Narrowboat Just Heaven

We arrived about four o’clock yesterday and I immediately set about refitting the water tank.

I climbed down into the tank void to clean it out and realised that I’m getting too old for that sort of thing. At one point I got to the stage where I wasnt quite sure how I was going to get back out again!

Eventually it was all cleaned out and I put the repaired liner back in. It was quite difficult to get it to fit snugly into the corners and so I thought that filling it with water would help to push it out to the right position. That partially helped. It filled up OK, and we now have flowing water again, however it’s not in there exactly central and that is putting a bit of a strain on the plastic plumbing. Next time the tank gets near to empty I’m going to try and move it a bit.

I spent this morning doing a few electrcal jobs on board, fitting some LED lamps in place of incandescent ones to reduce the battery load and fitting a 12v socket in the bedroom so that we can have some music in there via our radio/ipod player.

In the afternoon we went on a lovely walk around Bewdley and Ribbesford and back along the riverside path. It was ideal walking weather warm but not hot.

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Yesterday I put the old tank liner in the skip, we tidied up a bit and went home.

Today I contacted various companies about a replacement liner and found that Duratank had made the original and were prepared to attempt a repair. So this afternoon we dashed back up the M5 to retrieve it from the skip before the skip was emptied!

We got it OK, got home, packed it all up and I’ll send it off by courier tomorrow to Duratank.

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Off to Netto before breakfast to get some bread (and wine and other stuff we didn’t intend to buy) and then got stuck into today’s tasks.

Heddi did lots of painting. The bow area in particular now looks much smarter.

I tried to drill out the eight screws holding down the inspection hatch into the fresh water tank. Water has been leaking from here into the space behind the step where the bow thruster tube is. I had previously tried to remove the screws but they wouldnt budge, so I decided that the only option was to drill them out and re-tap them. The screw heads where flush level and took an allen key, so I drilled down through the hexagonal hole where the allen key fitted. I guessed that they might be about 5mm screws so started with a 4mm drill. It soon became clear that the drills I had weren’t going to be man enough for the job. I walked over to B&Q and bought some new drills. After much effort I managed to remove three of the eight screws, but by now even the new drills I had just bought were blunt! Back to B&Q for more drills a 7mm and an 8mm. With these and much more effort I evenutally got the inpection hatch up. It had taken nearly four hours!

Inside was a butyl liner like a large bag, with three connections one for filling, and air vent and the outlet. It was difficult to check it out while still down in the hole, but I could see quite a bit of water outside the bag. We put a rope through some eyelets and heaved it out. It soon became clear that there was a tear or split on one of the seams near a corner. This must be the cause of the leak. Because of it’s position it was clear that we wouldn’t be able to repair the leak with a patch. So it would mean replacing the whole liner, in that case it wasnt worth putting the old one back in and we decided to manage the rest of the weekend without running water.

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Not going anywhere this weekend, we have decided to spend some time doing jobs on board. We didn’t do much today though. After a trip up the motorway in lovely bright sunshine we arrived about six o’clock. We unloaded, cooked a meal and played with our new clock radio/ipod docking thing that we bought from Aldi for the bedroom. The previous clock couldn’t be seen in the dark and the radio was a windup one. After you have got out of bed for the third time to wind it up it tends to lose it’s ability to send you off to sleep !

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We left at about 8:30. It’s usually around 3 hours from Kinver to our home mooring and we wanted to be away home soon after twelve. However things didnt work out quite the way we had planned. When we got to the first lock, Whittington lock, we were third in a queue to go down. On arrival at Debdale lock we were greeted by a scene of chaos. There were four Black Prince hire boats in front of us (though one of them was simply moored having their breakfast and not waiting for the lock). The waiting space is fairly restricted here, so with four Black Prince, ourselves and then, a little while later, a Countrywide Cruisers boat all waiting to go down it made manourvering difficult. I breasted up to one of the Black Prince boats which I think unnerved them a bit, but there was nowhere else to go.

Some of the hire boats, though they had plenty of crew, seemed to be taking things fairly slowly. In particular they were letting young children wind the paddles. Now I’m all in favour of introducing youngsters to the cut, but if you have four boats queued up behind you then you need to work the lock as quickly as possible.

The queues continued at Wolverley lock and Wolverley Court lock, but they all stopped at Sainsbury’s in Kidderminster so we went straight into Kidderminster lock without a queue. We  winded by Tesco and then reversed back to the mooring, tidied up the boat and left for home at about 2:30.

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We were lying in bed at ten to eight when a boat went past. I looked out of the window and saw Terry & Chris going past on Arun, so we decided to get up and set off with the chance that we might meet up with them later. We were away by 8:15 and just caught a glimpse of them leaving Wightwick lock as we approached. There was one boat between us but we thought that there would be a good chance that would be able to have a natter later. Just before Dimmingsdale lock the boat infront moored up, but as we approached the lock we could see Arun leaving and another boat waiting to go down. There was a third boat moored on the offside mooring. As we joined the queue to go down the steerer of this third boat said that he was before us. Heddi had a free & frank exchange of views with him regarding lock queueing etiquette! Talking later to the crew of the boat infront of us it turned out that the other boat had tried to push in front of them as well.

