Variable Weather - Again

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Cath)

Top end of Atherstone flight.

We spent the night near Springwood Haven, a nice place to moor, good walks for the dogs, and quiet. We also set off a little later than planned this morning. It was dry but cloudy. The trees are green, but the hawthorn is laden with heavy blossom, as if a sudden snowfall has happened overnight.

 

Alan sets of to set up the next lock, ("Lock wheeling" as it is known)

We got to the Atherstone flight around 10:30. There were several 'vollies' (volunteer lockkeepers) working.

Alan and I have an agreement. We always used to swap over every 5 or 6 locks, but Alan broke his pelvis some years back, and since then I have done more of the lock working, and he has done more of the steering. We've now agreed that we both need the exercise, so we'll swap regularly - this is good for me too, so that I get more practice steering in flights of locks.

The dogs are doing what they are told they must do!

Alan did the first five locks in the flight, then we tied up, and went shopping. Atherstone looks interesting, but the shops actually seem to have no real content - large numbers of charity shops, and little else. We have too much clutter in the house already. We bought milk and a few other things in the Co-op, then back to the boat for lunch before I took over steering.

Steadily onwards - once a lock is done, dogs can run free.

The six locks that I steered were done in sunshine, so I thought that I was onto a winner volunteering to steer until Polesworth. I couldn't have been further from the truth. We spoke to friends moored a couple of hundred metres from the bottom of the flight, who were sitting in the sun - then as we headed off again the heavens opened. It was miserable.

 

Getting towards bottom of Atherstone flight

Rain dripped down my waterproof coat, down my waterproof trousers, and into my not-waterproof trainers. It coursed down the sleeves of my waterproof coat, and down inside the wrists of my waterproof gloves. The bottom of the canal is far too near the top, and the boat was dragging the bottom making steering hard work.

 

Odin pauses  for a breather - 2 locks still to do.

Then, just as we got to Polesworth, and Alan took over, the rain stopped. (Before you think Alan got away Scot Free, Alan wishes to point out we only currently have one pair of gloves, so he had to try to get his somewhat larger hands into the pair Cath handed to him soaking wet.)

 

Moored directly outside the "Samuel Barlow" at Alvecote.

Our plan was always to stop at Alvecote - there is a good pub there, with excellent food, and what is even better, somewhere for Odin the Dogge to swim in the woodlands.

I got changed into running kit - I'm trying to start running again, after a fifteen year break, now that I am finally, officially 'old'. I just couldn't face the idea that I wouldn't run again. So I've started the 'Couch to 5 K' programme - week one. I set off into the woodlands near Alvecote, and Alan and David took the dogs for a walk (and for Odin, a swim in the woodland lake). 

After a shower we headed off to the pub - we are moored about 10 metres away, so not difficult. A good meal, good wine, beer, etc.

Springwood Haven to Alvecote
Miles 10.3, Locks: 11
Total Miles 51.5, Total Locks: 28

Back on Track

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Alan)

About to pass through the swing bridge at Stretton

It was another damp day - not intolerably so, but one where we decided to rotate steerers pretty regularly to stop anybody standing out and getting cold and wet for too long.

Not a lot to report really, other than that we have made good progress, and after losing the majority of our first day we are now back on track, being roughly where the plans say we should be at the end of day three.

Entering our only lock of the day at Hawkesbury

I had my best possible chance yet of trying for a "round in one" 180 degree turn at Hawkesbury Junction - there were no other boats about to get in my way in any manner whatsover. However I still failed to get round by some margin. My only excuse is that Flamingo handles very sluggishly compared to an empty unconverted boat. I'm far from convinced I will ever achieve it with Flamingo, but no doubt some more expert than I am probably could.

Starting to make the 180 degree turn.

There has been a moment of humour during the day. I was taking a bath while Cath was at the tiller, and I became aware that we had stopped and pulled in to the side, and that Cath and David were examining the front of the boat.  Apparently some people walking the tow-path had told Cath there was a hole on the bow. Indeed there was - a neat square hole that is one of the vents for the gas cylinders located in the front locker. It's meant to be there of course!

I'd like to pretend it came around in one - it didn't unfortunately.

