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2015 10 25 Newsletter – Engine Cooling Modification

After another run of uneventful cruises along unusually wind and rain free waterways I finished my last discovery day on Monday at 6pm at the head of the Calcutt flight. There’s a good mooring spot next to a straight section of towpath long enough for a single boat at the end of the lock landing. The alternative is a curved section of concrete next to loose and stony ground which is difficult to secure a pin in so I use it as a last resort. As there was already a boat moored on the straight section and as I had two free days before my next training day, I turned the boat in the unofficial winding hole next to the top lock, waved farewell to my day’s guests and then dropped down the Calcutt light in the fading light.

Forty minutes later aided by my tunnel light I cautiously nosed through the marina entrance and for the first time in six months moored against the rusty dump barge which used to be my permanent mooring before I set off on my travels in April.

It’s a beautiful mooring on a very quiet north western section of Calcutt Boats’ Locks marina close to the marina entrance. I have an open view of the marina to my left and the Grand Union canal beneath the lock flight on the far side of the grassy marina bank to my right. At this time of the year there’s very little traffic on the canal so there’s no sudden rush of water from an emptying lock to disturb the tranquility. I love mooring there but not as much as I enjoy the thrill of finding new peaceful moorings throughout the canal and river network miles from traffic and noise.

A marina mooring may not be as tranquil or offer the wide views afforded by many river and canal-side spots but there are certainly some advantages. I dusted off my shore line and plugged in to the national grid and then relaxed happy in the knowledge that my batteries and my hot water supply would be constantly topped up without me having to remember to run my engine.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pottering days filled with nothing other than gentle relaxation. The only work I did on the boat was to dig out the covers I had made for my side hatches and fix them in place.

The guys who over plated my original wooden cabin did a very good job generally, but the side hatches aren’t a very good fit. A freezing and lively breeze used to blow through them in the winter quickly chilling an otherwise warm and cosy cabin. I had covers made for both sets of side doors and the hatches above them and for the rear doors and hatch. The three covers have made a huge difference to the cabin temperature. The £110 I paid for them was money very well spent.

I’m not very good at sitting about doing very little though so by Wednesday afternoon I was itching to move again. I had a discovery day booked for Thursday so I spent forty minutes tackling the three lock flight once more before mooring on my thankfully free favourite spot opposite Napton reservoir.

I spent a very pleasant day with my discovery day siblings; a sister hoping to leave a well-paid but stressful job and a brother along for moral support and a bit of a jolly. In fact, we had such a pleasant day that by the time we had negotiated our sixth lock the light was fading, as was any serious intention of me taking the boat back down three locks into the marina ready for my much anticipated engine cooling modification the following day.

At the crack of dawn, 7am at this time of the year, I dropped down through the Calcutt flight and into the marina. I moored on the water point next to the slipway so I could top up my tank ready for the possibility of a few days out of the water or in the water but away from a water point.

By 9am my boat was high and dry and Slipway Stuart, Calcutt Boats boat blacker, was busy scraping away ten square feet of the four coats of Miogard and bitumen Sally and I carefully applied in April. The paint had to be removed ready for engineer Ian to weld my new skin tank in place.

I had expected a pre-fabricated tank to be hoisted into position and welded in place. In hindsight – what a wonderful gift that is – I realised that getting a prefabricated tank to fit the curved and uneven swim of a forty year old boat would have been quite a challenge.

Constructing a tank from scratch in half a day from sheets and strips of steel was also a challenge, but one which Ian rose to admirably. I helped him a little, either by leaning against the steel so he could heat and shape it, or by simply watching.

Watching was actually a very important job. I hadn’t realised quite how disruptive and potentially dangerous welding a tank onto the exterior of the boat could prove to the inside of the engine room. As Ian welded each strip in place a line of blistering and furiously smoking paint appeared on the opposite side of the hull inside the engine room.

I had to make sure that all wiring was held away from the area he was welding and wedge wooden battens under the five batteries in my leisure and starter battery banks to keep them away from excessive heat.

I was warned to be particularly vigilant when Ian used his gas axe to cut a hole through the hull for the skin tank’s return. Ian warned me to watch out for flying sparks so I was perfectly positioned to watch them fly into the only space in the bilge I don’t – can’t – keep spotlessly clean.

What little space there is under the engine is almost completely filled with steel ballast bars. A dozen or more gold ingot sized bars protected a wad of oily rag which has been there unseen and unreachable for longer than I’ve owned the boat.

There was a brief but intense shower of sparks, some thick smoke and then flames bright enough to illuminate both the engine room and the look of blind panic on my face. I think it was the ladylike shriek which alerted Ian. He quickly climbed a ladder six feet to the stern where I was wildly gesturing into the bilge’s flickering flames.

“Quick Stuart! Bring me a bucket of water,” Ian shouted. Stuart calmly walked to his slipway shed to look for a suitable empty receptacle, found an old bitumen tin and then, I suspect out of respect for my nice clean engine room, carefully began to attach a hose to the tap he uses for his pressure washer to fill the paint tin with clean water. “Just dip the f****g thing in the cut!” Ian commanded as the flames danced prettily around the bottom of the engine.

Two carefully tipped buckets later and the fire was out. No damage done other than to my underpants, my heart and my life expectancy, so I resumed my lookout duties as Ian finished the last of his cutting and welding.

He asked me not to write about the engine room fire in my newsletter but he has nothing to worry about. He did everything right. He told me to ensure that anything flammable was moved away from the side where he was working, he asked me to keep an eye out for any problems while he was working on the hull, and he quickly resolved what could have been a serious problem. The oily rag laying in the impossible to reach section of bilge under the engine certainly wasn’t his fault.

After Ian finished the tank he asked Stuart to paint the bare steel with Owatrol rust protector. Thick bitumen paint isn’t a good idea on skin tanks. Too many layers insulate the tank and can cause overheating problems. I’m spending a substantial amount of money trying to cure one overheating problem. I don’t want to create another.

The current exhaust outlet had to go. It was too low to work with my new hospital silencer so the opening was welded shut. The work made a mess of my red tunnel flash so Stuart found me some red paint and a brush. I cleaned, lightly sanded and repainted the flash as daylight faded then climbed a set of steps to my home in the sky.

Living on a boat suspended six feet on the ground is an odd and often chilly experience. The water surrounding the boat in its normal environment acts as an insulator. The boat was noticeably cooler than normal on Friday night but the bird’s eye view of my surroundings more than made up for it.

Saturday was a very wet day but thankfully not for the half hour I needed to be out in it.

With an out of commission engine the boat had to be manhandled from the slipway to the engineering workshop 100’ feet away. Ian gently pushed the trolley holding the boat down the slipway into the marina. Slipway Stuart held on to a long rope attached to my bow. I stood on the back deck with my long pole.

Once the boat floated free of the trolley I “punted” the twenty tonne boat over to its new mooring next to the workshop. It was wonderful exercise but I have much more respect now for the barge horses which use to pull fully laden working boats all day long. Ten minutes was more than enough for me.

All Ian had to do to finish the job was remove a fitting from my thirty eight year old heat exchanger, fit a flexi coupling between the heat exchanger and my new super quiet hospital silencer and manufacture brackets to fit the large silencer out of the way so that any essential engine maintenance could still be done reasonably easily.

After a great deal of huffing, puffing and manly straining, a little lost knuckle skin and many colourful expletives, the old heat exchanger fitting was off. Of course the new flexi coupling wouldn’t fit my old engine so Ian had to make one.

With the flexi coupling and hospital silencer in place but not secured all that was left to do was manufacture the silencer brackets, lag he pipes either side of the silencer and cut a new hole for the exhaust.

Rain and the impending start of the South Africa/New Zealand rugby world cup semi-final halted work at 12.30pm. The remaining welding and cutting couldn’t be done in the wet. I spent a leisurely afternoon watching the brutal and exhilarating rugby match and an evening indulging my guilty pleasure, X Factor, before retiring for the night in a bedroom gently lit by the site’s orange sodium lights.

I was hoping that Ian would be in today to finish the installation. He suggested that he might come in to work for a few hours but it’s his day off so I can understand why he hasn’t appeared.

Hopefully tomorrow the work will be done and I can take my new super quiet stealth boat for a spin. I’m looking forward to some quiet cruising and not having to answer endless questions about the unusual noise coming from the back of my boat. The most common of them is whether the boat is steam powered. I’ve started to tell enquirers that it’s a prototype jet propulsion system for the new breed of faster inland waterways craft often purchased by highly stressed boating enthusiasts with far too little time to cruise at the normal slower pace usually seen on the waterways. Sadly because of the noise I haven’t been able to hear their follow up questions but I can tell from the bemused looks that they either don’t believe me or they don’t think it’s a particularly good idea.

I’m going to spend a couple of hours now cleaning the engine room and removing Friday’s fire water before the 4pm kick off for the Australia/Argentina match. I’m going to turn up the volume very loud to try and drown out the annoying drone of an electric sander being enthusiastically wielded in the paint tent next to my boat.

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Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62′ long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I run my discovery days roughly on the first ten days or so of April, June August, October and December. As winter approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. There are just six dates remaining this year. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late. ou may want to stay locally the night before, the night after or both, in which case I highly recommend this B & B. It’s a five minute stroll from the mooring where I begin my discovery days.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Peter Martin who kindly produced a short video of his discovery day experience for me to use on my site. The video is below followed by his comments.

“With two and half years before I can pick up my work pension, a break up of my marriage, kids now independent and need for downsizing, now seems like the time to plan what I’ve often dreamed about over the years.

Living on the cut seems to fit in very well with my lifestyle. I like the outdoors, love boating, independence and getting back to nature.

Having not spent any length of time with live aboard boaters, the Discovery Day was was really just an opportunity to pick up the vibes that go with life on the inland waterways. I needed to do this before committing myself further in the discovery process. Easier to nip things in the bud now if it didn’t appeal before my imagination runs away with itself!

It was a very enjoyable day. I particularly enjoyed the warm welcome of coming in out of the cold to sit in the heat of a toasty, warm cabin. That sold me the lifestyle straight away. It also confirmed that I definitely need a solid fuel stove as primary heat. I know it means hard work lugging coal etc., but what better way to get some outdoor exercise.  I’m also now sold on composting toilets! I never imagined I’d spend the following  week viewing endless YouTube videos of people’s loos!

The helming and boat handling were great experience. By the end of the day I had got over the intimidation of  controlling  60 feet and 20 tons of metal.  A very worthwhile 10 hours and it has confirmed that I’ll continue along this pathway.

The hard work now begins in downsizing, straightening out the finances and then the enjoyable part of finding the right boat.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

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2015 10 18 Newsletter – Engine Running and Electricity Generation Costs

What is it with Sundays? I suffered a little more damage to my beloved boat on my Sunday discovery day last weekend. I wasn’t steering but I was in charge so the loss was entirely my fault.

On the route to Braunston on the combined Oxford and Grand Union canals, the waterway twists and turns through bridges, around tight bends and along a mile long stretch where the offside willows hang far over the canal.

My guest for the day was taking his helmsmanship very seriously so handled my floating home with great care. At this time of the year the number of boats using the waterway reduces significantly so we had only passed one or two boats since leaving the head of the Calcutt flight.

He moved close to the low hanging willows to allow a rare oncoming boat to pass. Because I was daydreaming I didn’t notice a particularly low and heavy branch reaching menacingly for my precious stainless steel chimney.

The chimney leaped from its normally secure perch on the rooftop collar, rolled erratically across the cabin roof and then came to a sudden stop when it reached the roof’s box section rail. I breathed a sigh of relief, but too soon. The bayonet fitting holding cap to chimney came adrift and thirty pounds worth of beautifully engineered stainless steel cap tumbled over the side and into the murky depths.

Every cloud has a silver lining. I lost just the cap. I could have easily lost the lot. I’ve ordered another which should be at the beginning of next week. Fortunately there’s no rain forecast before then to cascade down my capless flue onto the stove’s glowing coals.

On Monday I donned my smart blue and far too clean overalls to look the part while I messed about in the engine room.

As you probably know, I’ve had a few problems with my engine’s raw water cooling system. My original water lock, a moulded plastic box fitted into the exhaust to prevent water expelled from the engine from running back into the engine when it stops, vibrated free from its mounting and lodged next to the gearbox coupling. The rapidly revolving coupling quickly wore a hole through the plastic allowing much of the water drawn in from the canal to cool the engine to fill my bilge rather than return, slightly warmer than when it arrived, back into the canal.

I managed to limp to Streethay Wharf where they found and fitted a second hand water lock and manufactured a steel basket to sit it in so I wouldn’t have the same problem again.

Three months later a hole blew through a weakness in the second hand water lock so I was back to square one. Streethay Wharf brought me a new Vetus water lock – £140 – to me at my temporary mooring in the middle of Rugby.

All was well for a couple of weeks until a worn impeller resulted in a very much reduced water flow through my heat exchanger and much increased pressure which blew the water lock off my exhaust again resulting in an engine bay filled with canal water.

I managed to get back from Braunston to Calcutt Boats where the impeller was replaced and normal service was resumed, or so I thought.

The exhaust is making quite a racket. Calcutt Boats owner Roger Preen suggested that the new water lock may have been fitted the wrong way around so I decided to check it out on Monday.

Once I removed the box from the bowels of the engine bay I could see markings clearly stamped in the plastic indicating the right direction. It was positioned correctly so that wasn’t the cause of the noise.

While I had the box off, I noticed something which certainly isn’t going to help supress the noise. The reduced water flow because of the damaged impeller resulted in much increased exhaust heat which partially melted the water lock where the exhaust hose is attached. The water lock is still holding water but I don’t know how much has melted inside it and what effect that might have had on the water lock’s efficiency.

I just need it to do its job for another couple of weeks. I’m hoping to have the conversion from raw water to keel cooling done before I head down to Uxbridge on 7^th November in time to meet Cynthia’s flight into Heathrow on Friday 13^th. Fortunately I’m not superstitious so I’ll be breaking mirrors with black cats on my way to meet her.

As part of the conversion I’m going to have a hospital silencer fitted to reduce the engine noise to the faintest whisper, or as faint a whisper as it’s possible to achieve with a thirty eight year old Mercedes. I’ve been told that a hospital silencer is so named because it is wrapped in a blanket just like a hospital patient. I’m not sure that I believe it, but I hope it’s true.

Unfortunately a hospital silencer isn’t much smaller than a blanket wrapped patient. The one I want to fit needs a space three feet long to fit the 12” diameter cylinder. I borrowed one from Calcutt Boats’ chandlery to see if it would fit, but after carrying the heavy silencer over the lock gates and along to my boat, I realised it was too heavy and bulky to lower into the engine bay on my own to check for the required amount of space.

As ever, I’ll leave it to the experts to work out. If that won’t fit, I’ll go for the slightly smaller and less quiet version.

One other small but important job to do while the boat is out of the water having the new skin tank fitted is to replace my rather worn rudder cup.

The heavy rudder, very heavy in my case, rests in the tight fitting cup at the end of the skeg, the horizontal steel bar running under the propeller from the base of the rudder to the boat’s base plate. Thirty eight years of a weighty rudder pivoting in this cup has produced inevitable wear and tear. So much so that there is now a quarter inch gap between post and cup. If I turn the rudder sharply I can feel the rudder move slightly and hear it scrape noisily across the cup.

The cup will need cutting off and then a new cup made and welded in place to fit the rudder post snuggly. One more item ticked off my now very short refurbishment list.

From Monday to Thursday I enjoyed my first proper rest since I began my manic must-go-everywhere-and-see-and-do-everything cruising regime in April this year.

