TNC On Tour 2010 Page 16

The Tuesday Night Club Official Web Site

The Tuesday Night Club on Tour

Tour 2010

16 - Vitry en Artois to Corbehem, via Arras, Scarpe Superior.

Saturday 12th June 2010

Running out of time we had to have a good days boating, preferring to exit the Scarpe Superior that night. 07:40 start, arriving at Biache St Vaast Lock as it should have turned on at 08:00. The lock was still off, (we eventually "found" the traffic lights amongst the undergrowth!) There was a VNF bod about so he came down, looked at the lights, then turned the lock on with a "super" zapper. Fampoux Lock also had no lights working, so a VNF bod set the lock in motion. So we carried on up the Scarpe, no one about apart from a couple of Dutch Tjalks, near the top. They warned us the top lock St Nicholas was shut (we knew) and that it was "boring" and very shallow above St Laurent Blangy lock (second from the end). We arrived at St Laurent Blangy to find that the visitor moorings were taken by mostly Brit boats, they seemed to be long term moored. Once through St Laurent Blangy Lock the depth shallowed, once above the nearby winding point. There were some derelict wharves, but the clear water showed that it was shallow, each side of a central channel. We got up to St Nicholas Lock (12:35), but had to reverse a good few hundred metres, back past the mill and under a road bridge, until we could do a rather mud stirring wind at the start of the old wharf wides. So now after a timing assessment, we decided to "go for it" at get through Corbehem Lock that night. Things went well, with no one about and no mishaps. We arrived at Corbehem Lock with precious time to spare, fortunately the ascending china clay barge got up in time for us to set the lock before it shut off at 18:00. We moored up, just below the lock behind the two Dutch Tjalks. We had a good chatter with the Dutch and ate it that night.

Biache Saint Vaast. Old cement works and wharf. Scarpe Supérieure.