(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)
(retrospective post for Sunday 30th July to Tuesday 1st August)
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| Cath enters Cosgrove lock. |
Our stay at Linslade for the festival had been brief. In truth we were fairly fully tied up performing with the band from our Morris side for most of the day, (New Moon Morris), and spent very little time with Sickle. It was a good decision to not bring Flamingo down as well, because it is a significant trip, and the end result would not have justified the substantial effort involved.
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| Someone looks happy. |
Because David needed to be at Linslade for the festival for the New Moon performance, we had actually all come up on Saturday for the day from home by car, and returned home immediately after the festival. The second advantage of this was that far more instruments did not need to be stowed in Sickle's cabin than it can reasonably accommodate. So in order that we could continue our journey on the Sunday, without abandoning a car in Linslade, we got Michael to deliver us up there.
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| Two generation of Grand Union ice breakers - on the left is Snowdrop, |
As it is really a good 2 days boating, and as we were not able to start or end the first and last days particularly early or late, we elected to take a more relaxed 3 days, which would also allow an overnight stop in Stoke Bruerne - one of our regular haunts.
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| Leaving the top of the Stoke Bruerne flight. |
It was a good trip throughout, with fine weather and no real issues. In particular both Sickle's gearbox, and the mechanism controlling it continued to work as they should. The replacement engine handles and gets us along well, but at times is making more smoke than we really think it should be for an engine claimed to not have had much in excess of 300 total hours on the clock. Where possible I am deliberately working it harder, in case it needs a good work out to get things better bedded in - as a result we made a fairly spirited passage through Blisworth tunnel. Doing this is at least certainly not making things worse, but the jury is out on whether it is actually improving them.
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| About to moor for the night at Stoke Bruerne |
Linslade to High House Wharf, Weedon
Miles: 36.6, Locks: 14
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