Guide to the Canal de la Sambre à l'Oise and River Sambre

This guide covers the Canal de la Sambre à L’Oise and River Sambre, which runs for 162Km and through 47 locks from Tergnier at the junction of the Canal de Saint-Quentin in France to Charleroi in Belgium and then into the Meuse at Namur. This guide covers the stretch of the two waterways from Chauny near Tergnier to Charleroi. From Tergnier to Landrecies on the Belgian border it is the Canal de la Sambre à L’Oise and from there to Charleroi it is the River Sambre. Following a 15 year closure, the route was reopened in 2021 after the two aqueducts near Noyales had been rebuilt. Other than between Lan-delies lock 9 and the last lock at Charleroi there is no commercial traffic and very little leisure traffic.

Details are provided on all the marinas, haltes and other mooring points (even picnic stops) along the waterway, together with information on facilities, shopping and nearby attractions. Each mooring point is illustrated by a colour photo, meaning that the guide is the only detailed pictorial reference available for cruising on this waterway.

This guide, by James and Carol Littlewood, is one of a series of 17 full colour guides to moorings on the French inland waterways, produced and edited by Gordon Knight, based on a series of annual cruises along these beautiful inland waterways.

The guide is regularly updated (usually annually) using reports submitted by members of the CA's European Inland Waterways Section (EIWS) and incorporates numerous hyperlinks to a wealth of additional information. CA members (who can download the digital version for free - you'll need to be logged in to see the free download link in Buying Options below ) also benefit from further hyperlinks to the CA's award-winning app CAptain's Mate to obtain the most up to date information on mooring locations and navigational restrictions as it is posted.

To obtain full benefit from these hyperlinks, all the EIWS guides can be purchased in digital versions as downloadable PDFs from the CA's digital store Shopify. Non-members can thus benefit from numerous hyperlinks in green to additional information on the internet, while CA members can also use hyperlinks in blue to the latest updates on CAptain's Mate.

For those who prefer a hard copy, all the guides can also be purchased in full colour A4 printed format from the print-on-demand publishers Lulu.

For information on the additional benefits (in addition to free PDF downloads of all the guides) available to members of European Inland Waterways Section (EIWS), please see EIWS web page.