I moored above Calcutt top lock and stayed there for four days until my next scheduled discovery day on Friday. I didn’t even run my engine for three days which gave me ample opportunity to test my recently purchased Hozelock Porta Shower. I LOVE it!

The 7l Hozelock shower is a joy to use. I was convinced that seven litres would be far too little water for an effective shower so the first time I used it I filled my kettle to the brim, boiled the contents then tipped them into the shower bottle and then boiled my kettle a second time to ensure I had plenty of hot water. I didn’t need the second kettle full.

When using the porta shower you have to adopt the “submarine” technique. You wet yourself, turn off the shower, soap yourself thoroughly and then turn on the shower again to rinse off the soap. The porta shower helps you to shower this way because the spring loaded trigger turns the water spray off as soon as you let go.

Seven litres was actually too much. The boater who told me about the Hozelock shower insisted that he only needed three litres to shower. I didn’t think an effective shower was possible using so little water but he was right. I actually used five litres but only because I didn’t want to waste any of my painstakingly boiled hot water.

I also learned not to pressurise the vessel while standing in the galley unless I want to wash my floor at the same time. There’s a leak at the trigger.

All in all, the Hozelock Porta Shower is a great find. If I manage my power very carefully during bright summer months I can stay for extended periods without having to run my engine for battery charging courtesy of my 300w solar array. Unfortunately I can’t heat water in the same way. Now I don’t need to bother. Ten minute’s gas supply to boil a full kettle does the job very nicely.

During my four day stay on the same mooring I was able to assess my power usage more accurately.

From April this year I’ve been cruising continuously. The longest I’ve stayed in one spot has been two days before cruising for two or more hours the following day. I haven’t needed to conserve my power because the engine’s been running and therefore charging my batteries while I’ve been on the move.

I have four 160ah AGM batteries in my domestic bank. I replaced my old 135ah lead acid batteries in January this year with the larger capacity AGMs because the new batteries should last three times as long as lead acid batteries but only cost twice as much, and because they are maintenance free.

Boat battery banks aren’t always fitted in the easiest of places to reach in an often cramped engine room. Unscrewing the tops and then peering in aided by a torch to check if they need topping up is often difficult to do so the likelihood is that this task will not be done regularly or even at all thereby drastically reducing the battery bank’s life. My fit and forget batteries remove yet another tedious maintenance task.

One of the most useful improvements I’ve made to my boat is to have a Smartgauge battery monitor installed. It’s been fitted in the bulkhead between my bedroom and the engine room facing into the bedroom. At the touch of a button I can see the battery bank’s capacity whenever I want. I usually check two or three times a day.

I have to admit to being a little wasteful with my on board power at the moment. I haven’t really needed to conserve it with the amount of cruising and therefore engine running and battery charging I’ve done this year. I also have a 300w solar array helping to keep my battery bank charged.

My 1600w inverter is turned usually turned on from the time I’m out of bed at 5am until I turn in at 10pm. My laptop is on all day, I watch a couple of hours each night on my 240v television and I blitz the boat for ten minutes each morning with my 1100w Draper vacuum cleaner. My 12v fridge is on all day, every day.

Each day I use roughly 10% of my battery bank’s capacity. I need to run my engine for two hours to top the bank up to 100% again. Over my four days without moving I ran the engine on one day for two hours.

Before I set off on Friday’s discovery day cruise, my battery bank capacity was down to 69%. After seven hours cruising I just reached 100% before I stopped for the day.

My engine uses 1.35 litres of diesel per hour. If I buy my fuel at Calcutt Boats where the current diesel cost is 113p for propulsion and 65p for heating and if I buy it at the default split of 60/40 (sixty per cent propulsion/forty per cent heating) a litre of diesel will cost me 93.8p or £1.27 per engine running hour. My batteries therefore cost roughly £2.50 per day to charge.

I don’t know the difference between my fuel consumption when at rest for battery charging or when I’m actually cruising, but I don’t think it’s much at all. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I have to run my engine on average for two hours each day anyway I might as well use it to cruise and enjoy the variety the inland waterways network has to offer.

I have four more discovery days to do followed by my engine cooling system conversion before I can begin cruising again in earnest. Then I’m heading south towards London on my 174 mile, 180 lock return trip to Heathrow to pick up Cynthia and her two basset hounds Tasha and Bromley. Just for once on my boating cruises my focus will be on my destination rather than my journey.

My apologies for not adding any photo’s this week. Time, or lack of it, defeated me. Here’s one which Cynthia took which I thought you might like. It was taken on 28th September on our mooring at the base of Crack’s Hill near Crick. How’s that for a view out of your kitchen window?

[ratingwidget post_id=29938]

 

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62′ long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I run my discovery days roughly on the first ten days or so of April, June August, October and December. As winter approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. There are just six dates remaining this year. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late. ou may want to stay locally the night before, the night after or both, in which case I highly recommend this B & B. It’s a five minute stroll from the mooring where I begin my discovery days.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Peter Martin who kindly produced a short video of his discovery day experience for me to use on my site. The video is below followed by his comments.

“With two and half years before I can pick up my work pension, a break up of my marriage, kids now independent and need for downsizing, now seems like the time to plan what I’ve often dreamed about over the years.

Living on the cut seems to fit in very well with my lifestyle. I like the outdoors, love boating, independence and getting back to nature.

Having not spent any length of time with live aboard boaters, the Discovery Day was was really just an opportunity to pick up the vibes that go with life on the inland waterways. I needed to do this before committing myself further in the discovery process. Easier to nip things in the bud now if it didn’t appeal before my imagination runs away with itself!

It was a very enjoyable day. I particularly enjoyed the warm welcome of coming in out of the cold to sit in the heat of a toasty, warm cabin. That sold me the lifestyle straight away. It also confirmed that I definitely need a solid fuel stove as primary heat. I know it means hard work lugging coal etc., but what better way to get some outdoor exercise.  I’m also now sold on composting toilets! I never imagined I’d spend the following  week viewing endless YouTube videos of people’s loos!

The helming and boat handling were great experience. By the end of the day I had got over the intimidation of  controlling  60 feet and 20 tons of metal.  A very worthwhile 10 hours and it has confirmed that I’ll continue along this pathway.

The hard work now begins in downsizing, straightening out the finances and then the enjoyable part of finding the right boat.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

0

2015 10 11 Newsletter – Catastrophic Overheating and Bilge Flooding

Another week has flashed by. Another week of tranquil cruising combined with a day of unusual stress for me. My engine is a little smoky but generally very reliable. However, it’s nearly forty years old so needs a little TLC now and again.

Sunday started well enough. Carl, my single discovery day guest, arrived just before 8am. We chatted over a coffee, spent an hour walking through my boat discussing the pros and cons of my floating home’s design, layout and on board equipment, then started the engine and set off on our gentle cruise towards Braunston six miles away.

I have a pigeon box on the roof two feet forward of my rear hatch. It has three gauges set in it, oil pressure, and engine speed and engine temperature. These gauges are positioned perfectly. On many boats the gauges, if there are any, are often tucked away on a panel out of sight. Having the gauges on the roof in front of me means that I can constantly glance at them while I am cruising.

The oil pressure gauge has never worked but, to tell you the truth, I don’t understand what oil pressure is so it’s not much use to me. I refer to the other two gauges all of the time. I’ve used a walking app on my iPhone to work out my boat’s speed through the water at different engine speeds so I use the tachometer as a reasonably accurate speedometer. The most important gauge to me though is the engine temperature.

My engine temperature is usually spot on seventy degrees but over the last three or four weeks I’ve noticed the engine running ten or fifteen degrees warmer at 1,500rpm, my normal cruising speed.

On Sunday as we moved slowly from my mooring near Calcutt Top lock and then crept past a line of boats on long term moorings close to Napton Junction I noticed the temperature steadily rising. I also noticed that there was far less water than normal being expelled from the exhaust.

By the time we reached the junction the temperature had reached eighty degrees. A mile later it was heading north of ninety degrees. We needed to stop, let the engine cool down and allow me to use my almost non-existent mechanical knowledge to look for a solution.

Looking for a solution didn’t take me long because I didn’t really have any idea what to look for. Increased engine temperature can often be an indicator of a fouled propeller. I decided to check the prop but I didn’t really expect it to be the cause. Increased engine temperature is just one of several indicators. Vibration through the tiller, dark exhaust smoke and loss of power often accompany temperature increase. I hadn’t noticed any of these.

Lifting the rear deck hatch to access the weed hatch beneath I unscrewed the locking bar holding the hatch securely in place, removed the heavy steel hatch then lay down on the back deck so I could reach elbow deep into the murky water for the propeller. I removed a fistful of plastic, but not nearly enough to cause me any problems.

Next on my very short list was to check the mud box. My engine is raw water cooled so water is drawn into the engine from the canal. The cold canal water passes through a heat exchanger before being spat very noisily back into the canal several degrees warmer via the wet exhaust.

Before the canal water reaches the heat exchanger it passes through a mud box which allows any mud and, I dare say, bits of decaying badger and rabbit to fall away. When cruising in murky waterways the mud box can fill and impede the water flow to the heat exchanger.

I loosened the three nuts holding the mud box lid in place, tightened them up quickly as canal water jetted into the bilge, did what I should have done in the first place and closed the sea cock so my boat wouldn’t sink when I removed the mud box lid, undid the nuts again and removed the lid.

Up to my elbows in canal water again I checked for any blockages. The steel cylinder was completely free of any silt deposits so I put everything back together again and scratched my head.

Last on my list was to check the water pump belt to ensure that it hadn’t either snapped or loosened. It did appear to be slightly loose so I did what I always so in situations like this and ignored it.

Because I couldn’t think of anything else to check I turned the engine back on to see if it had fixed itself. Much to my surprise the water flow from the exhaust had increased and the temperature decreased to close to normal.

We carried on with our cruise at a leisurely pace running at a slightly higher but safe temperature until we reached our midway point and a three point turn in the entrance to Braunston marina close to the Gongoozer’s Rest café boat. They do wonderful cheese and onion toasted sandwiches if you’re passing.

Turning the boat means a bit of engine revving in both forward in reverse. It was this which appeared to stop canal water running through the heat exchanger completely.

With the engine temperature ever increasing we managed to find a free mooring opposite the Boat House pub. If you don’t fancy a cheese and onion toastie at the Gongoozler’s Rest, the Boat House has an extensive menu with a permanent two for one offer. They’ve just introduced extra large meals to ensure that you can’t fit through your boat’s narrow doorways.

We had lunch while the engine prepared itself for another six miles of slow cruising. After half and hour’s rest the raw water flowed again but, again, as we moved off the temperature steadily increased as did the breeze which made cruising slowly more of a challenge.

An hour later I was on the phone to Calcutt Boats asking if they would have an engineer handy to tighten my water pump belt. With my extensive engineering knowledge I had convinced myself that this was the problem. Ever obliging, they agreed but before I could finish the call events took a turn for the worse.

Carl had been confidently and competently bringing the boat around a tight bend when the strengthening breeze caught us. If we had been moving a little more quickly through the water we would have been fine but the wind pushed us against the concrete towpath edging and as I put the boat into reverse to stop us and prevent us from grinding against the stone, there was a loud bang followed by a from the engine beneath our feet followed shortly by billowing smoke.

Ever the action hero I quickly turned off the engine and thought seriously about climbing into my warm and comfortable bed, pulling the duvet over my head and crying my eyes out. As I had company I decided against that course of action, lifted the boards over the engine and looked for the cause of both noise and smoke and a possible solution.

Much to my surprise I found both cause and remedy almost immediately.

Both the exhaust gasses and the heated water from the heat exchanger pass through an exhaust hose via a waterlock. The plastic box stops water from flowing back into the engine and damaging it when the engine stops. My recently fitted waterlock, a replacement for its holed predecessor bought second hand from Streethay Wharf five months ago, had blown off the jubilee clip securing it to the exhaust and filled my bilge with canal water and my engine room with acrid smoke.

Fortunately I used to be a boy scout – before I was thrown out for disrupting other boy scouts – so always try to have equipment on board for all kinds of emergencies. In this case the emergency equipment was my little Draper wet and dry vacuum. Within fifteen minutes we had sucked twenty loads of water out of the bilge and reattached the misbehaving waterlock, cast off and continued our slow and painful journey towards salvation at Calcutt Boats.

At Napton Junction ten minutes cruising from the Calcutt flight I called Steven Cox in Calcutt Boats’ office to find that the engineer I was hoping to help me out was just leaving for the day. Fortunately for me my boating guardian angel, Russ Fincham, was still on duty.

Russ has helped me out more times than I care to remember. All consuming problems which have almost reduced me to a gibbering wreck have taken him no time at all to resolve. On my first trip out of the marina the boat broke down at Braunston. He came out to me during his Christmas break, correctly diagnosed a blocked fuel filter, cleaned it, bled the system and wished me bon voyage. He’s also rebuilt a rotten weed hatch, made me a mast for my old WiFi dongle, fitted my shower, television aerial, fitted my new calorifier and ensured that it was fed with gallons of hot water from a reluctant engine, fitted another calorifier when the first one sprung a leak (the manufacturers fault) and last but not least, organised a coat of primer to be added to my cabin when the boat was transported back to the marina by road after having the cabin over plated. Oh, and I nearly forgot, he also likes to show me the testicles he keeps hidden beneath loosely elasticated swimming shorts at the end of Southern Comfort fuelled late night Calcutt Boats summer barbecues. His generosity knows no bounds.

Russ was waiting for me at the water point next to Calcutt top lock carrying a roll of spanners and a look of grim determination. He listened to my half-witted diagnostic, instantly checked and dismissed the water pump belt as a possible cause, asked when I had last changed my impeller then quickly whipped it out. The impeller that is. This wasn’t barbecue night!

At the time I didn’t have a clue when the impeller was last changed but I’ve just checked. It was replaced two and a half years and 1,500 hours ago. I think I’ll keep a spare on board in future.

Here’s my impeller. See the broken fin next to my thumb? That’s all the damage needed to stop the impeller from working. I fetched a new impeller from Calcutt’s well stocked chandlery, Russ swapped it over and five minutes later the usual volume of water was spurting noisily from my exhaust and the engine temperature dropped almost immediately to its normal seventy degrees, so the rest of Carl’s discovery day continued a little later than planned but without an overheating engine.

After Sunday’s challenge I’m now committed to at least resolving the issues with my raw water cooling and eliminating the infernal racket from the wet exhaust.

Calcutt Boats’owner Roger Preen suggested that the exhaust noise might be due to the recently changed waterlock being fitted the wrong way round. He told me that if I equip myself with a magnifying glass and a powerful torch, I should be able to find arrows etched into the waterlock’s plastic indicating the correct positioning. I have a few days free at the beginning of next week so I’ll check it carefully then reposition it if necessary.

Even if I manage to reduce the exhaust noise, the raw water cooling system has to go. The waterlock has now failed twice and blown off the exhaust once, each time filling the bilge with a disturbingly large volume of water which I’ve been fortunate enough to spot before the rising level found its way into the cabin.

Apart from these three failures I’m constantly worried about blockages. Water is drawn into the boat via a fine meshed grill on the swim. There’s a chance of this mesh blocking and impeding or stopping water reaching the heat exchanger. Once through the grill the sometimes silt laden canal water passes through a mud box where the water flow can be further impeded if the box fills with silt. The mud box is difficult to access and a pain to empty unless you’re as slim and lithe as an eel.

The solution is to switch to keel cooling which will simplify and possibly improve engine cooling and remove the exhaust noise, especially if I have a hospital silencer fitted. To convert to keel cooling I need have a slim water tank, a skin tank, fitted on my swim, the tapering section of the hull on the stern close to the propeller.

