Narrowboat Just Heaven

I spent most of the day trying to sort out two problems. The first was why the new two-stage charger wasnt working. I concluded that it was broke! The second was trying to find the source of the water that accumulates up under the foredeck.
For at least 6 months we have been getting water into a space under the front deck. This space is accessed by removing the front step. In there is the domestic water pump and the bow thruster tube and bowthruster motor. The access is difficult and the space is cramped. I have had to bale it out regularly, often removing 10-20 litres of water. I came to the conclusion that the water could be from one of three sources.
1) Rainwater making it’s way down from the foredeck.
2) Canal water leaking in from the bow thruster, or bow thruster tube.
3) Drinking water leaking from the plumbing or pump.

I discounted 1) as the water appears even in dry weather, and also in winter when the cratch cover would make large amounts of rain ingress unlikely.
I was rather worried that it might be 2) as there was quite a bit of flakey rust around where the tube is attached to the hull. It was possible that water was seeping slowly in that way. That was potentially very serious as if it got worse then the boat could sink. The problem was that with the difficult access I could see the area where the tube was attached to the hull but I couldnt reach it.
The most likely cause seems to be 3). I had replaced the pump earlier, but this hadn’t changed the situation, so I didnt think it was the pump leaking. I thorougly dried all the various plumbing fittings I could reach and then waited about an hour to see which , if any, became wet. When I went back all the joints were as dry as a bone, but more water had appeared. It must be coming from somewhere else!

The only place where I could only feel, but not see, was behind the bow thruster itself. There wasnt room to get my head and shoulders that far into the hole. It looked as though the new water was coming from that direction so I decided to take out the wooden panel completely rather than work through the access hole.

With this done I could see what appeared to be the problem. The boat had a butyl liner retro-fitted to the drinking water tank. A hole had been cut in the original steel tank and through that poked part of the liner to which a pipe fitting was attached. I could see water oozing out from the space between the liner and the original steel tank. If water was getting into this space, outside the liner, then it could only come from two sources; a hole in the liner or overspill when filling the tank.

I decided that if I could remove all (or most) of the water currently in the space then, when we return to the boat next, if there is just a little new water it’s likely to be an overfill problem, but if there is lots of new water then we probably have a leak.

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As we were in no hurry to return to Kidderminster we decided to go for a longish (~6 miles ) walk before breakfast. The route was to take us via the Hyde, through Chase Wood, past Stourton Hall Farm, through the woods in Hampton valley to Gothersley farm and back along the tpwpath. We have done this before, but in the opposite direction.
All went well until we were walking up the track to Stourton Hall Farm. Two men stopped us and said “This is private property”. I showed them the footpath marked on the OS map, but they were having none of it and wouldn’t let us through. So we backtracked, through Chase Wood again, where there was a splendid carpet of snowdrops, took the footpath across the fields by the entrance to Stourton Hall and made our way to Gothersley via the country lane.

On our way up to Stourton Hall Farm I noticed some ‘caves’ dug out of the soft sandstone. These are quite common in this part of the country. Another is the “Devil’s Hole” near the Stour aquaduct which has recently been boarded up by British Waterways.
After the walk we had a well earned, hearty cooked breakfast and then made our way down to just above Wolverly Court lock. The engine was misbehaving again. I think we will need it serviced to get rid of the crud that seems to be getting into the fuel.

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A few boats about today, but not as many as yesterday. It was strange doing the Bratch locks all on our own with no lock keeper, no gongoozlers and no other boats.

The weather was a bit warmer, but still cloudy.

We noticed lots of Little Grebes on the canal today. We saw four in the space of a few hundred yards. It was odd as we probably saw more today than in the whole of the last 10 years of boating put together! No pictures though as they dive under and swim away as you aproach.

BW have been doing a lot of tree felling and clearing along this stretch and the local boaters have been taking advantage of the free firewood. Unfortunately we dont have a saw or axe onboard so I cant reduce the logs to a size that will fit in the stove.

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Stopped for the night just above Hyde lock, and walked into Kinver via the footpath by the playing fields. This route takes you through “The Hyde” a small collection of wooden cabin like dwellings at least one in a very poor state of repair. I’ve often wondered about the origins of this community.

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Woke up to a bright morning with a greater spotted woodpecker drumming away on a tree just across the cut. Of course by the time I’d got the camera he flown away

We didnt see any moving boats yesterday but we passed four before 10 o’clock today. It was about 12:30 when we arrived at Limekiln only to be told that their canalside fuel pump was broken. I explained about our running out of diesel so they offered to use the other pump and put some in a jerry can for me. This we did and put in 20 litres.

We carried on the couple of miles up to Oxley Marine intending to fill up there. Oxley Marine dont take cards, only cash, so we had another 40 litres, turned round and headed back down to Limekiln. Here we used the jerry can again to put in another 30 litres, and filled up the jerry can we had borrowed from the boater.

So with the original 20 litres from the boater, 50 from Limekiln and 40 from Oxley we had put in 110 litres. We hadnt quite filled the tank up, but it probably holds 120 max, not the 180 stated in the manual!

That still meant there was 40L unaccounted for. There were only three options; it had leaked out (not likely as it would be clearly seen); it was stolen (also not likely from our secure moorings), or the Eberspacher had used a lot more than I had expected.

We spent the night on the vistor’s mooring below Compton Bridge (No. 59) after doing some shopping at the excelent Daisy freezer centre.

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Arrived last night to find that the trickle charger hadn’t been working properly so the batteries were flat again. It appears not to be producing any output so i suppose I’ll have to send it back.

We set off about 9 o’clock. We indend to take a couple of days going up to Compton to fill up with deisel at Limekiln.

The weather was quite pleasant, cloudy but not too cold. We stopped for a “Full English” at Stewponey.

All was going well until we got to Greensforge lock. As I went to pull away from the lock the engine spluttered and died. We have been having some fuel blockage problems so, as it was due to be replaced anyway, I replaced the fuel filter and checked the water trap - still no go. I tried bleeding the fuel lines but nothing would come out. As a last resort I dipped the fuel tank, it was emtpy! I couldn’t beleive it, I estimated that we have used about 80 litres since the last fill. The boat manual says that the tank is 180 litres. Where had the other 100 litres gone?

We needed to get some fuel from somewhere. I thought that the best plan was to try to get to a filling station where we could get some road diesel, but I didnt have a jerry can nor did I know where the nearest petrol station was. I saw a boater on one of the boats on the permanent moorings, so I walked over and asked him if he knew where the nearest filling station was. He did better that that, he had a jerry can of fuel on board which he let me have, and wouldnt take any money for it. I said that we would bring it back full when we came back in a couple of days, but he trusted me with about 20 litres of fuel and his jerry can. Arent boaters wonderful!

It took a while to bleed the fuel lines to get the air out and the diesel flowing again and then we were off, stopping for the night just above Marsh lock.

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