Caledonian Canal June 2010

Caledonian Canal – West to East

This is a retrospective post about our first cruise with our Lugger Braveheart. The plan was to sail from Loch Linnhe a sea loch on the west coast of Scotland, through the Caledonian Canal to the Beauly Firth on the east coast. We had planned to take five days or so for the trip, travelling in relative luxury as we planned to stay in hotels or bed and breakfasts each night. This dictated where we would stay each night as we had booked our accommodation, which had to be near the canal, in advance!

Unfortunately last minute issues at work meant that I would have to drive back to Glasgow for a meeting on the Wednesday during our trip. While inconvenient this was manageable as we had a 9 day window (weekend to weekend) to complete the canal and if the weather allowed explore the Moray coastline when we reached the east coast.

About the Canal

The Caledonian Canal joins the west and east coasts of Scotland running some 60 miles (97 km) from southwest to northeast. Only one third of the entire length is man-made, the rest being formed by Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, Loch Ness, and Loch Dochfour  These lochs are located in the Great Glen - from the Scottish Gaelic - Gleann Albainn - meaning the "Glen of Scotland.

The Great Glen follows a large geological fault  known as the Great Glen Fault. It bisects the Scottish Highlands into the Grampian Mountains to the southeast and the Northwest Highlands to the northwest. This forms a truly magical route to sail along as the scenery is some of the finest in Scotland

There are 29 locks (including eight at Neptunes's Staircase, Banavie ), four aqueducts and 10 bridges in the course of the canal.

Canal History

The canal was built to provide a safe passage for ships travelling from the North Sea to the Atlantic coast. In the early 19th century it was a long and dangerous journey through the Pentland Firth and around Cape Wrath, made worse by the war with France. The project also provided much-needed employment to the Highland region. The area was depressed as a result of the Highland Clearances , which had deprived many of their homes and jobs.

Planning our trip

Our original plan was to launch the boat at Linnhe Marina on Loch Linnhe early on the Saturday morning, drive along the canal to Fort Augustus where we planned to leave the car and trailer and then get the bus back to Linnhe Marina. As we planned to get to Fort Augustus on the Tuesday, this would allow me to pick up the car on Wednesday morning to drive back to Glasgow, returning to Fort Augustus on the Wednesday evening. That would leave us Thursday and Friday to complete our journey through the canal to the Beauly Firth, at which point we would return to Fort Augustus by bus to collect the car before deciding if we were going to sail any further.

Saturday 18^th June 2010

Arriving early on the Saturday morning after driving up through the awesome scenery of Glen Coe we had Braveheart loaded afloat beside the pontoons at Linnhe marina by 10.00hrs and set off for Fort Augustus. Unfortunately however the A82 which is the only road between Fort William and Fort Augustus / Inverness was closed at Torlundy (just north east of Fort William) due to a serious road traffic accident. Having been advised by the police that the road could be shut for up to 5 hrs and with the only detour involving a further 100 miles or so of driving, we decided instead to leave the car and trailer at Corpach as we would be passing there the next day and we could at that stage decide if we wanted to move the car again on the Monday or whether we could get to Fort Augustus in time on the Tuesday to get a bus back and collect it then.

Having parked the car in a British Waterways car park at Corpach we enjoyed the walk back to Fort William  in glorious sunshine, where we caught  the bus to Ballachulish at the mouth of Loch Leven where it joins Loch Linnhe.

As we got off the bus at Ballachulish the heavens opened and a mini monsoon fell from the sky leaving us thoroughly soaked through with some 13 miles still to walk back to Port Appin where we had booked into the Pierhouse hotel for the night. Fortunately our luck that day was not all bad and a kindly local stopped to offer us a lift despite us being dripping wet.

		Sunday 19th June 2010  - Linnhey Marina to Corpach

The Pier House hotel is one of our favorite places to stay on the west coast. It enjoys an ideal setting at the shore end of a small pier from where the passenger ferry to the island of Lismore  departs from and returns to. Views from the hotel take in Lismore and the full panorama of Loch Linnhe from Corran to virtually the Sound of Mull. The food served is truly the best of local produce. This overnight stop I would stress is not our normal standard of accommodation and was really a luxury to get our holiday off to a relaxing and stress free start.

Leaving the hotel on the Saturday morning after a very filling breakfast we had a very scenic 3.5 mile walk in the rain back to Linnhe Marina where Braveheart waited patiently for us.

Setting off up Loch Linnhe we had the wind behind us so we made good time up to the mouth of Loch Etive where the wind shifted to the west. We had planned to reach the Corran narrows at slack water as the tide that flows through there at springs can reach approx 5  knots. Making better than planned progress down Loch Linnhe we arrived shortly before slack water and watched from a distance as we approached a yacht trying very unsuccessfully trying to sail up the middle of the channel against what must have been at least a 3 knot tide.