I understand the conversion itself is pretty straightforward. The skin tank’s manufacture and fitting, taking the boat out of the water for it to be fitted and the other necessary modifications will cost me just over £1,000 but worth every penny if it reduces both noise and worry, and the frequent offers of a tea bag from passing boaters when they hear my exhaust hissing like a boiling kettle.

The rest of the week was problem free. The days are cooler now but still very pleasant despite an occasional drenching from heavy showers. The usual autumn winds have yet to put in an appearance and plague the owners of flat bottomed narrowboats but I’m sure they’ll be along shortly.

On Friday I spent half an hour chatting to the owner of the boat which has been moored in front of me for the last week. The retired Grand Union Leicester Line lock keeper was talking about his solar panels and how they allow him to moor for a week at a time without having to run his engine for battery charging. “But what do you do about hot water?” I asked. There are several options available to off grid boaters including gas powered water heaters and diesel heating systems plumbed in to the boat’s calorifier, but this guy had a simple, low cost and very effective solution.

His face lit up as he dashed into his boat and returned minutes later with one of his favourite boating toys. Here it is…

It’s a Hozelock 4 in 1 Porta Shower. The bottle holds five litres. He assured me that five litres is more than enough for a shower. In fact he claimed that two to three litres does the job.

A large kettle sits permanently on top of his solid fuel stove so he half fills the bottle with near boiling water, adds the required amount of cold water, pumps the handle twenty times to pressurise the vessel – taking care to pump the handle outside his shower cubicle’s frosted glass in case his wife jumps to the wrong conclusion – and then steps into his shower cubicle to clean his dirty body.

The hand held spray head allows you to reach parts not normally accessible to wall mounted showers, saves valuable water when you want to stay of extended periods on idyllic moorings, and saves considerable diesel expense and engine wear and tear.

I ordered one from Amazon immediately. Unfortunately I can’t keep a kettle of hot water on my stove because of its rubbish design but putting the kettle on my gas hob for five minutes will be much quicker and cheaper than running my engine for an hour.

The Porta Shower arrived yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet but I’ll tell you how I fared in next week’s newsletter.

[ratingwidget post_id=29930]

Cruising Guides

Did you know that the forum has a Cruising guide section? There’s an ever growing volume of very useful information here. Information which you won’t find in the popular Pearson and Nicholson guides. Recent additions are parts one and two of Peter Early’s guide to the Great Ouse and some essential advice from Richardhula if you’re considering taking a longer boat on the short locked Calder & Hebble navigation.

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 11th October 2015

My Next batch of discovery days are at the beginning of December. The experience days offer you a unique opportunity to experience life on the cut at a cooler but far more peaceful time of the year than in the summer. You may want to stay locally the night before, the night after or both, in which case I highly recommend this B & B. It’s a five minute stroll from the mooring where I begin my discovery days.  If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

0

2015 10 05 Newsletter – A LONG Overdue Central Heating System Installation

Last Sunday after lunch we cast off to do battle with the Sunday crowds at the ever popular destination for leather clad bikers, walkers and families visiting the locks to watch the steady stream of boats ascending or descending the ten lock flight.

Dainty Cynthia strained against Foxton’s swinging two lane highway, then the much lighter swing foot bridge at Foxton Junction. Cynthia held on to the boat on the water point opposite the flight while I struggled through hordes of visitors to find a lock keeper and book myself in to the queue.

Finding the right lock keeper wasn’t easy. The previous day one of the keepers enjoyed an unexpected dip in the pound between the two five lock flights. His radio, one of the two used by keepers on the flight, objected to his dip so, with just one working radio between them, communication from one end of the flight to the other was impossible.

A keeper on the third lock up from the bottom told me that his colleague who was in charge of scheduling was at the top of the flight. I climbed the hill through people and pushchairs to find the wrong keeper. The one I wanted was, of course, at the bottom of the flight.

We were in luck. The last descending boat was nearly through the flight so within ten minutes it passed me heading for Market Harborough while the single boat in front of me started up the flight.

The Foxton flight is a bit of a pig if you need to wait before going up. There’s often a trip boat moored just beneath the flight but, if you’re lucky, you can just squeeze between that and the bottom lock next to Bridge 61, one of the two pubs at the bottom of the flight.

A group of burly bikers stood drinking close to where I waited for the lock to empty. A bearded giant shouted across to me, “Oi, do you think you’ll be here long?” You will? Put the kettle on then!” There’s always a comedian at canal side pubs happy to share his wit with passing boaters.

The flight, especially the bottom five locks, was heaving with people. Twenty or thirty gongoozlers lined each of the lock walls oblivious to the dangers of balance beams from opening lock gates or the often slippery lock sides. I watched in horror as the mother of a toddler tipped his pushchair up on to two wheels so that he could hang by two small restraining straps over the side and look down on to my boat in the empty lock six feet below.

I lifted several children onto my roof so parents could take photo’s then thanked the parents and a steady stream of children who opened and closed the lock gates for me as we swiftly made our way up the flight.

As usual in the UK, once you travel more than a hundred metres from the nearest car park, the crowds disappear. It’s a phenomenon which has always amazed me. I’ve hiked on some of the country’s most beautiful places with hundreds of miles of peaceful paths but I regularly see hordes of tourists enjoying car park picnics complete with the sound of revving engines and the smell of diesel fumes. Within minutes of exiting the top lock we had the countryside to ourselves again. Yippee!

We cruised for an hour and a half past the Laughton Hills, Kicklewell Spinney and through Husbands Bosworth tunnel before stopping briefly at North KIlworth Wharf to by coal, kindling and a Waterways World.

We moored close to Downton Hill waking to a still, cool and mist shrouded day on Tuesday. My first job, as usual at this time of the year, was to light the fire. The routine is usually the same; I empty the ash pan, clean the cold stove glass, place a couple of fire lighters on the empty grate, light them and then add a dozen bone dry pieces of kindling and then another dozen coal briquettes. I leave the bottom plate off to allow maximum draught and wait for the firelighters to light the kindling and the kindling to light the coal. The routine doesn’t normally include fighting my way through smoke so thick I could cut it with a knife.

I don’t have an airtight seal between my stove door and the stove. It’s not normally a problem at all. There’s usually enough of a draught to suck any smoke up the flue. The morning was utterly still and the mist hung heavily over the boat so the fire wouldn’t draw at all. Fortunately I have a ceiling mounted 12v fan which I turned on its highest setting after I had opened the front doors wide and rolled up the cratch cover.

It’s at times like this that I wish I had a secondary heating system to fall back on. Fortunately for me, I soon will. I was booked in for half a day on Thursday for the first part of my Webasto diesel central heating system installation.

Once mist began to clear outside, and the even thicker smoke had cleared inside, we headed south along the second half of the Leicester Line’s twenty mile summit pound towards our destination for the day on the last available mooring at the base of Crack’s Hill.

What a gorgeous day. A warm sun shone from a cloudless blue sky. A gentle breeze kept Crick’s half a dozen wind turbine’s turning and provided enough of a draught over my chimney to set the fire blazing and melt the inside of the boat.

We sat on Crack’s Hill’s summit for an hour away from the cabin’s inferno, braved the boat’s heat for a quick lunch then sat on a hillside bench in recently planted Crick Millennium Pocket Park for the rest of the afternoon reading and drinking in the view, trying not to focus on the intrusive 77m high wind turbines which have recently appeared in this area.

I’m normally pretty good when estimating the time needed for a day’s cruise but I made a right royal cock up of Tuesday. I estimated the time we would need to reach Hillmorton locks but then forgot to add the additional time to reach the closest point to Rugby station on the visitor moorings to the north of the town.

After a clear passage through Crick tunnel we reached the head of the manned Watford flight and a little canal-side excitement. Two tree surgeons agile as monkeys climbed confidently through the lofty canopy of an old beech seventy feet above the towpath. Foot thick limbs crashed or were lowered to the ground and then logged and left next to the canal for passing wood burning boaters to use. The owner of the boat ahead of us filled all his available roof space with logs too thick to fit in his stove. I suspected he wouldn’t wait until the logs seasoned before burning them after noticing dark brown tar stains running from his chimney down his cabin side.

With Cynthia now in a familiar lock routine we flew down the seven lock Watford flight then the six lock Braunston flight an hour later before mooring next to a floating greenhouse on the north Oxford half a mile out of Braunston.

At 4pm after a late lunch we continued our journey towards Rugby, leaving the last of the three lock Hillmorton flight as the light dimmed and the day chilled.

As we moved away from the flight we were joined by two middle aged men paddling kayaks. One of them moved close to my stern to “freeboard”, to position himself so that my boat would pull him along without needing to paddle.

He managed as much as half a mile at a time before losing concentration, ploughing in to the offside vegetation and then paddling furiously to move back into position close to me. Twice he miscalculated, moved to close and was sucked against my hull, unable to move away until I slowed down. He was quite content to stay glued to me on the first occasion for half a mile but not so happy the second time when he couldn’t escape as I manoeuvred for a narrow bridge hole. He didn’t feel comfortable being sandwiched between twenty tonnes of steel and an immovable brick bridge arch.

We reached Rubgy’s visitor moorings in the dark. I turned my headlight on for the journey’s last half mile but my tunnel light doesn’t illuminate much out in the open.

After quickly mooring and securing the boat we walked a mile and a half to a well deserved meal at the Romna Indian restaurant in Albert Street close to Rugby’s town centre. If you enjoy a good curry and friendly and attentive service you’ll love this place. After stuffing ourselves senseless we waddled back to the boat for a sound night’s sleep.

At 6.38am on Wednesday I bid Cynthia a temporary farewell on Rugby station’s platform one. She’ll be back in six weeks courtesy of Virgin Airways carrying all she needs for a life on the waterways including her two beloved basset hounds. I’ll pick her up close to the airport. Unfortunately I’ll be picking her up in the boat so the “airport run” will be a round trip of three weeks!

Back on my own again with too much space to rattle around in I moved two hours closer to Braunston and my appointment with Justin Greene the following day.

A month ago I scheduled the date so that Justin could investigate my engine’s overheating problem and the reason for the engine smoking so much. However, after a little research I’ve changed my mind.

Lucy Illiffe, daughter of my boat’s original owner, visited me on my mooring at Calcutt Boats two years ago. She presented me with the boat’s operations manual which her father wrote some time during his twenty year ownership.

Last week I was reading through the engine maintenance part of the manual. He wrote that the only regular engine maintenance needed was the topping up of engine oil every few days and that not more than a litre should be added at any one time. Clearly the engine has always been smoky if such regular top ups where needed.

In addition to excessive diesel fumes the noise from my wet exhaust is driving me mad. Everyone comments on it. The helmsman or woman on every boat I pass turns round to find out what the racket is. The exhaust makes more noise than the engine and the engine envelops me in a cloud of nauseating fumes if there is a following wind.

I could sort out the wet exhaust problem easy enough by having the wet exhaust system removed and have a one or two keel tanks fitted, but that wouldn’t solve the problem I have with unhealthy fumes tainting the fresh air around me as I cruise. The most effective but expensive solution is to replace the engine.

After much research I have come to the conclusion that Beta Marine offer some of the quietest and most reliable engines on the market for inland waterways craft. The model I am considering is a Beta 43 priced at a little under £7,000, plus a further estimated £2,000 for engine fitting and cooling system conversion.

I’m going to have to wait until early next year before I can afford it, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to go ahead with the change. Much as I enjoy a little attention as I cruise the network at the moment it’s for all the wrong reasons.

So, rather than have Justin fiddle around with an engine I won’t have for much longer, I asked him to install the Webasto Thermotop C I purchased eighteen months ago. I was only booked in with him for the morning but in three hours he managed to install the burner in my engine room, drill through the hull for its exhaust and connect the fuel line to my diesel tank.

All I need to do now is buy four radiators from Screwfix before the scheduled fitting date towards the end of November. Justin will remove an expensive to run electric radiator from my bedroom, remove the three existing radiators running from my stove’s back boiler and replace them with the four new and larger capacity radiators.

While Justin toiled I did very little. I wandered along the canal back towards Braunston Junction then strolled up into Braunston village before walking back down to the bridge beneath Braunston bottom lock where I chatted to one of the two lock keepers on duty for half an hour before returning to the boat and a two hour cruise back to the water point above Calcutt top lock.

With very few boats about I washed the boat down for the first time in a month after I filled my tank, then moved on to the towpath to moor for the night and wait for Friday’s two guests.

Sadly, only one arrived. The other suffered an acute and debilitating side effect of curry eating in a motorway service station during his drive to me so had to postpone his day. What a shame as both Friday and Saturday were perfect autumn days; warm sun, a gentle breeze and a flurry of end of season boaters to keep novice helmsmen on their toes.

I planned to send out this newsletter after my discovery day on Sunday but it was a traumatic day with a late finish. I’ll tell you about it next week. My apologies for not adding photo’s this week but I just haven’t had time.

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Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 27th September 2015

There are still three dates available for October so you can join my on the cut for an idyllic autumn cruise. You may want to stay locally the night before, the night after or both, in which case I highly recommend this B & B. It’s a five minute stroll from the mooring where I begin my discovery days.  If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

0

2015 09 27 Newsletter – A cruise to Market Harborough: Rugby to Market Harborough

Early on Sunday morning I walked a mile through Rugby’s quiet weekend streets to the important appointment I raced back from Llangollen for. Here she is.

Cynthia arrived at 10.17am on platform five at Rugby station after twenty four hours of travel by car, train, taxi and plane from Arlington Vermont. That she arrived at 10.17am came as a bit of a surprise because she should have pulled in to the station at 9.14am.

A quick call to Birmingham airport revealed the reason for her nonappearance. An hour’s delay in New York meant that she missed her planned train. She was on the next one though so all was well.

After a lazy day on Sunday I was keen show Cynthia the Warwickshire countryside and how pleasant cruising on a narrowboat can be with the engine purring contentedly beneath our feet… and the ever noisy wet exhaust hissing like a steam train behind us.

I did my usual engine checks; sea cock open, oil topped up and a quick peek in the heat exchanger to check the water level. All was well so I turned the engine on and waited for the reassuring spurt of water from the exhaust to confirm that I had remembered to open the sea cock.

After a minute or two waiting in vain for anything to appear from the exhaust I lifted one of the boards over the engine and found the missing water. A high pressure jet sprayed down the front of my fleece from a pea sized hole in my recently replaced waterlock.

The waterlock is a plastic box fitted between the heat between the engine and the exhaust outlet beneath my read fenders. It stops the exhaust water from running back in to the engine when it stops.

A few months ago on my way back from Fradley Junction I discovered to my dismay that my plastic waterlock had shaken free of its fitting and come to rest against the gearbox coupling. The spinning coupling quickly wore a hole through the plastic allowing much of the canal water drawn into the boat for cooling the engine to pour into the engine bay rather than being expelled through the exhaust.

I managed to limp to Streethay Wharf with a rapidly filling bilge where I was treated very well indeed. Their engineers found me a second hand and seemingly good condition waterlock as a replacement, fabricated a steel basket which they welded to the frame around my engine and then strapped the waterlock immovably to the basket. I knew there was no chance of this one ever vibrating close enough to the gearbox coupling to suffer any damage.

Unfortunately the waterlock wasn’t in as good a condition as it appeared. I don’t know what caused the hole in it but unless I could repair or patch the hole, or replace the waterlock again, I was stuck in the middle of Rugby.

My temporary repair in the original waterlock was ineffective. I stuck half a roll of duct tape over the abrasion in the side of the plastic box, turned the engine on and then watched in dismay as it slid off the box into the bilge almost immediately. This time I had a more cunning plan.

