Rudolph Hooker -- Extreme Narrowboating 02/06/2011

I was chatting to a bloke who, by chance, witnessed a meeting of the ENC, the Extreme Narrowboating Club. Apparently this club was formed to cater for members who found normal narrowboating a little tame and yearned for something spiced with a touch of danger.

The club holds ad hoc gatherings at places such as Stourport, Sawley, Alrewas, Consall Forge, in fact anywhere where a canal joins a river and there is a weir. The meetings are only held when the rivers are in flood and on occasions lock gates have had AV applied padlocks removed to facilitate access.

Once on the flooded river section each member performs daring manoeuvres such as winding with the bow on the bank and the current doing the work on the stern. Ferry glides are for wimps only I was told.

At the aforementioned meet on the flooded Trent above Thrumpton Weir Clive Clutterbuck kept the crowd enthralled until something substantial fouled his prop and left him with no propulsion. His 62ft narrowboat (aptly named Nautilus), hit the barrier above the weir head on at considerable speed and rode over the wire barrier. His boat shot the weir quite gracefully, but then disappeared forever into the huge stopper below the weir.

Clive timed his jump to perfection, probably out of sheer terror, and ended up hanging onto the barrier above the weir. His recovery took some time, but earned him a standing ovation when he finally reached Terra Firma.

It is now enshrined in ENC folklore that shooting a weir in a narrowboat is known as doing a Clutterbook.

You couldn't make it up could you ?