We decided to do an early start in the dark and take the newly altered boat up to Pangbourne and back.
The river was flowing extremely fast, so it was difficult to get much power into each stroke in the fast stream, we certainly had a few wobbles and with safety in mind came ashore well below Mapldurham Lock and portaged with a run of a few hundred meters through the fields and through the lock.
The pound above the lock was much smoother, fast flowing still but much less turbulent, agoin thinking about our new shiny boat and our own mortality we did not turn around the bridge supports as earlier sessions, we turned below the bridge and a good job too, we must have been swept some 150 to 200 meters down stream by the time we turned the boat across the river.
We started to pull harder and the boat was absolutely flying downstream.
Below Mapledurham Lock the put in was problematic with the turblent water from teh weir pool psuhing the boat towards the bankside tree overhangs, Matt navigated us out and we pushed on.
We finished in 1:46 barely a minute over our record, however it had taken us 1:10 to go upstream and just 36 minutes to get back! From the Garmin our top speed home was almost 11 miles per hour and all that with Lee's heart rate barely touching 140bpm..........
The boat is great!!
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