Because the hole in the replacement box was close to the waterlock’s inlet, I wrapped half a yard of super sticky duct tape around the waterlock neck over the small hole and then confidently turned the engine on.

The high pressure water immediately blew a perfectly circular hole through the tape and began to fill the engine bay again so I did what I should have done in the first place and phoned the experts.

Ever accommodating Streethay Wharf rose to the challenge again. They had a new waterlock in stock but didn’t have an engineer available to fit it. No problem, they told me, they would send their painter instead. They gently informed me that replacing the box was a job any reasonably confident and competent person could do. Their painter was a boater who had worked in and around boats all of his life so such a simple task was well within his capabilities.

As I had tried and failed to replenish my dwindling supply of coal two days earlier on my way in to Rugby I cheekily asked them if the painter could bring a couple of bags with him. Ever accommodating, they agreed immediately.

The painter, a new and shiny waterlock and two bags of coal arrived mid-afternoon. By the time the kettle had boiled for his coffee the new box was securely fitted and ready for testing.

It didn’t work.

After asking him whether he was sure he’d fitted it the right way around, and after he’d given me the kind of look usually reserved for very small children asking stupid and annoying questions, I did what I should have done in the first place and opened the sea cock before starting the engine again.

Everything worked perfectly this time.

After waving goodbye to our knight in shining armour I was keen to leave Rugby’s visitor moorings. Even though the moorings aren’t in a particularly pleasant part of Rugby adjacent to an industrial park and close to a large council estate, the two evenings there had been trouble and mostly noise free. The high power fan from a nearby warehouse droned all night but I didn’t hear any late night revellers at all. Even so, a view of industry and commerce isn’t my idea of a perfect spot to moor so we moved on.

We cruised for an hour to give Cynthia her first taste of narrow locks after her narrowboat and wide lock initiation years earlier on the Kennet & Avon then stopped for the night at a quiet spot between Hillmorton Wharf and Barby Moorings.

The following morning we cruised back to my Calcutt Boats base so I could pick up two months post and parcels, catch up with gossip, fill up with water, and pinch a dozen apples from their canal side orchard. We cruised again for another hour before mooring for the night close to Lower Shuckborough where we raided the hedgerow for blackberries to eat with our apples.

The following day we headed for Market Harborough. First the six lock Braunston flight, then Braunston tunnel followed an hour later by the seven lock Watford flight with its constant roar of motorway traffic.

With the noise behind us we moored close to the winding hole at the bottom of Crack’s Hill. We wandered over the hill and the recently planted wood on the towpath side for an hour before moving on to Yelvertoft and a little shopping.

There are three opportunities to spend your hard earned cash in Yelvertoft. If you fancy a pint you might be able to get one at the Knightly Arms. It’s one of the many village pubs these days struggling to make ends meet. The first time I visited three years ago they sold decent food. The second time they had given up on the food but at least we could buy a drink. On our third visit the pub was closed during what is normally a fairly brisk period between Christmas and New Year. There was no sign of life when we passed at lunch time on Wednesday.

The second of the three businesses in Yelvertoft is the post office. I’ve only been in there once. The owner struggled to lift his eyes from his laptop and struggled even more to answer my question with any enthusiasm so I’ve left him since then to the peace and quiet he so clearly craves.

The third of the three is a family run delicatessen and it’s an absolute gem. I think we were in the shop for an hour. We were treated to slivers of cheese, crackers, honey, chutney and jam and an in depth commentary on all we touched, tasted and saw.

We went there to buy some bacon and bread but came away £40 lighter but full of good food and good will. If you cruise the Leicester Line and enjoy good quality food, you won’t be disappointed if you visit Squisito.

After returning to the boat and a foolish attempt at eating most of our purchase we cruised on through countryside rarely troubled by buildings or roads, passed quickly under the A14 and the on for another three miles and a perfect mooring half a mile from Welford Junction.

The next day we carried on towards Foxton, squeezed past moored boats at North Kilworth Wharf, looked for any signs of activity at half dug Kilworth marina, successfully negotiated Husband Bosworth tunnel where I snapped a fender hanger last year when I brushed against an uneven tunnel wall, and then stopped for a leisurely lunch at the base of the Laughton Hills.

We arrived at Foxton late afternoon so we decided to stop for the day rather than rush through the flight. The visitor moorings above the Foxton flight are a pleasant and quiet spot once the many visitors have left for the day.

We wandered up and down the flight and around the inclined plane and then debated whether we should part with £4 each to visit The Boilerhouse museum run by the Foxton Inclined Plane Trust               . We decided not to in the end because the 10am opening the following morning would delay us too much.

At 8am we were on the water point at the head of the ten staircase lock Foxton flight, second in line for the forty minute descent. We had to wait for an hour though because (A) the two lock keepers decided to let the four boats waiting at the bottom of the flight come up before us and (B) one of them fell in.

The unfortunate keeper committed a cardinal sin. The ten lock flight is split into two five lock sets with a passing place in the middle large enough for just two boats to pass if one of them is pulled hard against the towpath. The keeper in his infinite wisdom decided to jump onto the gunnel of a hire boat waiting in the passing place to help the inexperienced crew by grabbing the centre line they had neatly coiled on the boat roof before jumping back onto the towpath with it.

The previous night had been cold and clear so there was a heavy dew on both boat and bank. He jumped for the towpath, slipped on wet grass and tumbled into the canal’s icy water. Training kicked in so he immediately deployed his gas filled life jacket which meant that he (A) couldn’t stand up and (B) couldn’t climb out of the canal unaided.

After he was pulled shivering from the canal then instructed to go home to shower and change, and after the drifting hire boat was retrieved, normal service resumed.

The Foxton flight is a joy. The descent offers a wide view of unspoilt countryside to the east of Leicester and the ten lock flight is a tranquil haven compared to the constant roar of traffic on the seven lock Watford flight at the other end of the Leicester Line’s summit pound.

You also have the opportunity to show off your boat to the dozens of tourists who line the flight watching a steady procession of thin and very long boats work their way through impossibly narrow locks. The gongoozlers are ever friendly, but they need watching carefully.

We had to move mothers with small children on several occasions when they stood far too close to the lock sides and trapped themselves between the water and the opening lock gates. The need to watch them carefully and offer them gentle advice is my excuse for not watching my own boat and allowing a couple of gallons of water to flow into my engine bay when my stern drifted back from the downstream gates under the cascading water from a pair of leaking upstream gates.

All of the soaked clothes hanging inside the engine room are dry now as is the bilge after half an hour with my wet vac so no harm done but I must be more careful in future.

Care was needed on the canal’s final mile into Market Harborough too. I had to constantly weave from side to side to avoid a steady procession of dustbin sized logs and small rafts of vegetation floating downstream.

Market Harborough’s basin, Union Wharf, is a hive of activity with pontoons for visitors, pontoons for long term leisure moorers, pump out and Elsan disposal points, four water points, a boater shower and toilet block, rubbish disposal complete with very rarely found recycling bins and a vibrant café. When we arrived the café’s canal side tables were filled with lunch time diners watching boats turning in the basin.

We turned, moored, locked the boat and then donned rucksacks and boots for the mile hike to Sainsbury’s at the far end of town. We were looking forward to exploring the dozens of independent shops lining the busy High Street but thanks to two generous gentlemen we missed out.

The owner of the boat in front of us on the Foxton flight had tied up on his basin mooring by the time we passed. “Would you like me to run you to a supermarket, a DIY store, anywhere at all?” We declined, he insisted, we relented.

I had my camera around my neck as I wandered aimlessly down Sainsbury’s crowded isles as Cynthia shopped. “Why Nikon? Why Nikon instead of Cannon?” a loud Scottish voice enquired. Arthur, a commercial photographer, chatted to me about cameras for five minutes until we parted ways at herbs and spices. He spotted us again as we passed him as he paid for his goods. “Don’t move!” he insisted, “I’m taking you back to your boat.” He dropped us off next to the Waterfront Restaurant close to the boat and drove off with a cheery wave.

Aren’t people wonderful?

We cruised for an hour until we found a quiet spot to moor. We’re still there now. I can hear the muted roar of early morning traffic on the A6 half a mile behind me but through my office window I can see mist shrouded oak and horse chestnut on the offside bank fringing acres of golden fields. We’ll join the Sunday crowds as we climb the Foxton flight later today but now it’s time for a leisurely breakfast.

[ratingwidget post_id=29914]

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 27th September 2015

There are still three dates available for October so you can join my on the cut for an idyllic autumn cruise. You may want to stay locally the night before, the night after or both, in which case I highly recommend this B & B. It’s a five minute stroll from the mooring where I begin my discovery days.  If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

0

2015 09 20 Newsletter – A cruise to Llangollen: Gnosall Heath to Rugby

This week has been a rather busy one. I’ve spent far too much time racing to get from A to B rather than slowly enjoying the countryside around me. I’m going to have a very relaxing and enjoyable potter up the Grand Union Leicester Line for ten days before the start of my October discovery days to help me recover.

The mad dash back to Rugby began on Sunday as soon as I finished last Sunday’s newsletter and left my dank and muddy mooring close to Gnosall Heath.

I swept through short but beautifully put together Cowley tunnel with its undulating roof passing three tracksuit wearing eastern Europeans, each carrying rods set up for spinning but no nets. The cynic in me suggested that they were fishing for the pot rather than for sport.

As I approached Wheaton Aston two buzzards flapped lazily from a canal side field to a treetop perch and watched me intently as I passed beneath.

I could see Cannock Chase’s vast acreage of conifers ten miles to the east as the crow flies but twenty eight miles by canal. I stopped close to Wheaton Aston for the night rather than moor to close to Wolverhampton’s noise.

I started at 8am on Monday in heavy drizzle, protected from the elements by heavy duty waterproofs, a hat, gloves and fleece top. September is usually a warm and gentle month but my stove is often on in the mornings now. The summer is drawing to a close.

Through Brewood and another hour of peace and quiet before the rising noise of Wolverhampton’s industry. Two miles short of Wolverhampton city centre at Autherley Junction I turned north east towards Great Haywood.

The stop lock before the junction is a bit of a pain for solo boaters. Napton Narrowboats have one of their two bases there. When I passed, one of their hire boats was moored securely on the lock landing so the only way of setting the lock was by tying up to the hire boat and climbing over it set the lock. Tying on to the hire boat wouldn’t have been a problem if there was actually an anchor point to tie my rope to, but there wasn’t so I tied an ineffective not around their centre line with mine and abandoned ship.

I joined the Staffs and Worcester canal after a brief but memorable introduction to the Shropshire Union canal. The three words I would use to best describe the canal is cuttings, embankments and straight. For me the far reaching views on the Shroppie are somewhat spoiled by plodding along mile after mile of arrow straight waterway. The relatively few moorings available along the Shroppie don’t add to its appeal either.

The Staffs and Worcester’s constant twists and turns made a welcome change, as did the narrow section on the approach to the M54 bridge. On any otherwise deserted canal, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll meet another boat or two at a section where two boats can’t pass. In my case three boats heading north west met three boats heading south east.

The beauty of cruising the inland waterways in narrowboats is that there’s rarely a problem when two boats meet at a tight spot. One squeezes close to the offside, scouring the cabin side with branches and brambles while the other grinds along the rocky shallows close to the towpath. Each boat owner accepts the knocks and scrapes as an everyday part of boating. Every time I scrape my boat through a gap like this though I’m pleased I don’t have the stress of trying to protect an expensively painted cabin.

I’m not worried about scraping a little paint but I was a little twitchy at Otherton lock when I almost suffered some real damage.

My normal routine for descending a lock is to leave the boat to its own devices as I let the water out. The lock’s escaping water draws the boat forward and away from the dangers of getting caught on the cill. When the lock has emptied, the boat begins to drift back towards the cill but I climb down the escape ladder, walk along my roof and then drop down into the cockpit before the stern reaches the cill and the possible danger of a leaking lock gate allowing water to cascade onto the back deck, and possibly into the engine room.

At Otherton lock the single escape ladder is very close to the downstream gate so by the time I opened both gates and reached the escape ladder the boat had almost drifted away from it. I just managed to step on the cratch board before it disappeared, which was very fortunate indeed.

By the time I jumped down into the cockpit, water from the leaking upstream gate was cascading onto my back deck and splashing in to the engine room.

I spoke to a boater last week who found himself in a similar situation. In his case though the boat was pinned under the cascade while the water flowed through the engine room into his cabin. His boat sank.

Away from Otherton lock and the din of rush hour traffic thundering along the nearby M6 the heavens opened as I cruised out of Penkridge. I stopped under the M6 bridge in the dry while I pulled on my heavy duty waterproofs, pulled the hood tight around my face and then sailed away from the bridge to do battle with the rain. Of course the rain had stopped by then so I stewed in my plastic body bag for the remaining half hour of the day.

I started at dawn the following morning hoping to put in twelve hours and reach Fazeley junction. Beautiful Cannock Chase stretched before me as I emerged from Deptfmore lock then skirted Baswich and Milford. On the outskirts of Milford a country house faced the Chase surrounded by ten acres of manicured waterside lawns.

I joined a rare queue and Haywood lock and waited forty minutes for the five boats ahead of me. With a pretty lock side café on one side and Shugborough Hall on the other, I could think of worse places to pass stand for a while chatting to fellow boaters.

While I was waiting at Haywood lock I washed the starboard side of the boat. Cream cabin sides and braid on braid rope aren’t a good combination. By the time I dropped down Colwich lock it was dirty again.

I bought my posh braid on braid rope at Crick this year. I had been after a set for years. The rope is soft to the touch and is wonderfully flexible for tying knots. It’s also as absorbent as a sponge. It holds the muck and rain when you drag it through grass, soaking you and your clothes if you run it through your hands and it leaves black rope marks on every part of the cabin it touches. Switching to this rope wasn’t my best ever idea.

I was lucky to find a place in the early afternoon on the very popular visitor moorings at Rugely with both Tesco and Morrison supermarkets next to the canal. I did my weekly grocery shopping including half a roasted chicken and an apple and cheese salad for lunch.

I reached Fradley Junction by 5.30pm. I quickly passed through the three locks but faced a five minute delay as I turned onto the Coventry canal as two new owners tried to force their small GRP cruiser through the narrow channel spanned by a swing bridge. After three attempts they admitted defeat so moved over to let me pass.

I stopped for the night close to Kings Orchard marina two hours short of my day’s target.

The next day I moved slowly through Huddlesford past full visitor moorings next to The Plough and then hundreds of metres of towpath marked with the names of expected boats for the weekend’s biennial Huddlesford Gathering of historic boats and floating traders.

Once through Fazeley Junction I reached the two locks of the Glascote flight and a lengthy delay for the two boats ahead of me to rise through the bottom lock. The lock is notoriously slow filling. So slow in fact that a framed poem written by a frustrated boater is displayed there.

I chatted with the lady owner of an all-electric tug heading for the Huddlesford Gathering. The tug has a 650 litre tank to power the diesel generator which keeps their two tonnes of batteries charged. She told me that they have a bit of a problem with fishermen because of their silent running. After the half dozen encounters with anglers with roach poles blocking the canal, they now toot their horn as they approach otherwise the anglers don’t know they are there until the bow has pushed their rods away from the canal centre. She said they weren’t at all pleased when this happened.

At Polesworth I passed the Little Chimney Company butty workshop and the boat the owners live on, Tailwind. The Little Chimney Company manufacture bespoke stainless steel chimneys. I purchased one last May. I am very happy with the investment after buying three chimneys from chandlers over the previous five years. All of them quickly decayed with 24/7 live aboard use. My stainless steel chimney doesn’t have a mark on it after eighteen months of daily use. A quick scrub with a scourer and soapy water is all that’s needed to bring it back to a showroom shine. I highly recommend stainless steel chimneys.

