The Bascote Shuffle

A timeshare boat was approaching just as I left my mooring at the Cape, heading for the locks. The crew tured out to have had some experience and it was a pleasure to share the two locks with them before I stopped for breakfast outside Tesco in Warwick. I did need a few bits and pieces of shopping but decided that the chances of the a) finding what I wanted and b) choosing between the ninety-eight varieties of everything meant that it would be quicker to go on to Leamington and use the Co-Op there.
The timeshare boat had also stopped and again came along just as I was setting off. This meant we could share the nine locks from Radford up to Bascote top. I was going to stop at Fosse wharf to empty my cassette but the chance of sharing locks with a competent crew was too good to pass up.
The top lock at Bascote is a staircase and as our two boats approached the bottom a single hire-boat appeared at the top. This gave me a chance to show off and do something I'd always wanted to do since reading about it years ago. It is, of course, perfectly possible for two uphill boats to cross a downhill boat in a staircase but it didn't seem to have occurred to the other crews. I was having some trouble explaining how it was done but  enjoyed seeing realisation dawn on their faces as we completed the manoeuvre!

Doing the Bascote Shuffle