The Big Two Boat Summer Trip Finally Reaches Completion.

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

I remember boating back in the 1970s, after long distance carrying had ceased, but leisure boating was very much in its infancy, that it somehow seemed to be considered not the done trhing to start your engine up, and set off before (say) 8:00 am.  I can actually remember wanting to make an early start, and pulling or poling the boat the first bit, so as not to disturb those still in bed!

By the time we set off, nobody else was waiting to go down.

All that has changed over the years, and it is now not at all unusual to find significant number of boats going past well before those times, particularly where there are lock flights, and people think they may gain an advantage by being first way.  And so it was this morning, with quite a few boats moving before 07:00 am, there was no way we were going to be one of the early ones down the flight.

In fact by the time we set off, a lot of boats had gone ahead, but we were initially on our own.  With the back-pumps running, and water over the gates, the notices to wait and share locks seem a bit out of date, and certainly the lock-keepers at Stoke are now making no efforts to enforce sharing.

Actually the lock keeper at Stoke was far more intent on getting boats moving through quickly, and in minimising delays, (good man, and sensible in the circumstances!), so if a particular crew appeared to not be ready to move at their turn, he simply waved boats behind past!  So, when it looked like a couple of boats who were logically ahead of us, were not ready to get moving again, we got waved through past them.  This seemed to not meet the approval of one boat being overtaken, but of course one must do what the lock-keeper instructs!

So we worked along through the first locks of the flight.

It was genuinely fairly busy down the flight, and although one or two people seemed unhappy that the lock-keeper was additionally "turning" some locks to speed the flow, the reality is both that no water was wasted, and in fact he had still managed to get additional boats moving, and cause zero delay to those who were complaining.  Quite an interesting spectator sport, it proved to be, and we made better progress than it looked like we might at the start!  These guys get some stick - this one was adding value.

However, we were not so lucky later in the day, when we stopped for supplies at Wolverton.  A boat untied and left maybe 20 to 30 minutes before, us, but we caught it up after not that many miles.  Despite being clearly aware we were behind them, the crew then decided to look steadfastly only forward for several miles, whilst boating at a speed that is little more than Sickle's default "tick-over" speed.  It would have been desperately easy to wave us past, but I can only assume they felt nobody should reasonably expect to travel faster than their own sedate pace?  Eventually, after a very long while, we were let past, but there really is, in my view, no excuse for delaying people in this way, particularly on long lock-less stretches like this, where there is no question that those that go past are gaining any additional advantage by doing so.  It seems to me a common courtesy to let a faster boat past, if you only wish to travel slowly yourself.

Anyway, after that we progressed well, back to Sickle's home mooring.  We probably spent far longer chatting to people there than we should hav done, particularly as we still had a car to retrieve from Braunston.

So at this point, I think we can declare our extended big summer jaunt officially ended - staggeringly the two boats together have accumulated approaching 600 miles during the trip, and our combined mileage for the year for both boats now exceeds 1000 miles.


Stoke Bruerne to Fenny Stratford

Miles: 18.3, Locks: 8
Total Miles: 581.3, Locks: 336 (Worked)
(I'm treating the delayed return of Sickle as part of the overall summer trip with both boats).

Very Slow Through Two Lock Flights

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

This was the second and final weekend allocated to completing getting "Sickle" back from Alvecote to her home mooring.  Again it involved "two car shuffles", but as the boat was now closer to home, fortunately not with the mileages we had to cover in cars last weekend.  Last weekend had also seen us mislay one of the keys to one car by the end of it.  The strong hope was that it would turn up on "Sickle" this weekend, and indeed it did.  We can be fairly dippy sometimes!

Working our way slowly up the Braunston flight.