I stopped for the night in after tackling the first two locks of the Atherstone flight. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face by the time I moored so I couldn’t have wrung any more miles out of the day.

On Thursday I was waiting for the dawn with the engine running ready for a twenty two mile ten lock day on my final cruise back to Rugby.

With no other boats about I flew up the remaining nine locks of the Atherstone flight, cruised sedately through Hartshill and then slightly less sedately through Nuneaton.

Shortly after leaving horrible Nuneaton, the dirtiest stretch of canal after Camp Hill locks in Birmingham in all of the eleven hundred plus miles I’ve covered this year, I had the dubious pleasure of meeting the angriest boater I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet.

His cruiser stern narrowboat, covered in junk and patches of rust, appeared mid-stream around a bend as I came through a bridge. I moved over slightly to allow him to pass, but not too much because of the shallows on the outside of the bend.

He wouldn’t veer an inch from his chosen line so we came within inches of each other. No problem. We didn’t touch. It’s a position every boater has been in quite regularly so there was nothing unusual in this at all. What was very unusual was his attitude when our two sterns passed.

His face was purple with rage, veins stood out on his neck and he was, literally, spitting mad. Unfortunately, or probably very fortunately in this case, I couldn’t hear what he said because of my noisy exhaust. I didn’t need to hear his words to know what he was saying though. He was swearing at me, pointing in turn to my boat, his boat, the bridge, the sky, the water and then pausing every half a dozen words to spit aggressively in the water.

He was still staring at me intently as he rounded the bend, not doubt intent on doing battle with the next boat crew he met. Middle aged men fuelled by rage and strong lager where a daily part of my job when I managed challenging pubs, especially in London, but the attitude of this boater was remarkable because it is so rare.

I stopped for lunch on the visitor moorings above Hawkesbury junction then pressed on towards Rugby.

I passed a group of very intent looking middle aged men with cameras near Hopsford Hall where the West Coast Main Line runs close to and parallel with the canal. According to a nearby moored boater, a steam train was due so the train enthusiasts were dribbling with excitement.

At 5pm after eleven hours at the helm I moored for the night on the visitor moorings opposite Town Thorns Farm close to Brinklow.

My cruise was successful in terms of moving quickly from Llangollen to Rugby, but it’s not the way to enjoy narrowboat life. Each long day at the helm became a chore rather than a pleasure. I passed dozens of spots I would have loved to moor for a day or two. The cruise was more work than pleasure, more about the destination than the journey. I won’t do it again.

Of all the cruising I’ve done returning from Llangollen, the most enjoyable part was probably the hour or so from Brinklow to the centre of Rugby where I am now. I moved at not much more than tick over so I had plenty of time to appreciate the sights and sounds around me.

The final hour was a little frustrating though because I was running out of coal. I knew Lime Farm Marina sold it because of the sign on the archway over their entrance but, after I pushed my stern through the shallow water opposite their entrance to make the turn, then shoehorned my boat into a narrow gap between moored boat a chap on their wharf told me that the marina was shut down while the owners were on holiday. He suggested trying my only other option before Rugby, nearby Amanda Boat Hire. I tried them. They were shut too.

So here I am on a chilly Sunday morning contemplating adding the half dozen briquettes I have left to an almost cold fire. It’s a hard life.

[ratingwidget post_id=29900]

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 20th September 2015

The earliest dates are now at the beginning of October. If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

0

2015 09 13 Newsletter – A cruise to Llangollen: Llangollen to Gnosall Heath

After I sent off the newsletter last Sunday, I picked up my rucksack and Kindle then ambled down to the river Dee beneath Pontcysyllte aqueduct’s steel trough, perched on a rock by the water’s edge and sat quietly reading for two blissful hours before returning to my peaceful mooring at the end of Trevor basin.

I could happily spend weeks, even months, in this beautiful spot. I have to reach Rugby for a very important appointment on 20^th September so I needed to start cruising in earnest. I will be back but next time I will stay long enough to explore the area fully.

Veteran continuous cruiser Peter Earley voiced my own thoughts perfectly on the forum recently when replying to a question posted there. He said then when you first start exploring the network, you try to cover as much ground as possible trying to see all there is to see. Then, once you’ve worn yourself out, you begin to relax and enjoy your exploration. You take your time, moving just a few miles each time so that you can enjoy your next mooring and all that surrounds it at leisure. How true. I’m at the lunatic can’t-move-fast-enough stage at the moment.

Since April I’ve cruised 1,074 miles and passed through 604 locks. I’m almost overwhelmed by the number of places I want to stop and explore. There are thousands of footpath miles within walking distance of the canal and river network; through woods and forests, along river banks, around lakes, over hills and mountains and, of course, along a usually beautiful towpath. These paths often lead to idyllic sleepy villages, pretty market towns and England’s vibrant cities. Exploring the network and all that surrounds it is a lifetime’s work but for me this year is all about miles.

So on Monday, on a gloriously warm and sunny autumn morning, I turned my boat around and headed east along the Llangollen canal on my one hundred and forty six mile, ninety three lock journey to Rugby.

I sailed high above the river over the Pontcysyllte aqueduct then not quite so high over the Ceiriog at Chirk, through a queue free Chirk tunnel, sideways again thanks to the current, past Frankton Junction and a longing glance up the Montgomery canal, and then almost head on into an out of control boat at a bend.

This was a privately owned boat but a boat owned by a man who loved beer more than his boat. The canal narrowed at the bend so I was in the centre as I made the turn. So was the boat coming towards me. The difference was that I had slowed for the blind bend but he hadn’t. He didn’t seem to mind. He swung his tiller hard over with one hand, took a swig from his beer bottle with the other, crashed hard into the concrete siding with his bow, laughed as both he and his two companions staggered towards the water with the impact, then applied so much throttle that a four feet high jet ski like plume fountained from his propeller before hurtling off into the distance.

The final hour to Ellesmere was peaceful once more. I turned onto a very crowded arm in Ellesmere to do my week’s shopping at the waterside Tesco store then moved on to Blake mere, basking in the early evening sun and laughing at the antics of two shirtless and rather wobbly live aboard boaters close to the playing fields.

As they sipped pint glasses of scrumpy cider they used broom handles as imaginary guns to shoot down a passing plane. They told me that the plane belonged to Commies who were upsetting their dogs.

On Tuesday I woke to a mist shrouded mere and a day cold enough to warrant a thick fleece, hat and gloves.

I cruised through the mist past Blake Mere, Cole Mere, along the long straight embankment close to Whixall Moss nature reserve and then past Prees Junction before catching up with a slow moving Anglo Welsh hire boat.

I waited patiently for the helmsman to extract the boat from the shallows where he grounded after moving too far over to allow a boat to pass, then waited patiently for him to free his boat again for the same reason, then waited expectantly for him to free himself a third time when he grounded again.

Third time unlucky in his case. He was well and truly stuck so I tied my bow line to his stern and pulled him off the mud and waved my thanks to him as he insisted that I take the lead.

I enjoyed the chilly day and its autumn smells; wood smoke from boat stoves and canal side garden fires, the occasional whiff of diesel fumes from my smoky engine and the ever present heady aroma of cow shit.

I managed to avoid negotiating all but one of the Llangollen’s lift bridges on my journey to Trevor but on the way back I had them all to myself. As I struggled with the difficult positioning of the lift bridge close to the Whitchurch arm, a guy enjoying a leisurely dinner on the bow of a nearby Anglo Welsh hire boat abandoned his food, sprinted to the bridge and insisted on seeing me through. What a kind man.

There were two more kind men at Grindley Brook’s staircase flight. Two lock keepers, scheduled to finish for the day at 5.30pm were still there to help me through an hour later. Such is the kindness of the boating community.

Three more locks and I finished for the day six locks and thirteen miles closer to Rugby.

A late and chilly start the following morning saw me at Willey Moor Lock by midday. I dropped through the lock watched by a trio of male hikers enjoying the camaraderie of a lunchtime pint. Ten minutes later I met a lone lock side loiterer, this time sitting next to the water for business rather than pleasure.

The elderly man, sporting a straggly grey beard and blue woollen hat, sat quietly next to his stock of goods for sale; a few onions, a basket of cooking apples, bags of logs and kindling and a few packets of Bryant & May fire lighters. He told me that he had been sitting beside this lock for many years offering to help boaters through the locks in the hope that they buy something from him. Unfortunately, he told me, his failing health mean that he isn’t much help these days but he turns up for work anyway, ever hopeful that he’ll sell a few odds and ends.

I purchased a few packs of firelighters and two bags of kindling from him then helped him help me through the lock before heading east again, stopping briefly to curse the bypass weirs beneath each lock.

The bypass weirs can be a bit of a pig, to put it mildly. Sometimes the gushing weir water enters the main channel in line with the canal, which is no problem at all. But sometimes it hits the canal at ninety degrees so as you slowly leave the lock chamber you’re immediately pushed sideways onto any unfortunate boats waiting to enter the lock. The only solution is to charge through the current before it pushes the boat.

That’s no problem coming out of the lock chamber, but it’s a buttock clenching exercise charging towards a 7’ wide brick opening with twenty tonnes of steel just two inches narrower. I have to confess to not always getting it right. The boat is built like a tank so no worry there, but I can tell at the end of the day how accurate my lock entry has been by how much debris is on the floor inside the boat (Just kidding!).

At Wrenbury I had the pleasure of tackling another lift bridge, this one all electric with a queue of cars, vans, lorries and a solitary cyclist waiting impatiently for me to allow them to continue on their manic journeys.

Heading ever east down twenty feet though the three lock Baddiley flight then another thirteen feet through the two Swanley locks I stopped for the night temptingly close to Snugbury’s Ice Cream shop. No ice cream for me on this trip though.

Thursday was an idyllic day on the cut. The weather, the people, the locks, the view, everything was perfect.

I flew down the Hurleston flight, my last four locks on the Llangollen, aided by two ever helpful lock keepers. Of course, I forgot about the badly place escape ladder in the bottom lock so had to jump six feet down into the lock onto my roof. I managed without mishap then turned south onto the Shroppie.

Joining the Shroppie from the Llangollen reminded me of my first cruise on the Thames. After fifty miles tortuous miles on the narrow and winding south Oxford I turned onto a river which felt like a sea. The Shroppie wasn’t as wide as the Thames, but at the junction and for another half mile cruising south after the narrow confines of the Llangollen it felt vast.

I stopped for fuel, coal and industrial sized tin of Brasso at Nantwich Canal Centre. As I pulled on to their canal side wharf next to the diesel pump, the guy looking after visiting boats told me that I would have to wait at least half an hour while he had his lunch. I wasn’t bothered. I fancied a break myself but, by the time I had tied up and filled my kettle, he had sacrificed his lunch break to serve me 148 litres of diesel. What a lovely chap.

Since April I’ve used 1,059 litres of diesel at an average of 1.35 litres an hour for 784 hours. Most of the engine’s running time has been to move the boat 1,074 miles and through 604 locks. In all of this time I think I’ve only run the engine on two or three occasions to charge my batteries when I’ve been more than one day in the same spot.

I carried on through the outskirts of Nantwich with its acres of new housing to the east of the canal’s high embankment. I cruised all day in brilliant sunshine with wide views on both sides of the canal.

Fifteen miles to the east was Stoke on Trent and Westport Lake where I had the pleasure of a visit from Stoke’s maladjusted youth three weeks ago. The Shroppie is very much more tranquil and civilized than the Trent & Mersey.

I passed a flock of four hundred Canada geese and their mess close to Hack Green’s Secret Bunker and its not so secret sign. For £8.50 you can spend the day underground marvelling at man’s folly during the nuclear strike fearing Cold War years.

A mile further on were plentiful moorings at the oddly named Coole Pilates leisure area. A dozen picnic tables, each with its own barbecue, all empty save a careworn middle aged boater swigging enthusiastically from a can of Stella Artois.

Four miles of arrow straight canal and easy cruising allowed me the perfect opportunity to overheat my engine; 1500rpm seventy two degrees, 1700rpm seventy five degrees, 1800rpm eighty degrees and 2,000rpm blind panic and back to tick over for half a mile. It’s SO frustrating to have a fairly powerful engine but not be able to use it.

Thank you Anton Woodford off Song of the Waterways for your shouted boat roof greeting as I passed Overwater marina on the approach to Audlum. My apologies for the dumbfounded look all around me to try and identify the noise. My wet exhaust makes quite a racket when I’m chugging along at full speed.

My final goal for the day was to rise ninety three feet through Audlum’s fifteen locks. Thanks to the wonderful people of Audlum I flew up the flight. I lost count of the number of walkers, cyclists and fellow boaters who stopped long enough to open and close gates for me. At the penultimate lock a mother enjoying a lock side picnic with four pre teen children put down sandwiches and drinks to help me. Two muscle flexing boys, aided by two stronger and calmer girls, opened both downstream and upstream gates for me with much laughter and friendly rivalry. Aren’t the canals wonderful?

I moored in a deep and shady cutting close to Kinsall Farm above the flight, and there I stayed for a day.

Unfortunately life afloat isn’t all idyllic cruising and day dreaming. My boat, my home, also needs a fair degree of TLC. I spent the following day cleaning the boat inside and out and then decided that I needed to do a little pre winter stove flu cleaning.

I’m sure that you are far more sensible and intelligent than I am but, in case you’re just as stupid, let me offer you some advice. NEVER clean your stove flue after you’ve done your vacuuming and dusting and certainly don’t do what I did and forget to close the stove door when you clean the flu.

Flu cleaning is a dirty but simple affair. All you need to do is lower a sturdy length of chain down into the flu from outside the boat, then give it a vigorous shake to bang the chain against the flu sides. You’ll be amazed at the amount of muck which falls down the flu into the stove and, in my case, into the boat itself through the open stove door and all over the floor.

So I cleaned the inside of the boat again, did some washing, vacuumed the engine bilge, topped up the engine oil, refilled the stern gland greaser and unblocked the drain holes beneath the back deck’s hatch.

I love lying in bed listening to heavy rain bouncing off the boat roof. On Friday night I had the pleasure of listening to it for hours. Heavy rain was still falling when I set off at 9am on Saturday morning.

Looking and feeling like a cross between the Michelin man and Captain Birdseye in my heavy duty waterproofs I quickly passed through five locks of the Adderley flight, pausing briefly to treat myself to lunch from a farm shop’s display of jams, fresh baked fruit pies and scones, potatoes and tomatoes, fresh fruit, home cured bacon and plate sized pork pies next to the top lock. I helped myself to a pork pie a bag of scones and a juicy fat peach then stuffed a £5 in the stall’s honesty box.

Another hour to Market Drayton and a stop at the water point to top up before moving on to Tyrley, my second five lock flight of the day. This one wasn’t quite so easy. The pound above the bottom lock is at the tail end of Tyrley’s deep sandstone cutting. The towpath side is both rocky and shallow so there isn’t a lock landing.

A missing lock landing isn’t a problem if there are two or more of you on the boat. The helmsman simply stays in the canal centre until the remaining crew prepare the next lock. However, when you are single handed not having anywhere to secure the boat while you prepare the boat is a bit tricky.

While I was trying to think of a solution, the boat in the pound with me grounded immovably in the shallows. I roped my bow to their stern then pulled the boat away from the shallow side allowing them to enter their lock and leave me to my own devices.

Fortunately after a five minute wait a boat dropped down the lock and left the lock open for me. The one final hurdle to overcome on this lock was the two opposing currents from bypass weirs on either side of the canal, both water flows substantial after the day’s rain.

