The former means you would clear Blisworth tunnel in way under half an hour, but queues have seen us in there for over two.
#Enroute 4 speed set up full
The same is even more true with tunnels - you can do the tunnels at those locations at 4 mph or so, if they are clear, or at painfully under 1 mph if they are full of people proceeding with extreme caution. Whilst we might generally work say the Stoke Bruerne or Braunston flights in around an hour if nobody else is about, we have taken over three hours to do the same when it's congested.
![enroute 4 speed set up enroute 4 speed set up](https://lasopazing257.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/7/3/127366735/756202239.jpg)
However summer queues can totally bugger things up. I prefer as a rule of thumb that you can often do two locks in the same time as it takes to travel a mile in "typical" conditions. Unless held up at locks by queues, most, (but not all), locks can be worked in very much less than 20 minutes, and the easier ones generally in under 10, (we regularly cover flights of 7 locks in around an hour, when nobody else is slowing us down, and we ain't rushing). Many cruising guides over the years have talked about the "lock mile" as a planning aid - namely the concept that it takes around as long to work a lock as it does to travel a mile.įrankly from when first boating to back in the 1960s/1970s right up to present day, I have always found that fairly useless advice, (sorry folks who still propose it!.)Įven on the deep canals, by the time you have slowed repeatedly for lines of moored craft, you will be lucky if your average time between locks much exceeds 3 miles per hour - implying 20 minutes average to cover a mile, (much longer with deep draughted boat on a shallow stretch).