meuse and Moselle to the Rhine159
Across France-North to South164
R. Yonne166
Canal de Bourgogne167
Canal du Nivernais172
Canal de l'Est-branche Sud174
Canal du Rhone au Rhin176
R. Saone183
R. Seille189
R. Rhone190
Across France-East to West203
Canal du Rhone a Sete203
Canal du Midi206
La Nouvelle branch215
Canal lateral a la Garonne217
R. Garonne221
R. Dordogne223
R. Isle227
Inland Route, Channel to the Baltic229
Walcherens Canal229
Veersemeer231
South Beveland Canal232
Zeeland232
R. Hollandsche Ijssel233
R. Gouwe234
Oude Rijn234
Ringvaart234
Routes through Amsterdam235
Ijsselmeer237
Ems Canal237
R. Ems238
Ems-jade Canal239
Kiisten Canal240
R. Hunte240
R. Weser240
R. Geeste241
Elbe-Geeste Waterway241
R. Elbe243
Kiel Canal243
Elbe-Trave Canal248
R. Ilmenau250
Gota Canal and Connections252
R. Gota252
L. Voner255
SalIle Canal255
Karlskoga-Filipstad Waterway255
Gota Canal256
Siidertalje Canal258
DaIslands Canal261
Kinda Canal262
L. Molar267
Stromsholms Canal269
Hjalmare Canal269
L. Hjiilmar270
Orebro Canal270
Notes271
Index273
ILLUSTRATIONS
Signpost, St. Martin Lock, Canal lateral a la Garonne52
Signpost, Stenay Lock on the French Meuse52
River Lahn at Dietkirchen53
Wintrich Lock, River Moselle68
Wesel-Datteln Canal69
Trennfurt Lock, River Main84
A lock on the River Doubs84
The Rhine in December85
River Ill at La Petite France, Strasbourg85
Old Style lock, Dortmund-Ems Canal100
An Albert Canal lock100
Houdeng-Goegnies lift, Canal du Centre101
Canal de la Marne au Rhin at Lutzelbourg132
The Belgian Meuse at Freyr132
St. Mansuy Basin, Canal de la Marne au Rhin133
The French Meuse at Montherme133
Canal du Nivernais148
Crossing the Loire. Digoin aqueduct on the Canal lateral149
River Saone at Tournus212
Canal de l'Est, branche Nord, near Sorcy212
Pouilly tunnel, Canal du Bourgogne213
Four-step lock, St. Roch, Canal du Midi213
Zierikzee228
A rolling bridge, Gota Canal229
Notholmen lock, Hjalmare Canal229
FOREWORD
This book begins at the edge of the continental mainland of Europe. It does not deal with how to cross the English Channel or the North Sea, nor does it treat of navigation at sea or along the coasts. Its object is to be a guide to inland navigation on the continent, and I have written it for the yachtsman, inland cruiser, holiday boatman, and even for those who just like strolling along the towpath or spending a pleasant day on one of the many steamers and trip vessels which ply on the waterways of Europe.
Not every canal in Europe is described. Eastern Europe is omitted altogether, because however intriguing some of the waterways may be I doubt if any boating man wishes to spend his holidays trying to peer round the solid rump of a boorish guard who has been stationed by his hatchway to see that he does not land, take photographs, or even smile to the inhabitants. The Italian waterways are left out because they can only be entered from the Adriatic, and the Danube is passed over for the simple reason that it is still inaccessible without a passage of the Dardanelles. Some of the more colliery waterways of northern France are omitted because there are coal-heaps enough in Britain, and the Brittany canals are not included for the reason that those delightful waterways form a network unconnected with any other, and I have not yet navigated them myself. The keynote is that the canals and rivers here described are all ones which I know from my own voyages through more than twenty years of continental cruising. A guide must surely be authoritative, and it can only be so if the attractions of a particular waterway are dealt with from personal experience, and the ease or difficulty of any particular passage correctly given because the author has actually been that way himself.
I have also left out Holland, except where part of a main route such as the Rhine or Meuse may pass through Dutch territory. This is because almost every town or village in Holland is served by a canal, and there is no end to the catalogue of Dutch waterways. There are few locks, even the smallest place is usually equipped with a good quayside and a harbour-master, and facilities in general are so good and navigation so simple that the country is one for easy voyaging. For beginners it is ideal. Yet scenically the Dutch landscape is really very dull indeed. There are cows and windmills, and perhaps brilliant splashes of colour where the rows of tightly packed tulips glint in the spring sunlight, but the delight of Holland is in the towns and villages, which invariably seem to turn their best face toward the water. No city in the world can be so attractive to the boatman as Amsterdam, with the opportunity of endless voyages of exploration by dinghy among its spider's web structure of canals. Few little harbours can be more appealing than those around the Ijsselmeer, where engineers may have shut out the salt water but otherwise little seems to have changed since their peak of prosperity three centuries ago.
