“Slower!” my partner, Alex, yelled from the footpath beside the canal I was barreling down. His warm Welsh accent and deliberate tone almost masked the panic in his voice.
In response, I promptly pushed the wrong lever forward and ran our 45-foot-long narrowboat full speed into the metal underhang of the drawbridge Alex had just cranked open. Luckily, full speed on this vessel is about four miles per hour. Still, metal hitting metal produced a resounding bang, stopping a small crowd of passersby in their tracks. Nothing like an American taking the wheel in the U.K. Read more…