After the flight, Woodseaves Cutting stretches for over a mile. The deep, gloomy and narrow cutting is spanned by two forty feet high bridges. There’s a warning sign advising a 2mph maximum speed limit because of possible sandstone rock falls. Giant wire baskets filled with stone line the cutting’s base on the towpath side to help prevent further slippage.

After another two hours of embankments with the countryside bathed in early autumn’s golden light, a hazy view of The Wrekin twenty miles to the south west and then the damp twilight of the Grub Street Cutting, I tied up on the first available mooring at Norbury Junction with the intention of relaxing for a few hours today to finish off this week’s newsletter. Unfortunately I had to alter my plans.

For just the second time in nearly six months and over 1,000 miles cruising I couldn’t connect to the internet. The first time was back in May at the Crick Boat Show when I was hemmed in by dozens of boats for two days. Other than that, my Three dongle has worked seamlessly everywhere I’ve stopped.

I popped in to the Junction Inn for a quick pint while I took advantage of their free WiFi but I knew that wouldn’t help me today for the several hours I needed to be online.

I was up at 5am, cruising by 6.30am and moored again by 7.30am. I’m moored just north of Gnosall Heath now, connected to the outside world again and very happy indeed.

I’ll be off again in a minute. I have ninety one miles and thirty three locks to go before reaching Rugby, my goal for 20^th September. I hope you enjoy your Sunday. I know I’m going to enjoy mine!

[ratingwidget post_id=29888]

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 13th September 2015

The earliest dates are now at the beginning of October. If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

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2015 09 06 Newsletter – A cruise to Llangollen: Ellesmere to Llangollen

Before I begin my week’s account, I want to clear up some confusion I caused last week. I mentioned that the boatyards on the Llangollen canal aren’t keen on allowing self-declaration on fuel sales. If, like the two people who emailed me last week, you don’t have the faintest idea what self-declaration is and what it has to do with diesel purchases, this is what it means…

Narrowboats vary enormously. They’re all 6’10” wide or thereabouts but any length from twenty to seventy feet, differing depths beneath and heights above the water, different sterns and bows, different internal designs, equipment and heating and propulsion systems.

It’s the differences in the last two which have resulted in a rather confusing way of calculating diesel fuel cost.

Any fuel used for heating is duty free. Propulsion fuel is not.

Unfortunately for the lovely people at Revenue & Customs, most narrowboats use just one fuel tank to store diesel used for both propulsion and heating. Heating includes diesel stoves and central heating systems and running your engine to top up your calorifier’s hot water supply.

The diesel seller has no way of knowing what systems you have on board, or what cruising you do or how long you run your engine to charge your batteries and heat your water.

Some boat yards insist that you buy your fuel at a 60/40 ratio, that’s 60% charged at the full rate for propulsion and 40% at the duty free rate for heating.

Many boatyards allow you to declare your own split, a split which is determined by your own calculations and your own honesty. You can declare all of your fuel at the duty free rate, 0/100, or any other combination you choose.

As part of the sale transaction, you will be asked to complete and sign a simple form containing all of your contact details. In theory, Revenue and Customs can use a boatyard’s stored self-declaration diesel sales receipts to track down individual boat owners and assess whether their declaration is valid.

What percentage you declare when you buy your fuel is between you and your conscience.

Anyway, I didn’t really need any fuel. I have an enormous three hundred and fifty litre tank. I am down to two hundred and fifty litres at the moment so I have more than enough fuel to keep me going until I return to the Shroppie.

After I sent the newsletter out last Sunday I enjoyed a leisurely stroll from my Blake mere mooring along the canal to the entrance of Ellesmere tunnel then along the A495 to The Mere, a hundred acre lake with a popular café and visitor centre.

I sat on a rustic bench for a couple of hours enjoying the sun, the view, my book and a spiced beef wrap cooked on the lake side barbecue. After a leisurely stroll back to the boat, I sat for another hour reading on the shore of Blake mere before retiring to the boat for the day.

My only company in this peaceful spot was the occasional angler waiting patiently watching the tips of a handful baited rods hoping to catch one of the monster carp which cruise the deep waters of the expansive mere. Angling is so different from my teenage years when all I carried was a rod in a cloth bag and an Adidas sports bag containing what little equipment I owned and a packed lunch lovingly prepared by my mother. Today’s anglers have it all; tents, comfortable bed frames and sleeping bags, compact stoves, high tech warm and waterproof camouflaged clothing and four wheeled trollies large enough to carry the contents of a modest semi-detached house.

The weather on Monday, a bank holiday, wasn’t so kind. I trudged along the canal through heavy rain, followed the short arm to Ellesmere’s canal side Tesco store, stopped long enough to buy the ingredients for my evening meal, and then walked slowly down the high street skirting the odd cagoule wrapped bank holiday visitors trailing strings of bored children.

The following morning after three days of boating inactivity I moved on towards Llangollen after three important stops. First was into Blackwater Meadow marina to replace the 13kg propane cylinder which ran out the previous day after two and a half month’s use. I also picked up a bag of coal. Now that the early mornings and late evenings are a little chilly I need to think about heating again.

Next stop was along the arm to Tesco. I managed to moor close enough to the store to wheel a trolley loaded with my week’s shopping right up to the boat saving me laboriously packing and unpacking my normal shopping trolley, my seventy litre rucksack.

I left my Tesco mooring wearing tee shirt and shorts. By the time I had cruised four hundred metres to Ellesmere’s water and rubbish disposal point, I was wearing an additional fleece top and my bomb proof Guy Cotten waterproofs. Stair rods is the only way to describe the deluge which fell from the sky on and off for the next four hours, but I was snug as a bug in a rug, thoroughly enjoying battling the elements.

I Passed Frankton junction and the entrance to the Montgomery canal, chugged on for another couple of hours, rose twelve feet through New Marton locks to the canal’s summit pound and then moored above the flight ready for Chirk’s aqueduct and tunnel the following morning.

I have to say that I’ve found the Llangollen quite hard going in places. Up to this point I had briefly grounded on stone half a dozen times and slowed almost to a standstill because of the current when negotiating narrow bridge holes, embankments and aqueducts.

Of course, I should just apply a little more power to counter the current but I don’t for two reasons; first is my overheating problem. Cruising at my normal maximum of 1,500rpm is no problem at all. Anything above that results in my engine temperature rising and, to be honest, I don’t know how much of a temperature increase is acceptable. At what temperature do I start damaging the engine? Any input here will be gratefully received.

I am also painfully aware that I have a bit of a smoky engine. The faster I go, the more smoke I produce and the more conscious I am of polluting the environment in general and the canals in particular. Is a solution both possible and affordable for my thirty eight year old Mercedes, or do I have to either put up with it or consider finding £10,000 to have my beloved Mercedes removed and replaced with a more modern and cleaner engine? I simply don’t know so, again, I welcome any advice in this area.

So, ever mindful of my smoky exhaust, I crawled along Chirk aqueduct seventy feet about the river Ceiriog before crawling again through Chirk tunnel. I didn’t enjoy the passage through the tunnel at all. The current pushed me both back and sideways so I travelled the whole length at an angle trying to stay clear of the offside wall. At least I didn’t have to queue for the tunnel. A line of ten boats stretched away from the northern entrance waiting for their turn as I clawed my way past the entrance.

I stopped on the first available mooring after the tunnel. I wanted to moor the boat and walk into Trevor to explore the Pontcysyllte aqueduct and the river Dee beneath. I didn’t know if there would be free moorings further on so I ended up on a gloomy and very wet and muddy mooring in a dank cutting close to the railway and a large factory. I had the pleasure of listening all night to the clanging of steel and electric powered fork lift trucks with their high pitched reverse alerts. It wasn’t the tranquility I craved.

As is often the case, I was wrong. As I discovered on my walk the following day, the stretch between Chirk tunnel and Pontcysyllte aqueduct has plenty of dry, scenic and quiet moorings.

I enjoyed the varied scenery for three and a half miles into Trevor, stopping for half an hour to watch a stream of boats squeeze themselves a thousand feet along the boat width steel trough suspended, and unprotected by a guard rail on one side, a hundred and twenty seven feet above the turbulent river Dee.

I stopped for a bite to eat at the canal side snack bar next to the aqueduct and paid £7 for the world’s smallest ham baguette and a luke warm cup of coffee. Such is the price of visiting popular tourist destinations.

There’s a well marked path leading down from the aqueduct to the river beneath. Minutes after leaving the busy aqueduct behind I had the river completely to myself. I sat for half an hour with a wonderful view of the aqueduct’s full span, calmed by the river’s racing water but disturbed by a growing dampness in the trouser region. Note to self; avoid sitting on wet rocks.

After a very pleasant hour exploring the riverside trail I headed back over the aqueduct. I stopped for ten minutes to chat to a bubbly elder lady who watched the passing narrowboats with longing. Hilda told me that she and her husband had recently sold their own boat after many wonderful years exploring the network. Sadly, she said, they sold the boat recently because she was beginning to struggle with the numerous locks close to their home mooring on the Trent & Mersey’s Heatbreak Hill. I asked her why she didn’t ask her husband to help her with the locks. She laughed and admitted that throughout their happy fifty three year marriage she had never had her own way. “Anyway,” she said, “Now I’m eighty two I need to think about slowing down!”

Enlivened by the thought of another twenty six years active boating before reaching Hilda’s age I marched happily back towards the boat on a pleasant but uneventful walk apart from the sight of some jaw dropping irresponsibility on the part of a family of holiday hirers.

I watched a Crest Narrowboats hire boat, sixty plus feet in length, weave erratically along the canal towards me bouncing from bank to bank. As the boat drew closer I could see two young boys on the cruiser stern. The elder boy, twelve at the most, was at the helm playing a game with what I assumed was his younger brother.

The game was an athletic test for the younger ten year old. As the boat swerved close to the towpath, the elder encourage the younger to jump from boat to bank, then back on to the boat again as it moved away. Twice while I watched he almost failed, once landing in the water with his trailing leg.

As the boat drew level with me I saw four adults contentedly sitting at a table laden with food and several half empty bottles of wine. I watched the boat for five minutes until it weaved around a bend out of site. The children remained at the helm while the adults enjoyed their lunch.

After a late breakfast the following day I cruised for an hour to the aqueduct then spent a thrilling five minutes crossing the gorge. What a wonderful feeling crossing so high above the river with no railings on one side to spoil the view. I was wondering if I would feel nervous or exposed with an unprotected one hundred and twenty seven feet drop on one side. I actually felt very safe, so safe in fact that I spent much of the journey with both hands on my camera. The trough is so narrow that it steers the boat for you, allowing you all the time in the world to enjoy the experience. I particularly enjoyed the stretch above the river where the boat and I were buffeted by the wind channelled through the valley. The view along the river and the forested valley sides was spectacular.

After the all too brief crossing I was in Trevor. The route to Llangollen continued at a sharp left hand turn, but I cruised past it, then past the Anglo Welsh hire boat, squeezing through a boat width gap between their hire fleet and three day boats to the arm’s Y shaped terminus. The left hand fork was occupied by Jones the Boats but there was space enough for four or five boats to moor on rings on the right had fork.

I turned the boat in the seventy feet winding hole at the fork then reversed back the narrow channel and on to the only free mooring. It’s a wonderful spot. Because it’s at the end of the arm, there are no boats passing to spoil the tranquillity and the mooring is ideally situated for exploring the area or, in my case, to use as a base for exploring Llangollen and the Horseshoe Falls.

I set off on my hike to Llangollen at midday on Saturday. This stretch of the Llangollen canal is very narrow. I was walking the route because I had been told or read, I can’t remember which, that boats with more than a 20” draught struggle to reach the end. As mine is 30” I didn’t want to take the risk. However, I didn’t see any evidence of any boats struggling with the depth during my five hour walk, but I’m pleased I didn’t take the boat. I was able to enjoy and appreciate the spectacular scenery without worrying about the three narrow, single boat width sections where boaters are advised to send a crew member to walk ahead to check for traffic. Obviously I couldn’t do that on my own so negotiating the narrows would have been a bit of a lottery.

For most of the day there wasn’t much traffic on the canal at all. The first boat I met, a Black Price hire boat, was cruising much, much too fast. They were pushing a six inch high bow wave before them as they surged towards me, producing enough wash to actually break over the towpath.

The route is a wonderful walk apart from the towpath’s close proximity to the busy A5. Heavily wooded slopes rise away from the valley and the river Dee towards towering limestone peaks. The tree lined stone lined canal clings to the valley side, narrowing to single boat width at three different stretches while it squeezes past rocky outcrops.

The canal here is close to my childhood home. Birkenhead is just thirty miles away as the crow flies, the rural camp site where my parents owned a static caravan when I was knee high to a grasshopper just ten miles away and the weekend destination for my frequent escapes from a troubled marriage, Smowdonia, just forty miles away. This area of the network feels like home.

The crew of an Anglo Welsh day boat must have thought so too. They were tied securely to a lift bridge landing bollards while they enjoyed an extensive and lengthy banquet on the boat’s front deck just fifty feet away from a long and empty line of visitor moorings.

Llangollen is a busy little tourist destination with its canal, river and steam railway. I sat on the bridge over the river to eat my lunch bought from a high street delicatessen then set off on the two mile hike to Horseshoe Falls and the end of the feeder canal.

The falls, though not terribly impressive as far as waterfalls are concerned, they’re there purely to divert twelve million gallons of water a day into the canal network, are a beautiful spot to stop for a while to enjoy the tranquil sound of running water. The canal ends here but there are miles of wonderful riverside walks to explore. Unfortunately I was six miles away from the boat already so I didn’t have the time or energy to walk any further.

After laying on the riverbank in the sun for half an hour I set off on the two hour walk back to the boat, stopping briefly to chat to a young and shy CRT volunteer trying to drum up support for CRT’s “Friends” scheme. Friends pay a regular monthly £5 and upwards subscription to the charity to help maintain the network. I told him I was already a member, rolled up my left trouser leg and offered him the Friends’ secret handshake. He gave me a look normally reserved for those who have escaped from a secure institution then turned to another passer-by.

I stopped close to the volunteer to admire the view and overheard a man talking to his wife as he passed me. “These charity thing is all a load of b****cks,” he aggressively told his long suffering wife. “The money never gets to where it’s needed so there’s no point in donating in the first place!” He paused for a moment then exclaimed, “Isn’t this canal beautiful!” Yes, it is mate, but keeping it that way takes money, lots of it, so maybe donating isn’t such a bad idea after all!

Soon after I skirted a man bent over his wheelbarrow busy clearing the towpath of the inevitable mounds of manure courtesy of the barge pulling horses along this short stretch of canal. Maybe I’ll stick with my smoky diesel engine.

I stopped briefly at the café next to the Horse Drawn Narrowboats terminus for a sliver of concrete hard quiche and a cappuccino. A scouse couple, on a day out celebrating their anniversary, sat next to me. For half an hour he sat quietly digesting the contents of a series of local guides while she sat with a menu on her head protecting her much cherished make up from the heat of the unwanted autumn sun.

At 6.30pm, footsore but supremely happy after a thirteen mile walk through some of the most stunning scenery the canal network has to offer, I arrived back on my tranquil mooring ready for another peaceful night in Trevor.

I’m staying here tonight too. After I send out this newsletter I’m going to spend a couple of hours exploring the banks of the river Dee before I start my one hundred and forty six mile, ninety three lock journey back to my Napton Junction base tomorrow morning.