Last evening we finally got to visit the Admiral Nelson in its latest reincarnation.  This famous canal-side pun has struggled in recent years, being through many different managements, often with longish closures in between.  We had not gone their on our wedding anniversary because the family are vegetarian, and whilst we could find options to suit, the menu had been too limited to feed our sons, but now we were alone.  The prices are at the high end for pub food, now, although not extortionate.  When I saw portion sizes, I was initially disappointed, but actually the quality of what was served was so good, I could forgive them this - far more interesting flavours than we have had in a pub meal in many years, I would say - really top end cookery.  So, if you are not obsessive with your meal needing to overhang the side of the pl;ate, give it a try, but if you prefer quantity over quality, you are probably better off at the Boathouse!  The wine pricing was bizarre, (to put it mildly!).  Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay were all priced at a not particularly cheap £15 for a 750 ml bottle, but at £4.50 for a 250 ml glass, (equivalent to £1.50 per bottle less).  Needless to say we ordered our wine by the glass, but I can also recommend the particularly well presented "Landlord" beer.

.......and equally slowly down the Buckby flight!

Our indulgence went one step further the next morning with cooked breakfasts at the Gongoozler's Rest floating cafe.  This probably cost us far more time than the meal actually took, because by the time we were ready to leave the Braunston locks were already busy, with a small queue waiting at the bottom.  This proved to be a classic "no point in rushing it" day from beginning to end.  It didn't matter what speed you and an accompanying boat worked your locks at really, because there were always slower ones ahead.  It just took a very long while to get up the Bruanston flight - actually 6 very easy locks, but often busy.

Cath sits crocheting waiting for the boat that never came!

At Buckby / Whilton locks, things went even slower, if that were possible.  The boat we came down most of them with was under the impression there were only three, and that they could turn and go back up again.  They panicked a bit when they realised their first opportunity to do so was just one lock from the bottom!  Unusually we had two boats wanting to turn around (or "wind") between the bottom two locks, one travelling in each direction.  The one we shared with did so fairly easily, but the boat that had just come up from the bottom lock seemed unable to do so, (or more accurately its steerer did).  Being good, we sat, now alone, in the bottom lock, waiting for them to complete, but it never happened.  Eventually they had still not managed, but there were too many boats now trying to get through, so we shared with a different one.  We wondered if they ever managed to turn ?

All this delay made us far far later into the long pound to Stoke Bruerne than we ever intended, so what should have been an early arrival there, actually turned into quite a late one.  We had planned to have all our evening meals in pubs, and had no food available to cook, so getting to the Boat was a priority.  No problem of course, and I love this pub, which we now laughingly refer to as our "local" even though we live nowhere near it.  Food is always OK, though certainly not as out of the ordinary as what we ate last night. 

Braunston to Stoke Bruerne
Miles: 20.3, Locks: 13
Total Miles: 563.0, Locks: 328 (Worked)
(I'm treating the delayed return of Sickle as part of the overall summer trip with both boats).

Lots More Boats Moving Today - A Popular Canal

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

Despite a few issues yesterday, we had progressed far enough that getting to our planned target of Braunston today should not be a major problem.  That said, I normally tend to be awake and up early enough, without an alarm, but today somehow slept through quite a bit later than usual - it was not going to be an early start!

Leaving the short Newbold Tunnel

If we thought we had had issues yesterday, today's problems looked far more serious! Cath had firmly believed when she had been shopping that we still had some filter coffee in reserve, but as soon as it came to coffee making time, it was obvious we had all but run out.  We put up with many basic necessities, even some deprivations, when boating with Sickle, but regularly made cafetieres of fairly genuine coffee are something we don't generally compromise on.  It would now have to be just tea, for a while, and that doesn't really hack it for me!

Moored (well almost) awaiting coffee supplies.

What you can never be sure of on the Northern Oxford, is just how many other boats may be out and about on their travels.  This particularly applies on a sunny Sunday, where the many miles of almost lock-free cruising attract out lots of people that are probably the type that only go out for a day, or maybe the weekend, but seldom go long distance boating.  Some of these prefer to amble along very slowly - not an issue if they allow those who prefer to travel a bit faster to come past, but it can be really quite frustrating when they do not.   And why, oh why, do experienced boaters make you follow them for miles along long straight stretches where passing is a doddle, only to finally wave you past just as you are approaching moored boats, (for which you should be slowing down, not speeding up!), or a blind bend ?

........and opposite a pub, but no time to visit it!