Besides, Holland is well served with waterways maps and guides, and is the only country to have a special office to deal with all matters concerning inland boating. The address is: Het Bureau voor Watertoerisme, Museumplein 5, Amsterdam-Z. The office publishes an annual Almanak voor Watertoerisme, containing details (in Dutch) of every creek and hamlet, and several dozens of useful diagrams of town harbours. There is no need to be a linguist to find this book invaluable.
On the other hand, I have included Sweden, because most of its canals are not well known and yet are accessible to any boatman who can reach the Baltic by inland waterways and cares to run up through the Danish isles and make a short coastal trip, and also to trailer-craft owners who take the North Sea ferry routes. Outside Canada there is nothing quite like the Swedish canals, and if remoteness is wanted then waterways such as the Kinda and DaIslands routes are ones without equal.
Denmark is left out for a good reason-it has no inland waterways other than harbour channels.
Norway has two canals, but the Tiste Navigation is not accessible from the sea-nor any longer by dry inclined plane as it was before 1960. However, it is available to trailer craft. The remarkable Telemark Canal, on which a steamer also runs, can be reached by a sea voyage to Skien, but my own two attempts to reach it have both been frustrated by storms. This canal runs through some remote country and in general is similar to the Swedish waterways.
The difficulties of a continental cruise are really very few. Given a boat either owned or hired, and a reasonable amount of sense, all the equipment is already to hand to make such a voyage possible. Yet there are certain things I have gradually come to learn over the years which make the success of such an enterprise more certain, and help to ensure that handling a small boat in heavily used commercial waterways is a delight rather than a road to neurosis, so I have included a number of quite practical tips for those who are new to such adventure.
Whereas the condition of most waterways in Britain is static or even deteriorating, other European countries pour money into canal engineering. It is unlikely that anyone will find a canal described in this book to have been subsequently closed; more likely it will have been enlarged, modernised, provided with new locks or an inclined plane to by-pass a former flight, and generally improved in the interests of traffic. This is not done for the convenience of yachts, but just because water transport is the cheapest and most efficient form of carrying heavy goods.
In Britain, the traditional narrow-boat with its ridiculous lading of 20 to 3o tons, and its living quarters which would be condemned by any responsible Medical Officer of Health, is now almost extinct. Its continental equivalent as a barge which can penetrate anywhere is ten times the size, the 350-ton standard barge of France and Belgium known as a peniche or spits. Thousands of these craft ply on the European network, carrying grain, bricks, flour, coal, wine, cement, timber or whatever needs to be transported in bulk from one place to another. Even these are too small for some purposes, and for real bulk handling and container-carrying the ship of the future is the 'Europaship' of 1,35o tons. Most through routes on the continent are already of 1,350-tonner or `R.H.K.' dimensions, or are being enlarged to that standard. (The term R.H.K. stands for Rhein-Herne Kanal, the waterway which first set the dimensions for larger inland shipping.)
Compared with waterways in Britain even the smaller 'Class I' or 350-ton routes are of such dimensions that only exceptionally large yachts would be unable to pass through them, and for this reason I have not cluttered the text with precise dimensions of the works, unless they are less than Class I, which can accommodate craft 38.5 m. in length, 5.2 m. in breadth, with a height of 3.7 m. above the water and 1.8 m. below-which corresponds to a depth of water of 2'0 m. although in fact most French canals have already been increased to 2.2 m.
Not so long ago the continental waterways were almost unknown as a cruising ground. British yachts penetrated to Holland or sailed up the Seine to Paris, but they were few in number and usually of some size. In the 1950's one could voyage for a month without meeting another cruiser, and until the opening of the Moselle such German yachts as one might meet were speeding through the waterways on their way to the Mediterranean rather than enjoying the canalised rivers for their own sake. Nowadays the story is different. Boating enthusiasts reared on the shallow and weeded canals of England are beginning to realise that just across the English Channel there exists a network of waterways stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, channels which pass through ancient cities or by vineyard slopes, through forests and over mountains, across the wild and sparsely populated areas of Sweden and the sun-baked salt flats of Provence. These are the canals and rivers which I here describe in detail, and I have tried to arrange them in an order which is convenient rather than rigidly formal. Marshalling by alphabet would be absurd, and to group the waterways by countries would be little better, particularly when some of them lead through several lands in succession. So I have adopted a fish-skeleton system of my own, taking a main waterway as the backbone and then describing one after the other the various ribs which are attached to it. Nor have I invariably started at the top of a river and worked down; always the keynote is the direction in which it is most likely to be navigated by a boatman coming from Britain or the North Sea.
There is a lure about water travel that to many people is irresistible. Perhaps the tempo and stress of modern life have something to do with it, for a person who spends much of his life in traffic jams on the way to work is not so inclined to pass his holidays in the same fashion. But there is more to it than that. Certainly the relative density of traffic is extremely small-a canal passing eighty boats a day is a busy one, whereas a motorway may register three thousand vehicles in an hour-and there are no yellow lines or parking meters or indeed any of the badgering about to which one is increasingly subjected on land, but instead there is a freedom in water travel which is more like that known to the mountaineer.
So, on board, off with the lines, and away.
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