Sorry - no pictures of other historic boats today.  There were some, but I had left my camera inside in the dry. I certainly spotted "Beaulieu" on its home mooring, and fuel boat "Auriga" on the move - I'm always grateful to the coal boats for helping to "dredge" the channel for us!

Newbold to Springwood Haven
Miles 19.1, Locks: 1
Total Miles 41.2, Total Locks:17

A much better day - but damp!

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Alan)

Very old hire cruiser I used to work with - note gravity water tank on roof!

A fairly straightforward day, which somehow felt longer than the actual engine hours we recorded.  Possibly this was because it has rained on and off for most of the day, at times making being the steerer rather less attractive than it would have been on a decent day.

Hillmorton

The CRT volunteer unlocked the offending padlocks from yesterday a bit earlier than the published time, so we got going as soon as boats started moving.  It is unusual to make a passage of Braunston tunnel in May and to not share it with any other boats, but we did.  There was a very clear view right through the empty tunnel from the moment we entered it.  We also managed to dispatch Braunston Locks a fair bit faster than tends to be the case - usually "sheer weight of traffic" hinders things a lot, but today it was pretty good.

Middle locks at Hillmorton

We stopped briefly for a chandlers in Braunston before pressing on to Hillmorton locks, with Cath and me taking turns to get wet.  There were no delays at Hillmorton either, other than several paddles taped out of use.  We made a quick stop to replenish water, but I must remember the taps are slow, and try  to avoid Hillmorton as a water stop in future.

Next stop was for the supermarket at Rugby.  There were absolutely no tow-path moorings available, (probably for a 40 foot boat, let alone our 72 foot example), but unusually the offside visitor moorings were all empty, so we could use those.

It's a long old thing!

We did consider pressing on to somewhere like All Oaks Wood in a bid to catch up some of the time we lost yesterday, but it continued to drizzle, so when we spotted a suitable full length mooring at Newbold, we decided to stop here.  The catching up will have to wait for another day.










Once again we spotted quite a few "historics", including the lovely Thomas Clayton tar boat "Spey", only rarely spotted this far south.

Spey - well preserved wooden narrow boats are now quite a rarity.

Vesta - the tug I'd love to own if I didn't own Sickle.

Zodiac - A "Middle Northwich" like Sickle, but full length.

Greenlaw

Badsey and Angel

Buckby Lock 8 to Newbold
Miles 16.3, Locks:11
Total Miles 22.1, Total Locks:16

A Poor Start To The Planned Big Trip

(Boat Flamingo - posted by Alan)

We should have been away from our home mooring early, and on a fairly aggressive schedule. We are supposed to be going to the Historic Narrow Boat Club gathering at Hebden Bridge on the Rochdale Canal in around two and a half weeks time. This is a big trip, about 183 miles and 173 locks in one direction alone, and we are on a mission to get to Manchester, because passage over the Rochdale Canal requires travelling in convoys which the HNBC have agreed with the Canal and River Trust to try to work around the very limited water resources on the Rochdale.

Buckby flight

However we are not doing very well so far! When we came to light the gas fridge before moving off the moorings this morning, it completely refused to stay alight. No amount of coaxing would keep it alight, and the diagnosis based on a few internet searches and judicious use of a multimeter seemed to be a failed thermocouple - a fairly specialist item. "Universal" thermocouples can be bought at Screwfix or Toolstation, but they are not "universal" enough, as the one in the fridge is 140cm long, and "universal" ones are about 50cm shorter. A fairly local camping outlet could identify the part, but didn't have it in stock. Eventually I decided to drive there anyway, and see if we could improvise. I managed to buy something very similar, but branded Thetford rather than Dometic, which is what our fridge is. Could it be made to work? The short answer was "yes, eventually", but by now it was the afternoon.

About as far as CRT allowed us to go today.

We still hoped we might make it to Braunston, but that was not to be. Water saving measures at Buckby locks mean there are overnight stoppages from 5:00 pm to 9:00 am.  The last passage into the affected locks is supposed to be at 4:00 pm, but a volunteer keeper had chained one up long before this time. Eventually after a long wait we were allowed through that one, but not the one locked up after that, so our attempts to regain time ground to a halt. We are pretty miffed, because had the locks not been locked up before 4:00pm we would definitely have cleared them by 5:00 pm, and carried on to Braunston.