Added to the pile are "day boats", often hired out to people with zero experience, and apparently very little training given by many of the places offering these boats.  They can be seen weaving about on days like today, and will occasionally choose to place themselves diagonally across the cut in front of you, precisely at places here there is no apparent reason why they should!  Sickle's brakes were severely tested at one point today when the chap wearing the cheap plastic "Captain" hat, (why do so many go for this!),  decided to pull a stunt that really could not have been predicted!

Anyway we dodged and dived around most of the obvious hazards, and made surprisingly good progress, considering at one point we were at the tail of about a five boat convoy.  We made only one stop, near Rugby, to get that very much needed caffeine supply, (letting a couple of dayboats past during our stop, unfortunately!).

At Braunston one of those regular coincidences occurred - just as we had tied up, our friends Mike and Polly happened to pass on the boat "Reginald", so pulled up for a chat before carrying on.  In fact our departure by car from Braunston ended up a lot later than we thought it might be, and we still needed to go back to Alvecote for the other car.

Why do sheep that were random, all take off the same way for no obvious reason ?

Alvecote had already been the scene of some drama this weekend, because, after we had left it yesterday, there had apparently been a significant fire, which unconfirmed reports say may have been deliberately started by someone.  Not content with that, as we arrived there, an emergency ambulance was just arriving.  It transpired a boater we know had fallen into the hold of one of the working boats there, and badly damaged at least her leg.  Some considerable moving of boats and ingenuity was required to get things to the point the woman involved could be lifted from the hold of the boat by several strong men, and across the decked front of another boat.  Details of who was involved have not yet been made public by the family, so I'll respect their privacy here, but some subsequent inquiries have revealed she needed an operation yesterday because of a badly smashed knee, and is likely to need a very long recovery period.  We wish her well, and await some hopefully positive news about her progress.

Ansty (Northern Oxford Canal) to Braunston (Grand Union Canal)
Miles: 18.7, Locks: 3
Total Miles: 542.7, Locks: 315 (Worked)
(I'm treating the delayed return of Sickle as part of the overall summer trip with both boats).

Starting to Bring "Sickle" Home Despite A Few Frustrations.

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

Reversing "Sickle" back to give "Greyhound" a "snatch" of the rocks.

When we were at Alvecote two weeks back, both attending the Historic Boat Gathering, and celebrating our 25th Wedding Anniversary, it had become very apparent that with Cath's work situation that trying to get both boats back in a hurry was just a step too far.

Fortunately the owners at Alvecote were perfectly happy for Sickle to stay berthed there securely for a couple more weeks, until we could fetch her home, independent of our hurried run South with just Chalice.

"Lamprey" first of a string of ex working boats we passed today.

The weekend moves that result, do tend to be more time consuming operations than might be imagined, largely because they more often than not involve not only delivering a car to wherever we hope to end the weekend, then driving on to our start point in a second car, but also involve driving from the end point back to the start point, once we have completed our boating, in order to retrieve the second car.  By the time we are talking about locations like Alvecote, these are not insubstantial mileages from our home, (and not insubstantial bills for both petrol and diesel!).

"Sickle" at Atherstone, having just passed "Tench".

However, we were at least able to arrive at Alvecote on Friday evening - a wonderful excuse to once more explore the superb food and drink at the Samuel Barlow.  Their resident "grumpy chef", (their description, not ours!), recognised the vegetarians from a couple of weeks back, and sent the waitress back to offer an option not advertised on today's menu - you do feel well looked after in the "Barlow"!

On Saturday we finally got to settle the bill for the hull blacking they had done for us on Sickle, but were then asked to help tow the Josher Greyhound back off an underwater obstruction that it had managed to get stemmed up on.  In practice once I had grappled with reversing Sickle the required distance, (she is much harder to reverse than an unshortened working boat!), pulling Greyhound off was easy, but, despite owning a tug, one doesn't often get involved in such things.

Empress, the last of the historic boats passed.

