Souterrain de Riqueval

15th July 2016


We knew that we had a few tunnels before reaching Paris. 

Along the Canal du Nord we are told we had the Grand Souterrain de Ruyaulcourt, with a total length of 4350m where big barges and boats enter simultaneously from both North and South  to meet and pass each other in a wider section in the center. Listening to all boaters tales on the way looks we are required to have a certain extension of ropes, lots of stressful stories of boats banging against the sides and big barges that are on their commercial route with little or no patience for small pleasure boats. The stories didn't make us particularly excited with sharing the 4km tunnel with the big barges and we decided for the alternate parallel route along the Canal de Saint-Quentin.

Here we have to cross as well 2 tunnels, the Souterrain the Riqueval with 5670m followed by the smaller Souterrain de Lesdins with only 1098m long. At last these won't have any barges. Easy.

We stop for the night in the small village of Venduilhe on the day before Bastille day. Venduilhe is a weird place, the vibe is heavy, we can't find a single shop, or cafe and can't recall if we did even cross anyone on the streets during our evening walk and the ones on the houses look slightly suspiciously at us. One can see this was in the past an industrial area, now abandoned. During the night fireworks to celebrate Bastille Day, suddenly there are lots of people coming from all sides, wonder where these people were during the day... There is a party in town but we don't join. 

Following day is a bank holiday and the tunnel will be closed so we spend the day here. In the evening we move the boat from the village to the tunnel entrance to get away from town and so that we're ready first thing next morning. We thought there would be a queue of boats, but looks we're the only ones when we wake up next morning. 

At 7am the tow boat is waiting for us with 2 French guys not speaking a word of English. They look at our boat with a face that clearly shows they have never seen anything similar before. They are suppose to use two crossed ropes from their boat to ours but Hamish is reluctant to fix anything to the sprinkler system bars and we are reduced to one rope fix to the front of the boat. This is going to be a bouncy ride. We are not allowed to turn on the engine inside the tunnel in any circumstances, so I stay inside steering if necessary and on the look-out on the back, Hamish is on the roof looking out at the front. 

The electrical tow boat starts heading slowly inside. We're underground for the next 6km. We start bouncing off the sides a few meters later, Hamish tries to shout to the tow boat guys to tell them to slow down unsuccessfully, he pushes out the front I push out the back when necessary. We're scrapping on the sides. I thought our steering wheel was straight but we bounce so much that we adjust it slightly to one side, which seems to work and puts us on a more steady route. It takes us 1.30h to reach the other side, we bring bits of tunnel with us on the tires but no major scrapes on the hull. All good, ready for the second tunnel. We will be able to steer on this one.