Boat trips on the Pocklington Canal

New Horizons is based at the Melbourne Arm of the canal between Easter and October.

Short trips lasting about 30 minutes will run from the Melbourne Arm on most Sundays and Bank Holidays. No booking is required. We usually start around 12 and end at 5.

We will be running boat trips on August Bank Holiday Monday, and on the Sunday.

The maximum number of passengers we are insured to carry is 12 at a time (including children), but we can run lots of short trips on a Sunday. We are happy to run trips with one or two passengers on quiet days. There is no timetable, and we run trips according to demand.

Although we plan to run short boat trips on these days, our boat is run by unpaid volunteers giving up our own time, and we are not a commercial service! If you are travelling a long distance please give Greg Dixon (see below) a ring in case we have had to cancel boat trips for any reason.

Older children (including adults!) can take turns at steering the boat, under supervision. It's easy - just push the tiller to the left and the boat goes to the right!

How much does it cost? In the same way that your insurance will not allow you to use your car as a taxi, we are not allowed to charge fares for boat trips. We are grateful for donations, which help pay the insurance, licence and other costs of running our trip boat.

Special trips on the canal can be arranged for parties of up to twelve passengers (including children but not counting our crew). For example, your party could explore the navigable part of the canal (from Melbourne Arm to Cottingwith Lock – see map) You could have a picnic at Cottingwith Lock, or Gardham Lock if you would prefer a shorter trip.We will provide tea and coffee during the trip. Please bring good weather with you! Alternatively, you could have a a drink at the Melbourne Arms at the end of your trip. At present the Melbourne Arms is not offering food but starts again on Thursday 28 August. Phone numbers for this and other local pubs can be found here.

We avoid arranging special trips on Sundays and Bank Holidays because these times are reserved for short trips. Special trips can be on Saturdays and weekdays, and it is useful to have several weeks' notice so that we can find volunteers to crew the boat. If you are particularly keen on a special trip on a Sunday we may be able to arrange a trip of an hour or so, after our normal trips have ended.

Please contact our Bookings Officer, Greg Dixon, if you are interested in arranging a special trip.

Ring Greg on 01759 318699. His email address is on the PCAS contacts page.

We do not offer self-drive boat hire, since our insurance covers only crewed boat trips.