17th Pardon at Marchienne-au-Pont

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The parade never had a chance to get organised as suddenly a large commercial barge wanted to come through the moored boats so it could be tied up ready for loading on Monday morning. The organisers had said that the canal was officially shut to traffic for the weekend but it was hard to argue with an 80 x 9m barge slowly coming through the moorings. Our host's boat was in the way so we had to quickly let go the ropes and head off upstream leaving Waterdog to fend for herself.

Barging through
Waterdog seemed to be in the way as well but we didn't have much choice about moving her as the barge master obviously thought he had room and kept coming!
Barging through

You can see the stern of Waterdog between these big barges and it was hard to see if she was touched or not. We were told by other boats that she didn't get touched so we breathed a sigh of relief and waited for the parade to get re-organised by VHF radio.

And then....
110m barge
A 110m x 11.45m barge started backing through the moored boats! We heard them ask for the little Peniche to be moved as they couldn't fit through so we knew we had to get back and move Waterdog. The other boats responded and we were transferred to another boat for a dash back to Waterdog where we quickly dropped the mast and flags and started up the engine to reverse out of harms way. The large barge was very controlled with stern engines and bow thruster going .
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