After that it should have been relatively easy, and fears of possible hold ups at the slow filling Atherstone locks subsided when we arrived to find no boats waiting.  However a few locks up, once more I went to use the gears, and got a sense of deja vu, as the wheel turned, but the gears stayed engaged - once more we had lost all control.  The reasons proved not to be too disastrous - a simple pin had sheared through - but a work-around temporary fix required some thought, as I had no spares for anything like this.  Eventually a "bodge" was rigged - quite adequate to get us going again, and we moved on, after a delay of (I guess) perhaps a bit over an hour.

A feature of the day was other working boats coming the other way - I failed to photograph some of them well enough, but we passed Lamprey and Canis Major near Grendon, Tench and Ilford in the Atherstone flight, and later on Whitby and then Empress.  Presumably most were returning from the previous weekend's event at Shakerstone - one we could not possibly squeeze into Sickle's timetable this year.

Completuing the 180 degree turn at Hawkesbury Junction.

The issue once you push on past the famous Hawkesbury Juction, (known to boatmen as "Sutton Stop"), and move from the Coventry to Oxford canal, is that much of it is either not easy to moor on with a deep draughted boat, or is near noisy motorways or alongside a major railway, (or any combination thereof!).  An obvious place to stop is Ansty, or it would be, if the same limited visitor moorings were not apparently occupied by the same boats as we had seen there both two weeks ago, and in many cases nearly a month before that.  Such visitor moorings are supposed to be limited to 14 days, but there appears to be little effort to move on overstayers, and hence such moorings are nigh on impossible for a casual moorer to even get a single night on.  We had struggled both times before, and again there was nothing, so I hoped to use a short length a bridge or so further up, that we had managed to get Chalice on two weeks ago.  No such luck - that bit was now also in use, and I knew there were few viable tying up places for several miles thereafter.

To tired to press on, and with the light fading, I made a bodged attempt to reverse back through a bridge, and was feeling pretty grumpy having to tie Sickle up in a spot so shallow, I could barely make the leap to the bank.  Fortunately though things improved when we took a walk to the local pub - yes they could do very suitable food.  So we settled to a very relaxed meal, and, although knackered, I managed to let thoughts of broken gear linkages, or boats that hog limited available moorings, slip from my head.  I even managed not to fall in, trying to get across the gap from muddy bank to boat, as we returned quite a bit later!

Alvecote (Coventry Canal) to Ansty (Northern Oxford Canal)
Miles: 22.0, Locks: 12
Total Miles: 524.0, Locks: 312 (Worked)
(I'm treating the delayed return of Sickle as part of the overall summer trip with both boats).

Some Excellent Photos To Share

(Boat Sickle - posted by Alan)

This post is out of sequence to when the event actually occurred, but I don't want these pictures to get buried in posts of over a month back.

On Friday 27th July Cath and I managed to find time to take "Sickle" down from her home mooring ready for the start of the Linslade Canal Festival.  This was a bit of a rushed job, as we had been dealing with a number of issues not related to "Sickle" and we nearly didn't get there.

Hence at the time we really took no photos, nor wrote up the trip.

However as we passed down from Stoke Hammond Three Locks towards Linslade we were being photographed, and it turned out that one of the photographers was Malcolm Ranieri, who specialises in transport related photography.  I there fore have just got around to contacting Malcolm, who has been kind enough to supply some of his images, and is happy that I show them off.

We think they are great, but we have just two worries.....

1) We now wish we had had a chance to tidy Sickle up before this trip, rather than after it (!)
2) These pictures are in our view good enough to rather shame our own rather more "snap shot" like approach.

Thank you Malcolm - much appreciated!

INCIDENTALLY:  In the main blog pages themselves you cannot make images like this large enough to fully appreciate.  But if you click on one, it brings up a gallery that allows them to be viewed as a significantly bigger image.

 

Fenny Stratford to Linslade
Miles: 8.5, Locks: 5

The Final Push For Home

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

Picturesque, but shallow, stretch near Grove Church Lock.

We had a lot less to do than yesterday in mileage terms, but, unlike the flights of locks we did yesterday, much of today would be individual locks spaced out enough to make it impractical to have someone easily setting them ahead of the boat.   WE would make it back today, but it is the kind of day when guessing likely timings is quite hard.