Anyway today was Cath's birthday, so we walked up the rest of the flight for a meal at the New Inn. In its usual style I would class it as pleasant enough, but certainly not exceptional. I would also like the New Inn far better if they did not now have a "no dogs" policy - it used to allow dogs in to certain areas, and is frankly large enough that they still could, and still have adequate "dog free" space.

Tomorrow we will need to consider the implications of not having even managed half a day's boating today, when we certainly needed to put in a full one.

However, winding back a bit, the short stretch of canal we travelled today usually has some fairly rich pickings for historic boat enthusiasts.

Here is a selection of most, (but not all), of those we saw, from the very shiny, to the very derelict.....

The unloved pair Bainton and "Berkhamsted" (actually believed to be the Ayr)

Until very recently another unloved boat - the Tadworth

Southern Cross & Cedar

Owl & Empress

Ian - a wooden boat

Mary

Seaford - like Flamingo a converted "Large Northwich".

William

Butty Bakewell, now paired with a modern boat.

High House Wharf to Buckby Lock 8
Miles 5.8, Locks: 5
Total Miles 5.8, Total Locks: 5

And A Bit More Progress

(Boat "Flamingo" - posted by Alan)

A week or so back Cath and I managed to spend a couple more days up at the boat, and further progress was made with the 12 volt electrics.

I'll gloss over the bits that went less well than expected.  I hadn't expected to break my only 6mm tap when trying to cut threads in a bulkhead in the engine room, but when I did I was inevitably forced to suspend operations long enough to drive to the nearest Screwfix for a replacement.

Then the next day, when I hoped I had stopped drilling holes, tapping threads and routing conduit in the engine room, and was actually ready to start wiring in the new cupboard in the main cabin I discovered I had no Lucar connectors sufficiently large to go on some of the cable sizes involved.  They were not an item I could have got at Screwfix, at least, but another trip was needed to a Toolstation.  First Daventry, then Northampton - I know how to live!

Anyway, by this point I was never going to get as far as I hoped I might, but on the final day, did manage to get much of the wiring sorted out within my new cupboard.  So far it is only the basics - cabin lights and pumps, but it is all ready now to the point that adding circuits for 12 volt power points and the headlamp should be straightforward.

I have relocated the SmartGauge that attempts to predict the state of charge of the batteries onto my new panel - it's very much easier to check it in the main cabin than to have to clamber into the engine room to do so.  I've also added a very basic (and cheap!) digital read out that shows the current being consumed in total by everything in the main cabin.  It's dead easy now to see exactly what is being used at any point in time.

The final bonus is that for the very first time since we have owned it none of the cabin lights flicker when either the fresh water pump or the bath emptying pump is running - indeed not even when both are running together.  The reasons why this used to happen were clearly understood, and I expected new very much heavier duty cable would fix it - it has.

Slightly More Progress.

(Boat "Flamingo" - posted by Alan)

We had not expected to be back on Flamingo for a while, but with the night-time temperatures dipping lower and lower, I was getting concerned about a water system that has not been winterised.  So we decided to go up at the weekend to put some heat on, and check nothing was suffering in the extreme cold.   ll was, of course, fine, although as it was just 2 degrees inside when we got there, we spent some time inside heavily wrapped up in outdoor clothers until the stove started to make things more tolerable.

Anyway, as we were there we decided to get some more paint on the new electrical cupboard and associated shelves.  In fact we also planned to paint cupboard doors in the bathroom.  However Cath came over quite unwell once she started to paint, and I had to take over.  Because the "quality" of my painting is never much appreciated, (!), I didn't push my luck beyond the electrical cupboard, and the doors will have to wait for a next visit.

I also took some time to study the 12 volt wiring, switchgear and fuses in the engine room, as this will need some modification for the new arrangements, and I wanted to be sure I had in stock all the necessary bits and pieces I think I will need to do the job.

The Constraints of Major Rebuilding in the Winter Months?

Area prepared with a switch having been moved.