Having kayaked and windsurfed this area many years ago we were able to draw on our past experience and the shallow draft of the Lugger to sail up the eddy on the south west side of the narrows before nipping out into the reducing tidal flow and through the narrows without any problem. The yacht meanwhile was still manfully sailing mid stream and making no progress at all, although it did pass us later in the loch when the wind dropped away to nothing – the yacht it has to be said was at that point under motor!

By late afternoon we had reached the start of the canal at Corpach and after tying up to the visitor pontoon we went to the British Waterways office to book ourselves in.

At this point we had only sailed Braveheart two or three times and had not really thought about a name. When registering to use the canal one of the bits of information we had to give was our boat name. Before we left our daughter had suggested that we call the Lugger “Sleepy Rabbit” after her stuffed toy animal. Thinking that giving a boat name was just an unimportant part of filling in the form and not having time to think of anything else I simply put “sleepy rabbit” down as the name of our lugger. Little did I know that I would have to shout out the name when asked at every lock and bridge between Corpach and Inverness, much to the amusement of other boat crews.  Braveheart as we have now named her is at least better than “Sleepy Rabbit”!

In their canal brochure British Waterways advise that it is possible to transit the canal end to end in 2 ½ days. This is I believe very optimistic, especially in the summer months as we were told that we would be let into the basin that day but we would need to wait until Monday to start our transit and that we should be ready to leave at 7am along with a number of other boats who were waiting to go up Neptune’s Staircase.

Having planned to get as far as 3 miles down Loch Lochy to where we had booked overnight accommodation this was a bit of a setback, however as the car was parked only a couple of hundred meters away we could at least drive to our overnight stop. The down side was we would need to leave early the next morning without breakfast to get back to the boat.

Monday night was spent at the Riverside Hotel next to the A82 but with great views over Loch Lochy. The choice of accommodation in this area was very limited – well it was a choice of take it or leave it! While it was OK for a night, I do not think we will be rushing back!

Monday 20^th June 2010  - Corpach to Fort Augustus

This was a much longer day than we had planned due to not being allowed into the canal on the Sunday afternoon (thanks BW). Getting up at 6am we missed the hotel breakfast, but if it was as good as the dinner the night before it was not a great loss!

By 7am we were on board Braveheart and ready to go as requested by British Waterways as we would be joining the first group up Banavie Locks (Neptune’s Staircase) and they would be leaving sharp at 7am. At 8am we were still ready to go, as we were at 9am! We eventually set off at 9.30am having spent 2 1/2 hrs waiting on ??? (thanks again BW).

At only 18’ we were by far the smallest boat going through these locks. The skipper of a 33’ yacht which was returning to Findhorn after cruising the Western Isles suggested that we tie up alongside as that would make life a bit easier for us. Also going through the locks was a Swedish Yacht whose skipper was returning home after a single handed voyage back from south America. At 45 feet long he needed some assistance with his lines, so while Kathleen went to help him I sat on board talking to the couple from Findhorn while they kept supplying me with tea and biscuits – sorted!

All in all going up Neptune’s Staircase was pretty straightforward and involved no effort at all on my part. I think Kathleen had a pretty strenuous morning as the Swedish yacht that she was assisting  had enough ropes being passed back and forward to keep her busy – good crew training!

One thing that we were warned about on the passage up Neptune’s Staircase was the danger posed by hire boats. These 40 foot Tupperware monsters are rented to virtually anyone who can pay the weekly fee irrespective of how competent they are at controlling them. Any doubts we may have had at some of the stories that were shared with us were quickly dispelled when we reached the top of the locks as the first thing we saw was a hire boat stuck into the bank at 90 degrees – presumably the driver (I will not use the term skipper ) was trying to do a “u” turn, oblivious to the fact that his boat was longer than the canal was wide!

To a small boat the dangers of hire boats cannot be overstated and we learned very quickly to be the last boat into each lock as the hire boats tend to use anything in front of them as a brake! Being the filling in a hire boat / lock gate sandwich did not really appeal to us!

Once up through the locks we had a 6 miles or so of canal to motor down (no wind) before we reached Loch Lochy where we tied up to a pontoon at the mouth of the canal for lunch. After lunch with the sails up we enjoyed a leisurely sail or motor sail of some 8 miles to the locks at Lagan where we let a number of hire boat s enter before us. This proved a prudent move as the closed upstream lock gate got a good battering when it was used as a brake by a number of the boats!

After the Laggan Locks we passed through the open swing bridge carrying the A82 (the first of three times we would cross the A82 which is the main road leading from Glasgow to the north via the west coast) and into Loch Oich. Four and a half miles later we again passed through the open swing bridge carrying the A82 as we left Loch Oich and reentered the canal.

