My friend Chris on NB Elektra, otherwise known as The Pink Hat Man, had been moored in Wigan near the bottom of the Wigan 21 flight of locks. He wanted to be at the top so he could continue his eastward journey along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. I offered to help him up the flight and so did Paul Balmer, creator of the Waterway Routes maps (http://waterwayroutes.co.uk) that both us and Chris use. After Chris had been waiting around Wigan for the generator to be fixed and various other things to fall into place the date of Friday 7th November was agreed as the day.

And so it was that my alarm went off at 04:45 that morning so that I could catch the first train out of Scarborough at 05:48. Unsurprisingly the streets were quite quiet on my walk to the station. There was however one cyclist with no lights, nonchalantly riding along, hands in pockets not on the handlebars, ignoring red traffic lights and smoking weed. At five thirty in the morning?? It takes all sorts.

The train left on time and the journey went well with a change at York, watching the daylight gradually brighten as the train crossed the Pennines. It was misty on the Yorkshire side but as we exited Standedge Tunnel on the Lancashire side the mist had disappeared. A very quick change at Manchester Victoria meant I was early into Wigan at 08:50.

It was a ten minute walk to the canal where I found Chris at lock 86 being helped up by Mark, a friendly and helpful volunteer lock keeper.

After hellos and introductions, Mark and I headed off along the towpath to the next lock and Chris drove his boat. We set the next lock ready and worked the boat up. I then headed up to the next lock leaving Mark to close the lock gates once Elektra had left.

Soon the familiar sight of Paul Balmer could be seen walking up the towpath. His first train of the day had been slightly later than mine. He had travelled up from the Bristol area via Birmingham. So there were now three people helping on the towpath. We soon got into a regular rhythm of two people working the lock with the third setting the lock ahead. Once Elektra was up and leaving the lock the towpath side helper would head off up to the next lock to help there, leaving the off side helper to close both gates once the boat had left the lock. That last helper would then walk up and bypass the next lock, which by then had the boat in it and two helpers, and carry on to set the lock above that one. It all worked rather well. Sometimes we got out of sequence when there was chatting to gongoozlers to be done.

Elektra is a 62′ boat. This is close to the maximum length possible on this section of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Chris was keeping back towards the bottom gates as much as possible. However, some of the top gates leak quite a lot so sometimes the well deck got a bit wet.

At one of the locks that I had bypassed Chris was trying to remove some rubbish from the water behind his boat as it was rising in the lock and didn’t notice that the button fender at the bow had become trapped under a cross beam in one of the top gates. Lots of shouting drew his attention but not before a shackle holding the fender broke under the tension. Luckily this stopped the boat sinking or the lock gate being lifted off its pinion. A weak link on fender chains is always a good idea.

The sequence became slightly confused at lock 75. This lock has a faulty gate and is deemed by CRT to be too dangerous for normal people to operate. CRT staff have to operate this lock. You have to ring them by 08:30 that morning to book them to come and work the lock. This isn’t actually publicised by CRT, we had gleaned the info from the very useful Wigan Flight Crew Facebook group. In the files section of this group there are also very detailed notes on the various idiosyncrasies on the whole flight.

We carried on up the flight. Chris now and then offering tea and Hobnobs, of the chocolate variety. The teas were deferred until we reached the top but the Hobnobs provided useful energy. We had picked up a number of gongoozlers by now and some of them occasionally helped by pushing a gate here and there.

At the top lock, number 65, the gate paddles were padlocked shut but the ground paddles unlocked. They don’t want you to use the gate paddles on this lock as doing so drags weed from the pound above into the lock and it blocks the sluices.

And then we were done. It was about 1:45 so from lock 86 to 65 had taken just under 4 hours. Chris turned left after leaving the lock and moored up. We all boarded Elektra for teas and coffees. Some of us had more Hobnobs, some had sandwiches. We had a good chat about the flight, Elektra and the world in general. Mark the volunteer then headed off home and Chris, Paul and I headed off to the nearest bus stop to catch a bus back into Wigan, all of us making use of our old gits bus passes. The timings were a bit tight for Paul to catch his train and we don’t know whether he made it in time. The times of my train to Manchester and then on to Scarborough were more relaxed although I did just miss a train from Wigan North Western. I had to walk all the way across the road to Wigan Wallgate to catch the next train. There followed a smooth if well patronised trip back across the Pennines getting home at just gone 7PM.

Chris has a bow cam on the boat and here is a video of the trip condensed into 12 minutes. https://youtu.be/b7yNPiWKJDg. You can watch his live bow cam (when internet coverage allows) and see other stuff about his boat at https://pink-narrowboat.com

Tilly was pleased to see me. I knew I would be late back home so I had left the automatic food dispenser to open for her at 5:30. She however was absolutely adamant: FEED ME NOW!!