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 6th September 2015

The earliest dates are now at the beginning of October. If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

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2015 08 30 Newsletter – A cruise to Llangollen: Stoke to Ellesmere

Discretion is the better part of valour. Rather than spend another night moored next to Westport Lake on the north western outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent, and suffer the unwanted attention of the small number of brain dead youth who like to regularly torment passing boaters who have the cheek to moor on “their” patch, on a rainy Sunday afternoon I cruised for half an hour before mooring close to the entrance of Harecastle tunnel.

The decision was a wise one. I was able to fill my nearly empty water tank then moor second in the queue for the tunnel passage the following morning. I had a quick chat with the tunnel keeper before he signed off for the day. I asked him about the tragic death of what I understood to be a lone boater last year.

The keeper told me that the male boater had been accompanied by his wife. The inquest determined that the male boater had banged his head on the very low roof in the centre of the tunnel and fallen into the water. His wife panicked and thrust the boat into reverse to stop the craft and allow him to climb on board. Tragically for both, the boat moved over him fatally injuring him with the propeller.

The keeper returned at 7.30am to turn on the enormous and very noisy tunnel fans, briefed the crew of the hire boat in front of me, then me and finally the crew of a third boat which arrived just as we were about to set off.

He checked our lights and horns, told us how to alert the keepers either end in case of an accident and breakdown, emphasised the importance of maintaining normal cruising speed inside the tunnel to reduce the likelihood of hitting the uneven tunnel sides, and told us repeatedly to stand within the cabin’s profile and to keep a very close eye on the low tunnel roof, especially in the tunnel’s centre section.

Once in the tunnel I wondered what all the fuss was about. The channel was fourteen feet wide and as high as any other tunnel I’ve been through. I cruised along quite happily without a care in the world until I noticed a rocky outcrop jutting several feet into the channel. If I had been anywhere other than dead centre, there would have been a very expensive tear in my cratch cover, nasty scratches down my cabin sides and two broken fender hangers.

After the first outcrop, I kept an eye out for any more. There were several but forewarned is forearmed so they weren’t a problem, which is just as well because I had to focus on avoiding the tunnel roof. At 5’10” I’m not a very tall boater but the roof looked very, very close. Because I’m stupid, I raised my hand above my head to find out how close. The sudden sharp pain and missing skin from my knuckles told me all I needed to know so I spent several hundred metres cruising at full speed with my head almost resting on the hatch in front of me to make sure that my head didn’t suffer the same fate as my hand.

All the time I kept an eye out for the ghostly and headless apparition of the wonderfully named but unfortunately murdered Kit Crewbucket. Kit apparently ate her jewels to hide them from the boatman she and her husband were travelling with. The boatman cut off her head to get to the jewels, then dumper her in the cut. I don’t believe in ghosts so Kit must have been saving herself for someone who does.

After a quarter of a mile, the jagged rocks of the low roof was replaced by higher, smoother and much safer bricks and after another twenty minute’s effortless cruising I was spat out of the north entrance with its bright orange water courtesy of local mining.

After sailing past Hardings Wood Junction and the entrance to the Macclesfield canal I reached the first of twenty six locks at Red Bull descending over two hundred and twenty feet to Wheelock and the Cheshire Plain. The series of locks is known as “Heartbreak Hill”

Far from breaking my heart, the day’s cruise uplifted it. The far reaching views of gentle Cheshire farmland are beautiful, especially after a day spent negotiating Stoke’s industrial backside.

Many of the locks on this flight are duplicated which means that there are two narrow locks in tandem. You can use either side to go up or down which helps speed up the flight considerably. Unfortunately at least half a dozen of them are broken, most obviously so.

CRT contractors were working on one of the obviously inaccessible locks. I can’t remember which, they all passed in a bit of a blur, but I think it was Hall’s lock. The two guys were erecting a nine feet tall, unmissable steel sign announcing that the lock was closed, even though the lock chamber itself was hidden behind impenetrable undergrowth. I think even the most intellectually challenged boater would have been able to work that one out.

Beneath the broken lock six boats waited for their turn to ascend. The lead boat had been waiting for just over an hour. The longest I waited at a lock all day was five minutes. Lucky me.

At Rode Heath at midday with eleven locks down and fifteen to go I stopped for some much needed lunch by some rustic picnic tables overlooking a beguiling valley. Rode Heath is a pretty little water side village with many of the houses facing the canal.

After another hour or so and half a dozen locks I passed under a hectic M6 at Hassall Green. I passed over these locks many a time in a previous life, usually on a Friday night two hours into a painful three hour journey in rush hour traffic from my Warwickshire home to my mother in law’s house in Leyland. On this occasion I was fourteen days into a sixty day cruise at a far gentler and more relaxing pace.

A further eighty feet drop through the six locks of the Wheelock flight and a quick stop at the CRT rubbish disposal point on the outskirts of the village, feeling rather jaded after ten active cruising hours, I looked for the first convenient place to stop.

It wasn’t my favourite mooring ever. I had to dig through dense nettles to uncover the Armco rail on one side, and peer through dense shrubbery on the other to catch a glimpse of cows and open fields, but it was a secure mooring on reasonably deep water, so I was happy.

I was happy until I was part way through cooking my evening meal. I smelled something unwholesome and unpleasant, like rotting meat. I sniffed the meat I was about to cook, then examined the fridge contents. Nothing offensive there at all so I was at a loss until I glanced at my Pearson’s guide during dinner and discovered the stench’s source. I was moored downwind of Wheelock sewage works. Ah well, you can’t win them all.

On Tuesday morning, in no particular rush to go anywhere at all, apart from as far away from the sewage plant as possible, I cruised sedately along my final five miles of the Trent and Mersey canal towards a very pleasant surprise at Booth Lane top lock.

An impressively large and striking cormorant stood on the balance beam, wings spread wide to dry. As I pulled on to the lock landing, the bird launched itself into the air and flew inches above my head to a quieter roost further down the canal.

Once through King’s lock, I waited last in line of three boats waiting to make the turn onto the Shropshire Union Middlewich Branch and straight into Wardle lock.

I stopped for the day almost immediately on visitor moorings close to the town centre and a Tesco store. I stocked up with enough food for a week, then returned to the boat to place an order with Tesco Direct.

I have a bit of a problem with my composting toilet. The toilet itself is working perfectly. Three months after having it fitted I’m still thrilled with it. It’s easy to use, ordour free, apart from a small problem created by me which I’ll tell you about in a minute, and easy to empty… providing you have the right tools.

I purchased a “genuine” army folding spade for burying the toilet’s solid waste. If this was a genuine and effective soldier’s spade, I have to assume that they did most of their soldiering in a child’s sandpit. The spade bent in two the first time I tried to use it to dig a hole in clay.

I’ve been looking for a garden centre close to the canal for the last couple of weeks. There was one in Tamworth but I was focussed on getting a replacement internet dongle and topping up my depleted wine supply at the time, so I ignored the opportunity.

There hasn’t been a close enough garden centre since then so the best solution was to use the very handy service offered by Tesco. You can have anything you buy on the very comprehensive Tesco Direct web site delivered to the store of your choice by 3pm the following day. I ordered a bomb proof stainless steel Spear & Jackson stainless steel spade then settled down for a restful day’s inside and out boat cleaning.

The following afternoon I ambled along to the town’s Tesco store to pick up my spade to find that there are actually two Tesco stores in Middlewich, both with almost identical addresses. My spade, of course, had been delivered to the other store.

I needed to buy another composting toilet accessory while I was out. My toilet’s urine collector had started to whiff a bit. I called the lovely people at Hillmorton Wharf to find out why. They instantly identified the cause. I was being too thorough with my toilet cleaning.

The problem was explained to me in technical detail. I can’t for the life of me remember any of it now but the fundamental problem was that, after my daily early morning liquid container emptying session, I was rinsing the empty bottle with canal water, then leaving a little in the bottom with the expectation that the water would dilute the urine and reduce any possible smell. I was doing quite the reverse. Water and urine combine to make ammonia, I was told, so all I had to do to keep the container smell free was to empty it and fit it back to the toilet.

To undo the damage I had done, I needed to half fill the container with a mixture of hot water and white vinegar, give it a good shake, empty it and then leave it alone. Neither Tesco store sold the stuff, so I walked across town to the much larger Morrison’s store for a litre bottle.

Back on the boat, with a shiny new spade and an odour free toilet I set off mid-afternoon for a more tranquil mooring. Within half an hour I passed my first heron of the day, half an hour after that my second, and the first heron I’ve ever seen laying down. They’re very relaxed in rural Shropshire.

I stopped for the night on the sparkling and wind ruffled water of Weaver Way visitor moorings, looking down into the valley and the river Weaver beneath. A tranquil mooring barely spoiled by the occasional train thundering by on the West Coast Main Line half a mile distant.

The next morning I set off again, but my heart wasn’t in it. This is such a quiet and peaceful part of the network that mooring was much easier than cruising. I half-heartedly pushed on long enough to reach yet another perfect mooring with towpath benches close to Aqueduct marina.

On Friday I needed to cover some distance. I had arranged to meet Barry, one of last year’s discovery day guests, in Ellesmere on Saturday night seventeen locks and twenty one miles away, probably half an hour by car but eighteen hours by boat.

My second lock of the day. Cholmondesdon, was manned by the very well organised Shropshire Union Canal Society with their lock side stalls of local produce. While they helped me up through the flight I bought a jar of Welsh honey and dropped some spare coins in their collection box.

On past Barbridge Junction and a brief stop for water and rubbish and then the four locks of the Hurleston flight, the first on the Llangollen. The escape ladder on the second lock was very close to the upstream gates and out of reach unless I walked along the cratch board and launched myself at it over the turbulent water over the cill beneath, so a six feet vault out of the lock was needed while trying to avoid the lock’s slippery lichen and moss covered walls.

Two hours later after exiting Baddiley top lock I was on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse from a very unhappy residential boat owner. With neck veins standing proud he screamed at me about inconsiderate boaters racing past him and how much they ruin his peaceful life.

I don’t think I cruise very quickly at all. I constantly fall short of the expected journey time in my Pearson’s guide and I know that my passing moored boats speed is less than two miles an hour. I’m on the receiving end of abuse from moored boat owners very rarely so maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t at fault on this occasion. I looked at the bow and stern mooring lines on his boat and, sure enough, both of them were too slack to hold his boat firmly in place. I left him ranting at the owner of the boat behind me and carried on.

At Wrenbury I came to the first two of many life bridges on my route to Llangollen. I was looking forward to tackling them on my own but the first manual bridge was opened for me by a crew coming towards me and the second electric road bridge by Wrenbury Mill operated by hire fleet staff as they prepared one of their crews for departure.

After a very pleasant eight hours through stunning scenery with more idyllic moorings than I could shake a stick at, I stopped for the night above Marbury lock close to the local coal and diesel boat. Unfortunately no one was home. I was down to my last two hundred and fifty litres but didn’t want to top up at any of the boat yards where I understand they aren’t keen on allowing you to self-declare.

Autumn is approaching. On Saturday morning I set off at 8.30am wearing two fleece tops and a fleece hat, but hey were off by the first lock where I met three Italian ladies on a Viking hire boat. They seemed to be struggling with the concept of passing through the lock so I helped them through that and the two which followed before meeting them again on the very small and tight lock landing beneath the Grindley flight of three locks.

They had their hire boat securely tied to all three lock landing bollards and were just leaving to do some shopping in the lock side store. They waved me on, indicating that I could go ahead of them. I had to explain that I couldn’t as I had nowhere to tie my boat while I set the lock. After a lively conversation between the three of them, they graciously agreed to move on and free the lock landing.

After these three locks was a set of three manned staircase locks and a bit of a shock for me as I passed from the bottom to the middle lock. I very slowly moved forward into the second lock chamber. In fact, I didn’t appear to be moving at all. I applied a little more throttle, then a little more, and some more, until I was just moving at full throttle.

I asked the lock keeper if there was a strong water flow through the lock. He told me that I must be caught on the shallow cill, just as my stern ground over the concrete and the boat dropped into the second pound. “You should have told me you are deep draughted. I would have let some more water in for you!” How was I to know?

On to the Whitchurch arm and another lift bridge opportunity. Alas, it wasn’t to be. I boat crew coming from Whitchurch reached the bridge ahead of me and let me through. On to the next lift bridge and an Anglo Welsh hire boat crew ahead of me let me through. Damn!

I stopped for lunch to let the hire boat crew move ahead of me so that I would have the next lift bridge to myself. With a growing sense of lift bridge anticipation I approached lift bridge No 42. Sadly, it had been left open.

As I approached lift bridge No 45 I saw a crew coming towards me open the bridge then, as I approached, close it again, climb onto their boat just as I arrived and cruise serenely on leaving me to my own devices. Yippee!

I’m delighted to report that the lift bridges on the Llangollen are extremely easy to tackle single handed. I pulled on to the bridge landing on the towpath, pulled the boat towards the bridge with my bow line, crossed over the bridge to the bridge controls on the offside taking my bow line with me, raised the bridge, used my bow line to pull the boat forward so I could climb onto the boat and walk along the gunnel to the stern, cruise under the open bridge, step off the boat with my stern line, close the bridge then step back onto the boat and continue cruising. I don’t think the process took longer than five minutes.

Another two and a half hours through stunning open countryside brought me to the meres of Ellesmere. The first, Cole Mere, was hidden behind thick trees on the offside. The next, Blake Mere, wasn’t. That’s where I’m moored now, and that’s where I’m staying until Tuesday. Ten acre Blake Mere, home to some monster 30lb plus carp, is as peaceful a spot as I’ve ever moored.

Barry arrived at 7pm and spent a very pleasant hour and a half shooting the breeze with me before leaving for a two hour drive back to Crosby.

I’ve had a quick walk around nearby 120 acre The Mere this morning. I’m going there for lunch now, then I’ll find a quiet spot overlooking the wildlife haven and settle down for an afternoon’s reading. Isn’t life a joy?

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Services for Boaters

There are a growing number of site users who offer products or services which I am sure would be of interest to other boat owners or narrowboat enthusiasts. If you fall into this category, please let me know. I’ll publish your details in one of my newsletters. There’s no charge involved, I just want to give fellow boaters a helping hand.

Here’s the first service provider and a recent discovery day guest of mine. Colin Ashby is an artist. He’s particularly fond of painting pets but he’s also considering expanding his portfolio to include narrowboats. Here’s what he has to say about his service…

“I have been doing portraits of dogs, cats, horses and people for about 15 years, mainly because there is a demand for them. They make a lovely gift and are so much more personable than a photograph. Depending upon the time of year, a portrait will normally take 2-3 weeks.

In the future, I would also be interested in doing personalized sketches of narrow boats, probably in pen and ink, a medium which i really enjoy.

I work mainly in pastels or graphite/pencil and offer a variety of sizes, the most popular being A4 and A5. The size A4 is £95 and will be mounted and the A5 is £55 framed, or £45 mounted.  Add £7 for P&P for both sizes.

All that is needed is a photograph of whatever pet the customer wishes to have a portrait done of. This can be emailed to  : colinashby@msn.com and I will do the rest.”

You can see examples of Colin’s work here.

Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62? long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 30th August 2015

The earliest dates are now at the beginning of October. If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Ken Sharratt.

“I’ve thought about living on a narrowboat on and off for the last twenty years but through commitments, events and various other things I have never done anything about it until now. Over the last seven or eight months I have started  researching the subject and it has gradually gained momentum, from reading magazines and e-books, the internet and looking round boats to figure out what I wanted.

The first e-book I came across was written by Paul, called “Living on a Narrowboat” (part of the Narrowbudget Gold package of three guides and a bespoke narrowboat budget calculator). I found this invaluable in giving me a realistic view of the life I am aiming for and has definitely added to my growing knowledge. To my surprise I started receiving a newsletter in my inbox which covers all things related to narrowboats from life to composting toilets which I was quite impressed with. I noticed the information about the Discovery day after reading one of these.