Just after entering the canal we came to the Kytra and Cullochy locks. These take the canal down from Loch Oich  to a section of some three miles leading to Fort Augustus where we were spending the night. As it was now after 6pm and with the locks now closed I left Kathleen to motor along to Fort Augustus while I ran back to the A82 to try and get a bus to Inverlochy from where I could walk  / run back to Corpach and pick up the car as I needed to leave Fort Augustus early the next day to get to a 9am meeting in Glasgow.

The car collected, I met Kathleen at the A82 road bridge where it crossed the canal again in Fort Augustus  and we set off to find our accommodation.

Our accommodation on the Monday evening was a really excellent B&B situated along a single track road about 3 miles south of Fort Augustus.

Tuesday 21^st June 2010 -  Fort Augustus

Leaving at 4am I was back in Glasgow in time for my 9am meeting and back in Fort Augustus by late afternoon. Driving through the Highlands at 4am in mid-summer when there is no one else around really takes some beating!  It was still a long day though!

Meanwhile in my absence Kathleen had decided to take Braveheart on her own down through the locks at Fort Augustus to the level of Loch Ness. This was really helpful as we hoped to sail all of Loch Ness and an early start would make a big difference to our day as again I would need to collect the car from Fort Augustus on the Wednesday evening.

We managed a bit of a walk along the canal and around Fort Augustus before dinner enjoying some late afternoon sunshine. Dinner was at the Boathouse loch side restaurant  lochnessboathouse.co.uk

Where we sat all evening looking out at the loch and enjoying some great food.

Wednesday 23^rd June 2010  - Fort Augustus to Loch Dochfour

We woke to the sound of heavy rain and after a great breakfast we set off to park the car and trailer in Fort Augustus and find Braveheart.

Crossing though the open road bridge carrying the A82 ( 3^rd time) we were soon on Loch Ness where there was not even a ripple. As we aimed to sail the full length of the loch to our next stop at the far end of Loch Dochfour some 23 miles away, this was not a great start! After drifting around for probably 30 mins or so while we watched the wind on the water about ¼ of a mile away we decided to motor across to it as it did not look as though it was coming to us.

With the wind finally in our sails and the outboard raised out of the water we started to make some progress down the lock. By late morning we were about 5 miles into this leg of our journey and the wind was starting to build. By noon we were surfing! With all sails up Braveheart was flying – with white horses behind and ahead of us and spindrift blowing from the water behind us giving Kathleen and I a good soaking!  As we raced down the loch we were hit by a sudden gust which took our mizzen mast overboard when the teak deck fitting which holds the mast broke. With the Mizzen mast and sail dragging behind us we were unable to turn into the wind to drop our mainsail and thus stop the boat. With great difficulty I managed to recover the mast and sail using the mizzen sheets while being conscious that we could potentially loose the mast and sail for good!

With the mast back on board we luffed up and dropped the main sail before heading towards the shore to find somewhere to have lunch and take stock of the damage.

It was fairly obvious that without the deck fitting putting the mizzen back up was not going to be easy. So we decided to continue after lunch under main and jib alone. The wind which had dropped off a bit was still behind us and we enjoyed a nice run down to Dorres at the end of Loch Ness where the wind dropped off to nothing.

Loch Dochfour is small narrow loch which lies at the end of Loch Ness and which forms the last loch on the canal. With no wind we motored the last mile or so to the pontoons at the start of the last man made section of the canal. Once tied up I left Kathleen to tidy the boat while I went to find yet another bus which would take me back to Fort Augustus and the car,

Wednesday evening was spent in a grand country house which did B&B near Dorres, We ate at the Dorres Inn (recommended) and went for a walk along the beach (Loch Ness).

Thursday 24^th June 2010 – Loch Dochfour to Inverness

With our broken mizzen mast and a poor weather forecast for the next few days we decided that we would complete our journey when we left the canal rather than venture along the Moray coast. Therefore Thursday would we thought be a short sailing day as we only had 6 miles or so to go to get to the Beauly Firth and a further 2 miles on the sea. First though we had to move the car and trailer to our planned get out point which was a public slipway at North Kessock on the “Black Isle” just across the Firth from Inverness.

The Black Isle is not really an island but is the name given to a peninsular of land on the other side of the Beauly firth from Inverness and is easily accessible via the Kessock Bridge (a 1056m long cable stay bridge).

After driving over the bridge and leaving the car and trailer next to the slipway in North Kessock we spent the next 2 1/2hrs walking the 9 miles back to the boat (going by water is shorter).

Leaving the pontoon at 11.00am we were at the last A82 road bridge by 12.00hrs. Unfortunately we were the only boat there and Mr. Awkward who operated the bridge would not open it for just on e boat so we were held there for nearly three hours until another two yachts came along. Although we had only  2 ¼ miles to go to get into the Beauly Firth, we still had to negotiate the 4 locks at Muirtown, the swing bridge on the A862, the Clachnahary Works Lock and the railway swing bridge before getting to the final Clachnaharry sea lock.

