Macquincourt Tunnel – Lesdins Tunnel, St. Quentin Canals

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Thursday, april 8th

Todays mission, to get close to the famous Macquincourt tunnel of St. Quentin. This tunnel is 5670 meters, or 5.6k. We would then be in position to take the Friday’s 9am convoy through it. You are hooked up boat after boat (up to 30 they say) and pulled by a tug that is powered by electrical cables from above. This convoy takes 2 hours to slowly move through the tunnel. We have been told of some boats swaying back and forth hitting the sides of the tunnel and doing damage, heavy exhaust from boats that leave their motors running and so forth. What we found was a very well lit, large tunnel that proved no issue for us being towed.


To get to the tunnel we had to go through 17 locks this day and about 23 k distance. We arrive at the beginning of the tunnel around 3:45pm and tied up at the assembly point for the next days convoy. To our surprise, the tug came out of the tunnel from the opposite direction with the last convoy from the South. Only one large barge was towed. The tug was heading back through to the south end and asked us if we wanted to go. Of course! This meant a 2 hour tunnel “ride” followed by a short summit canal and finishing off with a short tunnel named Lesdins Tunnel (1098meters, or 1k in length) that we would have to motor through ourselves. This one we could see light from both sides which was reassuring! You are not allowed to moor in the summit canal between the two tunnels so we would have to go all the way through. This proved to be a great deal for us and our time schedule putting us a entire day ahead of schedule.

After finishing the 2 canals we motored to the next lock about 2k’s, arriving at 7:30 long after the lock had closed for the day. We tied up to the locks mooring dock happy to be done for the day. The boat was well “slimed” from all the locks so we cleaned up the boat. The the deck and hull went from green yuck to bright white and beautiful red! Boat and crew happy, dinner of grilled ham and cheese and off to bed.

Just some pictures

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I have not always had the Internet connections that would allow us to post pictures so this posting will just be pictures of various places and such…

This is the K.Y.C.G Yacht haven we spent our first 2 nights at. Walter and everyone we met were so friendly and helpful. Gave us some wonderful tips and insights to the canals based on their experiences.

When we arrived in Gent, we visited the Belfry. Stunning view from the top.

Day Six – Cambrai, France

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April 6, 2010

I know that I will not be able to keep up with a journal type blog as Internet locations are few and far between so I won’t bore you with long tales of the day. We were on the E’scaut Canal most of our past two days. And today we will depart and turn left to meet up with St Quentin Canal. This will bring us ultimately to Reims. But before we get there we will travel through several tunnels including one that we will have to be towed convoy style. Can’t wait…

This morning we cast off around 7:30 heading to Cambrai, France. Sun was out and we had little canal traffic to encounter. Today we encountered our first canal lock that is manual (no attendant). This was very interesting as it has sensors to open for you, you enter the lock and then after tying up, you lift a blue rod. This closes the gate and the water starts to fill the lock. What we did not know was why the lock when filled did not open to let us out.

After calling on a Emergency remote phone at the gate building, we received a push button remote control through a trap door on the lock house, (like TV remote) that we take with us to open locks and such. Very clever!

We will use this for the remaining St. Quentin locks and will “deposit” the remote in a designated lock box at the end of that canal. The locks are now smaller and one or two boats our size would fit. Our second lock of this type, we hit bottom and got stuck going out. The lock keeper was there and helped us back out of the lock and enter a lock that was to the left side of this one. We learn to follow the big barges, they seem to know the deeper waters!

The lock keeper was surprised at the level of silt on that side of the lock. He thought we should with our draft make it without any difficulty. We maneuvered the remaining locks of the day with too much trouble. I drove most of the time into the locks and Ken would tie us up. Today we did only 7 locks, tomorrow we will have to get close to the St. Quentin’s famous tunnels where we will go through 17 locks and 23 km’s to get there.

We have a cute little mooring in Cambrai and after walking a fair amount, we found the Tourism office where they directed us to our Internet Café. I have done some shopping for staples and of course a bottle of wine. Ken is catching up on his never ending work and when he is done we head for dinner and back to the boat. Tomorrow, the TUNNELS of St. Quentin!!!