We had demolished quite a bit of the largely lock free stretch, before the locks start to kick in again for the climb up to Tring summit, but still had quite a few miles before reaching the shallow Fenny Stratford lock.  Our friend Alan, the former mooring warden there, said "you should be back by tea time", and that felt about right to us - particularly if you were not too precise about what constitutes tea time!

We then encountered two different hire boats starting up ahead of us, and often taking a ponderous or slow course, (sometimes both!).  We managed to get past these before Stoke hammond, laving them to share Southbound locks at a rather more sedate pace than we hoped to maintain.

Cath steers between the final Seabrook locks.

Stoke Hammond Three Locks still had the same very competent volunteer lock keeper we had encountered here before - one of the few we saw again on the whole of the GU from Braunston.  He was enforcing a regime that optimised water use, (hardly necessary at the moment!), but this caused only a small delay.

From Leighton Buzzard back to our home mooring isn't far, and only 9 locks, but it often seems to take a while, not helped by seveal badly leaking locks, and a significant number of slow fillers, that lack top gate paddles.  You can obly make so much progress, and we were largely doing as well as this stretch allows.

Swing bridge near journey's end.

In the end we probably bettered "tea time", but even doing a less than full clear out of the boat after a full calendar month afloat managed to absorb a lot more time.  Still, we had managed what had seemed fairly unlikely only 4 days ago, when still right up at Alvecote - not bad, and Cath could work as planned on Friday.

I have just realised we still need to get Sickle back now, though!

Linford Park to Home Mooring
Miles: 21.2, Locks: 15
Total Miles: 502.0, Locks: 300 (Worked)

Definitely Staying On Track For Home In Time.

(Boat Chalice - posted by Alan)

The man in the bath - paddling hard in foul conditions!

By now we realised, barring major hold ups, that we could be home by Thursday night, so that Cath would be in time to go into work the next day.  It would mean longish days, but it was possible.

Moored just one lock down the Buckby flight, we realised another boat was passing Southwards.  Did we want to go down with them ?  (They didn't mind waiting a few minutes while we got going).  We said "Yes, definitely", and were quickly on our way. It all passed fairly smoothly, although initially all locks were against us, so Cath started setting ahead of both boats

Do I really have to wear this ?

At the bottom the other boat went ahead of us, but it was quickly obvious they travelled quite slowly.  For some reason they didn't wave us past for several miles, where conditions are ideal to overtake, but then did so, (as so many do!) just as we were approaching a line of moored boats, and then did not slow hugely themselves.  I always find that situation tricky!  Normally if you are given a chance to overtake, but don't immediately take it, you will not get the offer again, but I hate trying to pass in unsuitable circumstances, particularly where moored boats don't want you going fast.  Anyway, I compromised, and was soon past with no complaints!

Sharing locks down the Stoke Bruerne flight.

Again the weather was highly variable, and, when not too windy, I had the umbrella up quite a bit.  We had a good run through Blisworth tunnel, although the first part of it was as wet as I have experienced in a long while.  Straight through Stoke Bruerne, without pause, we again caught another boat waiting to go down the locks, with which we then shared the whole flight.  On this occasion they were stopping for services, so we got a clear run away, or at least until we met one of the weaving day hire boats one finds on this stretch.

Vast amounts of excess water at Stoke Bruerne.

By Wolverton we badly needed supplies, so we pulled up, to allow cath and Michael to go to the supermarket there.  David had been with us throughout over 4 weeks, and now felt he would like to be home a day earlier.  So, Michael having agreed to stay on, david set off for the station, and we set off South again - not quite the result we had expected, but it would allow david some time to sort out things he was struggling to do in the confines of a boat with four and a dog on board.

Cath suggested we stop at Stantonbury, but I particularly like the offside moorings at Great Linford.  There are only a few of these, so a place is not guaranteed, but  we managed to find a slot on the end just long enough for our fifty feet.  It had been a long boating day, particular in terms of miles covered, but we had done enough that we should be back at our home mooring tomorrow.

Below Buckby Top Lock to Linford Park
Miles: 27.5, Locks: 14
Total Miles: 480.8, Locks: 285 (Worked)