The canal locks close at 18.00hrs during the summer which theoretically gave us 3 hrs to get out of the canal, but amazingly the last opening time for the rail bridge was 17.00hrs leaving us an impossible 2 hrs to get out of the canal. Our plans for the day had been thrown in to disarray by the unhelpful bridge operator on the A82!

If we did not get past the railway bridge within the next two hours we were faced with having to spend a night in Inverness – not really a great hardship but we were reluctant to leave Braveheart in the middle of Inverness as we had no means of securing things on board nor did we really want to spend another 24 hrs just to complete the last mile of our trip as by now the weather was fairly miserable.

The eventual solution was to take Braveheart out at the slip way at Caley Marine which was beside the Muirtown Locks. This involved another 5 mile walk to get the car and a rush to get Braveheart out of the water while a really helpful manager stood patiently by with his keys waiting to lock up!

Once de-rigged we headed home arriving back in Lenzie around midnight.

Summary

Although we technically did not finish the planned trip as we stopped 1 mile short of the canal end we had a great few days and sailed a total of 80.3 miles in 4 days including 20.4 sea miles.

The damage to Braveheart was easily fixed by replacing the teak fitting with a much stronger piece of teak.

More about the Caledonian Canal

The first survey for a canal was carried out by James Watt in 1773, but it was the Caledonian Canal Commission that paved the way for the actual construction. On 27 July 1803, an Act of Parliament was passed to authorise the project, and the canal engineer Thomas Telford was asked to survey, design and build the waterway. Telford worked with William Jessop on the survey, and the two men oversaw the construction until Jessop died in 1814. The canal was expected to take seven years to complete, and to cost £474,000, to be funded by the Government, but both estimates were inadequate. 

Because of the remoteness of the location, construction was started at both ends, so that completed sections could be used to bring in the materials for the middle sections. At Corpach, near Fort William , the entrance lock was built on rock, but at the other end, there was 56 feet (17 m) of mud below the proposed site of the sea lock. Rock was tipped on top of the mud and was allowed to settle for six months before construction could begin. The ground through which the canal was cut was variable, and further difficulties were experienced with the construction of the locks, the largest ever built at the time. There were also problems with the labour force, with high levels of absence, particularly during and after the potato harvest and the peat cutting season. This led to bringing in Irish navvies to manage the shortfall, which led to further criticism, since one of the main aims of the project was to reduce unemployment in the Highlands.

The canal finally opened in 1822, having taken an extra 12 years to complete, and cost £910,000. Over 3,000 local people had been employed in its construction, but the draught had been reduced from 20 feet (6.1 m) to 15 feet (4.6 m), in an effort to save costs. In the meantime, shipbuilding had advanced, with the introduction of steam-powered iron-hulled ships, many of which were now too big to use the canal. The Royal Navy did not need to use the canal either, as Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo in 1815, and the perceived threat to shipping when the canal was started was now gone. 

Before long, defects in some of the materials used became apparent, and part of Corpach double lock collapsed in 1843. This led to a decision to close the canal to allow repairs to be carried out, and the depth was increased to 18 feet (5.5 m) at the same time.

The work was designed by Telford's associate James Walker, and completed by 1847, but not all of the traffic expected to return to using the canal did so. Commercially, the venture was not a success, but the dramatic scenery through which it passes led to it becoming a tourist attraction. Queen Victoria took a trip along it in 1873, and the publicity surrounding the trip resulted in a large increase in visitors to the region and the canal. The arrival of the railways at Fort William, Fort Augustus and Inverness did little to harm the canal, as trains were scheduled to connect with steamboat services.

There was an upsurge in commercial traffic during the First world War when components for the construction of mines were shipped through the canal on their way to Inverness from America, and fishing boats used it to avoid the route around the north of Scotland. Ownership passed to the Ministry of Transport in 1920, and then to British Waterways in 1962. Improvements were made, with the locks being mechanised between 1964 and 1969. By 1990, the canal was in obvious need of restoration, with lock walls bulging, and it was estimated that repairs would cost £60 million. With no prospect of the Government funding this, British Waterways devised a repair plan, and between 1995 and 2005, sections of the canal were drained each winter. Stainless Steel rods were used to tie the double-skinned lock walls together, and over 25,000 tonnes of grout were injected into the lock structures. All of the lock gates were replaced, and the result was a canal whose structures are probably in a better condition than they have ever been.

The canal is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and attracts over half a million visitors each year. British Waterways, who work with the Highland Council and the Scottish Forestry Commission through the Great Glen Ways Initiative, were hoping to increase this number to over 1 million by 2012.