As we arrived at Bratch Arun was just entering the top lock so we had chance for a natter as we went down. The rest of the day was spent queueing at every lock. The wait at the Botterham staircase was almost two hours. That gave us time to agree with Terry that we would have a few drinks together in a Kinver pub that evening, if we got that far!

The weather was pretty awful most of the day, with very heavy storms with queues at every lock.

We eventually arrived at Kinver just before six. Terry was waiting to work us through the lock. We found a space on the visitor’s mooring (just).

Later, in the evening we spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the Plough & Harrow.

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Up just after seven ready for an earlyish departure. We had told Angela & Mike on Levick that we would be away by 8:30 as they also wanted to be gone by then. We were now moored outside of them after the various boat manouverings following the pumpout & diesel servicing on Sunday afternoon. In fact we were ready to go by eight, so we bade our farewells chugged off.

Weather not so good today, a coolish breeze and some heavy showers. There was quite a bit of boat traffic about, though we  never had to wait for more than one boat at a lock. As we approached Otherton lock we could see the traffic on the motorway suddenly slowing down. As we went along the section of canal that runs parallel to the motorway we saw & heard the emergency services vehicles arrive and by the time we got to Rodbaston lock the traffice on the M6 was stopped. It was odd as this is usually a very noisy lock, but now it was almost silent.

A longish day today, but we wanted to get past Wolverhampton before we stopped. It was about five o’clock when we moored up just below Compton lock. We made a quick visit to the hospice charity shop, and then a walk along the disused track of the old Wolverhampton - Stourbridge railway. We were fairly tired so in bed by 9:30 !

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We arrived here on Friday morning. Andrew the harbourmaster had spent hours over his intricate mooring plan, which was throw into confusion by the lack of water. Because the levels were really low the deep draughted boats couldn’t moor up close to the side, so they were re-arranged to be on the outside. Also some of the bridgeholes on the approach to the club were so shallow that some boats had difficulty getting through. This was compounded by the coal motor & butty from Wednesday coming past and they also getting stuck in the bridges. Steve Haywood on Justice was delayed for several hours.

We have been here for three days. The weather has been really good which has meant that most of the time has been spent sitting around drinking and nattering.

The gathering has included about 10 boats & crew plus others camping/caravaning. The format has been fairly relaxed with some organised activities, mainly involving eating & drinking.

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As is my usual I was awake soon after six. I stuck my head out of the hatch and saw the steerer of the coal butty walking along the towpath. We thought that this may mean they are early risers too and we needed to be away before them! So we showered and got dressed and were on the move by 6:40. With hindsight I think that he was only letting his dog out for a leak, but it was a good morning and it meant that we could meet the other cutwebers at Tixall the evening before we were all due at Stafford Boat Club.

Fairly uneventful day, but the weather deteriorated and by midday we were getting heavy rainstorms and a very strong wind.

We arrived at Tixall Wide at about 15:30. I had already received a text to say breast up with Levick. We found the others (Andrew & Sheila on Uncle Mort, Angela & Mike on Levick and Barbara & Malcolm on Pilgim) at the far end of the wide. As I came in to turn the wind was blowing very strongly and it was a bit of a struggle to get it round, but we successfully breasted up to Levick and we were soon having drinks and a barbecue. The weather turned really cold around seven o’clock and we all retired to our respective boats.

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A rather frustrating day today with much queueing, but with lots of opportunity to chat with other boaters.

The day started off OK with good weather so we made an earlyish start at seven thirty. All was going well until just after the Bratch. The queues were begining to build up at each lock. We then heard from a boater coming the other way that a loaded coal boat had become stuck in Ebstree lock. As we went on through the next few locks we gathered more of the story from other boaters. It seems that the coal boat and butty had become stuck as they were very heavily loaded. In order to get over the cill they had to transfer some of the load from one end of the boat to the other. This together with their very slow progress was causing the queues.

We got chatting to the crew of NB Phoenix, they were next ahead of us in the queues. They were also heading for Stafford Boat Club as that is their home mooring. Though they were in no hurry as they didnt need to be there until Sunday.

Phoenix moored up for the night at Compton, but we decided to carry on past Wolverhampton to Coven as we were now a bit behind our schedule. Soo after leaving Compton lock we came up behind the coal boat and butty. They were going very slowly, only about 1mph. They were towing on a long line, so to pass them we needed a long, straight, wide section. There aren’t many of them of the Staffs & Worcs! We did eventually manage to pass them in cutting leading up to Aldersley junction.

The crew of Phoenix had told us that a good overnight stop would be between bridges 69 & 70. We stopped there for a while but decided that the motorway noise was too obtrusive. We went a little further and moored up just before br. 71, by the target golf range.

We were just having our supper when the coal pair came past again. We didnt want to be behind them the next day, so thought that we’d make an early start and hope to pass them before they were up.

After supper we went for a walk along the towpath past the ‘Hope & Anchor’. There was the coal pair, with the crew in the pub garden eating. We could see plenty of mooring space ahead of them so went back to the boat and moved the half mile or so in the dark to moor up again about 200 yds ahead of them!

A really good thing about getting up early is you get to see more wildlife. This morning we had a kingfisher flying along skimming the water infront of us for about half a mile. Each time he stopped on an overhanging branch I tried to get a photo.

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