There are not many still active blogs being written by people owning historic narrow boats, or at least not many that I'm aware of.  In fact I noted a recent post by Sarah, owner of "Chertsey", who has recently revitalised her blog for 2019, which said that none of the handful of us that were doing it had produced any output in months.

In the case of "Sickle" and "Flamingo" it is not that surprising, as our blog has always been mostly about our travels, occasionally wandering on to topics about the history of either boat, or our attempts to maintain and improve them.   Unlike some of the other bloggers, we rarely go beyond that to "life, the universe and everything".  So no travels generally means not much blogging.

However it has always been my intention to also try to give some idea of what you let yourself in for if you buy an historic boat that has been allowed to get into a state where it needs a major refit throughout.  (That said, I'm never quite sure whether such material will be of great interest other than maybe the very small number of people who have bought an historic boat that has been allowed to get into a state where it needs a major refit throughout!)

Trial fit of first pieces

Anyway we have found that there are limits to what can reasonably be achieved in the winter months if you need to be reasonably comfortably whilst staying on the boat and pulling things apart.  Certainly no stripping out and refitting of heating systems is advisable, and that is something we need to do in order to make it possible to remove hull linings on the right hand side of the boat, where the stove and radiators are, and where central heating pipes run most of the length of the main accommodation cabin.  In fact, as we also want to take a very extended trip on "Flamingo" throughout most of May and much of June, it is now unlikely that any major stripping out can occur until the summer.   Obviously external paintwork and other renovations can't be tackled mid-winter either.

That reduces me to more contained internal tasks that don't put major systems out of action for any significant period.  Recently I have been making doors for the bathroom area - it now has proper doors at both ends, meaning that people actually have a lockable barrier between them and the main accommodation when using the "facilities" - no longer are the sole doors just curtains!  I've also put doors on the cupboard that now contains the calorifier, (the hot water tank), and associated plumbing.  I'll get some pictures once Cath has finished painting it all up, (I do carpentry, but she is not a fan of my painting - or "dobbing" as she calls it!)

Getting there - 2 shelves above the actual cabinet.

However recently I have finally turned my attention to the topic of Flamingo's 12 volt electrical system.   Although the previous owner had told us he had rewired it, the reality when we started exposing wiring was something quite different - metres and metres of unsuitable cabling all jointed in completely unsuitable connectors.  In fact we didn't need to expose anything to know there was a significant problem - the way the 12 volt lights pulsed from bright to dim as either the fresh water pump or bath draining pump emptying were running had already told me the wiring was totally inadequate.  (Don't ask about how bad it got if both pumps were running at once!).

In fact I have already upgraded much of the cabling, and the lights now stay bright with pumps running, but this has only been achieved in the short term by retaining bundles of connections buried in the voids where the cables run along at gunwale height.  My plan for some time has been to establish a 12 volt electrical "cupboard" at the back of the main accommodation cabin, fed with a hefty supply from the battery bank in the engine room, and then to introduce a proper breaker panel with circuit breakers, each handling specific parts of the cabin 12 volt electrics.  The obvious location was on the right hand side of the cabin at the back, as that's the side the batteries are on, and also the left hand side at the back has already been grabbed when I rewired the 240 volt electrics.  Having the distribution point for the high voltages segregated from that for the low voltages is clearly a good move!

The cupboard part, showing cable ducting behind

So for much of the three days spent on the boat recently, I have cleared the relevant area and started constructing my cupboard.  The opportunity is also being taken to construct some much needed book shelving in the space above it.  In fact by the time we left progress was more advanced than any pictures I have taken, and primer was already starting to be applied to the woodwork by Cath.  Pictures of the more complete object will have to wait until a subsequent post, but I have broken the back of the construction part, although the actual rewiring part is likely to take some time once the cupboard is complete and fully painted.  At that point we will have to manage without 12 volt electrics for a while.  This isn't too much of a problem on the mooring, as we also have some directly fed 240 volt lights.  The biggest annoyance will be any periods for which the fresh water pump s not available, but we will be able to ferry water in from a tap outside, (provided it hasn't frozen up in the sub-zero conditions that are ongoing at the moment).