Sunday 26 May 2024
We arrrived back at the boat on Sunday evening after contemporary worship with our son at the local parish church. We were settling in for the evening when nb Castlecroft came up behind and asked if we were going up the Hatton Flight, We said that we were considering a few of the locks to give us a bit of a start and to make use of the good weather window. So we joined them and worked through locks 26 to 30 before stopping for the evening. The weather promised overnight rain which started faily shortly after sunset.
1 mile 4 locks 1.1/2 hour
Monday 27th May 2024
I was ready to go at 0700 but the crew of nb Castlecroft were not in evidence. I had a chat with B.L.D. (Bottom Lock Dave) a CRT volunteer lockie of many years standing. He asked whether we had done the flight before. Only about 20 times! As we spoke, the skipper of nb Castlecroft came along to tell me that his crew were having breakfast and would be ready soon. We went on and set Lock 31 and then entered and waited for them to join us.
Ascending the flight with company makes a lot of difference. nb Castlecroft had three crew ashore and with our one we could set the locks ahead. 
We did have to cross over with one pair and two single boats during the ascent. We were at the summit in time to take an early brunch.
Things have changed. This flagship flight and tourist attraction needs a lick of paint. There are more volunteers here than most other flights so I would have thought this could be managed. There is also a large patch of himalayan balsam between locks 34 and 35 whihc needs maa=naging before the seeds set.
We kept an eye on the weather. Heavy showers were forecast and we managed to miss them and make it to Lapworth flight in the dry.
Turning into Lock 20 Stratford Canal
We did not complete the ascent to the summit and decided to stop at lock 5 when the rain began to get really heavy. We feasted on the remains of our food: meatball and pepper skewers with nachos.
8 miles 32 locks 9 hours
Tuesday 28 May 2024
We arose early but heavy rain persisted. We ate breakfast and waited for the weather to imporove then started off up the remaining four locks. At lock 3 we were held up by CRT personel who were looking at the nearside top paddle. The rack was missing. We lent them our sea searcher magnet and they went fishing for about half an hour but the rack was not found or retrieved so the paddle remains out of operation. I checked the magenet on the rack of another lock paddle and found that the casting was very lightly magnetic, My guess is that ist is cast from an alloy steel with high austenitic content. CRT will have to find another way of fishing to retrieve the lost rack.
We were following nb Rosery so had to empty down every lock and we were being followed by a single hander so we left a paddle up for him too. The skipper of nb Rosery tripped over one of the superfluous bollards at one lock. Fortunately he stayed on the bank and reported that he was OK. He told us that he had told BW that these wer a hazard when they put them in! We completed the floight and the rain started again as we arrived at the Wharfe Tavern, Hockley Heath. Peter called a taxi and returned to collect the car before we settled in for a nice lunch in this welcoming hostelry.
2 miles, 4 locks 2 hours
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