I thought, if I’m going to change the direction of my life and spend quite a bit of money doing it, the discovery day sounded like a good way of starting to find out if my expectations matched the reality of everything involved with it.

I wasn’t disappointed. Paul is very easy to get along with. He made us welcome from the start and provided a steady supply of tea throughout the day. It was a very enjoyable and productive day for me. He made me re-evaluate a few things and was remarkably relaxed about sailing off downstream  with his home in Fairly inexperienced hands. He was there at hand though to provide advice, instruction and direction and the odd hands on correction when absolutely necessary.

I would recommend that anyone considering taking to the water should read the book and go on one of these discovery days. They will definitely shorten the time spent on their learner curve and possibly avert a costly or disastrous decision from being made.

I am currently in the process of getting my house ready for sale. The builder should be here in a few weeks, then the decorator and after that the estate agent, so hopefully it’s going to be early next year when it’s sold and I can buy the boat that’s waiting for me out there with my name it.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.

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2015 08 23 Newsletter – A cruise to Llangollen: Fazeley Junction to Stoke

After I finished the newsletter last Sunday I cruised for an hour away from the comparative hustle and bustle of Fazeley Junction to a very peaceful mooring north of Hopwas village close to Hopwas Hayes wood.

I love these woods. There are over four hundred varied and tranquil acres easily accessible thanks to a well-established network of paths, paths which I had completely to myself for most of the two days I spent there.

I visited the woods two or three times a day. Dusk was my favourite time after the wood’s few visitors had left for the day and the creatures of the night came out to play. Several times a startled raptor screeched in the treetops as it moved away from my noisy passage through the undergrowth beneath. I saw shy muntjac deer silently disappear among the distant trees and once, as I sat quietly leaning against a fallen oak, a badger emerged from its underground lair.

Walking around the wood’s perimeter was just as fascinating. Hundreds of pigs wallowed in deep mud pools along the western edge as thousands of gulls circled overhead. I spent as much time as I could among the trees, but there was plenty of work to drag me back to the boat.

Last Sunday I visited Homebase in Tamworth to try and buy a replacement waste for the one in my galley which had broken in two. The store didn’t have anything suitable so I decided to try and repair the broken waste with some heavy duty super glue.

My DIY record is abysmal. Anything I’ve ever tried to build, refurbish, repair, service or replace has failed, fallen apart, dropped off or broken. No matter how hard I tried in the past, I always reached the same painful conclusion. There’s no point in me trying to do the work in the first place so I might as well save myself the effort and frustration and call in the professionals.

On Sunday I decided to adopt a more positive attitude, analyse why I’ve failed in the past, learn from my mistakes and make sure that I approach any new work intelligently and carefully.

Life is so easy when you start off with a positive attitude. I started off by making sure that I had the best tools for the job. In this case the right equipment was a tube of leading brand hang-an-elephant-from-a-helicopter unbreakable, totally fool proof superglue.

In the spirit of doing the job properly, I then read the instructions slowly and carefully.

Will it work on plastic?
Yes it will.
Is it waterproof?
Yes it is.

OK. We were off to a flying start.

I was instructed to make sure that the parts to be stuck together were clean and dry. I scrubbed both parts in the sink then dried them thoroughly with a wad of blue roll.

I liberally applied the glue to both parts then pressed the two parts together and made sure that they were held together firmly for forty eight hours while the glue cured. I applied the glue so liberally that I almost stuck a couple of fingers to each half. After I pressed them firmly together I held them together will half a roll of duct tape and then put the repaired waste out of harm’s way in a cupboard for two days.

On Tuesday evening I carefully removed the tape, noted with satisfaction that I had married the two parts together so well that I could barely see a join, screwed the waste firmly in place then, rather anxiously, turned on the mixer tap to check for leaks.

I sat on the galley floor shining a torch under the sink and noted, rather smugly, that even with the mixer tap fully open not a drop was dripping through the repaired waste.

“That,” I said to myself proudly, “is how to do it!”

Just before I stood up to take the top off a celebratory bottle of Theakston’s Old Peculiar, the waste snapped at the recently repaired join and dumped about a gallon of cold water in my lap.

Anyone know a good plumber?

After a late breakfast on Wednesday I was on my way again enjoying the still, early autumn sun as I cruised beside fields of ripe wheat and ducked under low hanging oak branches heavy with acorns. Just before Whittington I smelled paint and heard a metallic rattle from above. Three harnessed contractors hung from a pylon fifty feet above me quietly chatting while they painted.

At a blind bend into a bridge hole at Huddlesford I spotted the bow of a boat approaching. I slowed to allow the helmsman to correct his line and move away from me. He didn’t. The slowly drifting and out of control boat glanced off my bow. No problem and no hysterics either. I was stationary when we met. He was barely moving. We both possibly lost a little bitumen, but it didn’t matter. Narrowboats are built like tanks, so they can take the knocks. The accident was unavoidable. The approaching boat had picked up something on the propeller which had jammed it solid. Fortunately for the owner, a quick burst in reverse removed the obstacle and we were both on our way again.

At Streethay Wharf I stopped briefly to spend some money. I have three fenders, two tipcat and a button, protecting my rudder. I fitted them a couple of months ago. Now that they’ve been compacted slightly after occasional lock bumps, they’ve developed a rather pronounced brewer’s droop. I bought a couple of strainers to fix them more securely, and bag of coal and another of kindling as insurance against the odd inevitable chilly early morning as autumn advances.

After Streethay Wharf, cruising parallel to the A38 I kept pace with two lanes of very slow moving traffic for half an hour. I could see drivers hunched over steering wheels, stressed by the inconvenience of moving at four miles an hour. I cruised on serenely without a care in the world, delighted that I could travel as fast as 4mph along this short straight stretch.

At Fradley junction as I made my turn I encountered the longest lock queue since I set off on my travels in April. Six boats waited ahead of me. Passing through this one lock took an hour so after quickly ascending that, and Shade House lock which followed, I decided to stop for the night on the visitor moorings above the flight.

Last time I moored here I remembered being slightly annoyed at the sound of boy racers revving engines and screeching tyres nearby. At the time I hoped someone would report them to the police and hopefully put a stop to their racket. I considered doing so myself. I’m very pleased I didn’t. Less than a mile away to the south west is the Curborough Sprint Course, a figure of eight official race track.

On Thursday morning I made a bit of a fool of myself. I suppose it was overdue. I haven’t done anything particularly stupid for at least a week.

I set Wood End lock, my first of the day, took the boat in and then climbed out of the lock taking my centre line with me. Normally when I’m in an ascending lock, I leave the engine in gear on tick over so the boat is held against the front gate as the boat rises. I didn’t want to do that on this occasion because there was an obstruction on the front gate which I suspected would snag the bow fender. Instead, I left the engine in neutral, took my centre line with me and tied it to the upstream bollard. This stops the boat being pushed away from the upstream gate when the paddles are first raised and then slammed back against the upstream gates as the water which enters the lock travels down to the downstream gates then surges back to push the boat forward.

After I raised the paddles slowly to make sure that the boat’s ascent was gentle, I was joined by the crew of the boat following me. I’m male, so I can’t multi task. I can’t focus on what I’m doing and hold a conversation, especially first thing in the morning.

The boaters noticed my web site address on the cabin side and asked about the site. I told them all about it, about how it’s developed and now, because of the products and training I offer, I treat the site as my full time job.

They told me that they thought training for both aspiring and new boat owners was a wonderful idea and complimented me on the concept in general and my implied proficient helmsmanship in particular. We swung the upstream gate open, I bid them farewell and as nonchalantly as possible steered my boat out of the lock with my arm casually draped over the tiller and, I hoped, an air of competence and confidence about me.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to untie my centre line. Twenty feet out of the lock the cabin dipped violently to port almost throwing me off the boat. The two boaters watched bemused as I leaped off the boat and then began tugging frantically at the iron hard knot around the bollard, tightened almost immovably by twenty tonnes of boat.

I don’t think that I left them with quite as good an impression as I hoped.

A little later as I approached Armitage I could see the forested slopes of Cannock Chase ahead of me, seemingly close enough to touch but still three hours away. I stopped close to Tesco in Rugeley, left four bags of my own rubbish at the store and collected eight bags of food, carried my shopping back to the boat and collected my rucksack before hiking to a nearby builder’s merchants where I bought a new sink waste. Back on the boat, in the time the kettle took to boil, the new waste was installed and working perfectly.

Fully stocked again I headed out of Rugeley and towards an encounter with the best trained boat dog in the world.

I noticed the collie a hundred metres away from his boat staring intently at something in the grass. As I approached the dog, it didn’t move an inch. The owner noticed the stationary dog from where he was working at the stern of his own boat. He leaned forwards, picked up something which he put in his pocket and strolled towards the still immobile dog. I drew level with the dog at the same time as the owner reached it. He obviously knew what the dog was focussed on, pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and reached down to scoop up the dog’s poo. After many, many encounters with half hidden discarded dog muck, seeing a dog trained to indicate its own mess was a delight. Well done that owner!

After a sharp right hand turn onto the Trent aqueduct, then an equally sharp left hand turn into bridge 68, two hours of urban sprawl ended suddenly with a wide view of glorious Cannock Chase and the brisk breeze courtesy of the open countryside.

At the following bridge a fuel boat sat higher and dryer than two months earlier when I last passed this way with half of its propeller now exposed to the elements.

I stopped for the night overlooking Shugborough Hall with the intention of spending a day or two exploring nearby Cannock Chase’s twenty six miles of forest and heath. Sadly I realised that I was falling behind schedule. In order to reach Llangollen with enough time to do a few days hill walking before returning to Napton Junction and my next batch of discovery days at the beginning of October, I needed to move on.

Before I moved off on Friday I decided to check my mud box. The steel cylinder is part of my raw water cooling system. Canal water is drawn in to the boat through a grill in the hull then passes through the mud box before moving on to the heat exchanger. The mud box traps any sediment or fine weed which has managed to penetrate the grill.

I have been told to check the mud box regularly but my last check had been two months earlier. On opening it I was quite surprised to find it completely free of mud. I’ll have to keep an eye on the water as I explore new waterways. I’m sure they won’t all be quite as forgiving as the canals and rivers I’ve travelled on this year so far.

After putting the engine room back together I moved on through Haywood lock, past Haywood Junction and on to unfamiliar water. I enjoyed three hours of far quieter cruising than I expected. My Pearson’s guide indicated a canal shadowed by a busy railway and road but most of the time both were hidden from sight and inaudible over the purr of my engine and rhythmic wet exhaust woosh.

Stone was a pleasure to cruise through. There was now a grittier, more northern feel to the waterway. I’m always on guard when on new and unknown canals. I smile and wave at everyone on my travels. A few hooded, baseball cap wearing teenagers ignored me completely so when I brought the boat in to the lock by the Star in with its lock side tables full of slightly drunken middle aged males I was a little nervous, especially when two of them climbed unsteadily to their feet and walked towards me. I casually removed my camera from the cockpit hatch and prepared for a confrontation. They walked past me, closed the gates behind me, slurred a friendly hello then sat down again.

I was feeling much better about the town but still slightly nervous when I pulled over onto the lock landing at the next lock to be met by a rather intimidating off the lead Rottweiler followed by an even more intimidating heavily muscled and shaven headed man in his early thirties. The dog wagged its tail, he smiled, waved and walked on, and I popped inside the boat to change my underpants.

At my next and final lock of the day, I met another Stone resident. This time the inland waterways tamest grey heron. As I approached the lock it stood motionless on the roof of a GRP cruiser just five feet away from me as I passed before flapping calmly onto the lock landing as I pulled on to it, ignoring me completely as it focussed on the water behind my stern.

I stopped for the night just below the Meaford flight of four locks opposite a new and tidy housing estate. After a peaceful night’s sleep I set off again, thankful that there had been no noise on the towpath the previous night in such a built up area. I was wondering how noisy that particular mooring would be on a weekend night, then I realised that the previous evening had been Friday and still as quiet as a grave.

On Saturday morning at 6.30am I quickly climbed up through the three locks of the Meaford flight, then through Barleston where I passed an angler with a difference. The elderly guy was fishing from the seat of his mobility scooter. He was completely covered in faded India ink tattoos, including Maori style spirals on his face and shaven head. I smiled and waved. He grimaced and threw a handful of maggots in the canal. Ah well, you can’t win them all.

At Trentham lock I met three middle aged guys on a 140 mile road trip taking their recently purchased boat to its new mooring in Burnley. I met them at each lock for the rest of the day where they insisted on doing as much work for me as they could, help which was very much appreciated when I needed to make a brew.

On the outskirts of drab Stoke a bolt of glamorous lightening brightened my day. A tall willow thin and beautiful blonde running effortlessly along the towpath slowed down to ask me for directions to the nearby Britannia stadium. As I pulled over to show her the way, I was sure that if I had been twenty years younger, she had been ten years older, I was better looking, and she lowered her standards a little, there could have been a wonderful future for us together. As it was, I watched her seductively gyrate along the towpath before continuing with my solo boating.

The last lock before Etruria Junction was a test of stamina. Each of the downstream paddles took forty turns to open fully. There’s no gym membership required when you live this lifestyle.

My plan for the day was to reach the far end of Harecastle tunnel but as I passed Westport Lake and the western outskirts of Stoke, the combination of the smell of freshly cooked Stoke oatcakes and a free mooring overlooking Westport lake was too much for me.

I secured the boat, bought a couple of cheese and bacon oatcakes and a cup of tea, and sat in the sunshine enjoying the view.

After my late lunch I changed my engine oil, thoroughly cleaned the engine room, and then retired for the day to escape torrential rain, thunder and lightning.

As I sat eating my dinner I watched flashes of lightning momentarily illuminate the black rain clouds above the lake and listened to rain drumming on the roof. Who needs television with nature providing the entertainment?

I had some more entertainment at five thirty this morning. I was woken by loud and drunken voices but they moved away quickly so I cuddled my teddy a little more tightly and returned to the land of Nod.

A fellow boater told me this morning how lucky I had been. A gang of youths had worked their way up the line of boats moored next to the lake causing as much mayhem as possible. Two boats were cast adrift, several poles and planks removed and thrown into the canal, and a bike was partially removed from its roof rack, saved by the padlock which secured it.

A lady in the boat next to me told me that the youths stopped at my boat, realised that they would have to climb on board to either untie it or reach the rack where my pole and plank are stored, so carried on to untie the boat behind me.

I’m staying on this mooring again tonight. I think there’s less chance of them returning on a Sunday night than after a drunken Saturday night out, but I will be waiting. I’ll keep my shoes and clothes close at hand, and I have a little surprise gift for them as a thank you for their attention. I hope they like it.

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Discovery Day And Narrowboat Helmsmanship Training

If you’re new to this site you might not know about the service I launched in June 2014. I host narrowboat experience days on board my own 62′ long narrowboat James No 194. The ten hour days are a combination of discussion about the pros and cons of living on board, narrowboat designs and the best equipment for live aboard boaters, and a six to eight hour helmsmanship training cruise along the Oxford and/or Grand Union Canals.

I’m running the discovery days approximately on the first ten days of August, October and December this year. As summer approaches more and more site users are booking the relatively few discovery days still available. August onwards is still relatively free. If you are interested in joining me for a fun and information packed discovery day please check the diary before it’s too late.

Update 23rd August 2015

The earliest dates are now at the beginning of October. If you want to  see the available dates for October onward click here.

In the meantime, meet recent discovery day attendee Chris Smith.

“I have had a passion for canal boats for 15 years, have rented a couple of times and need to make sure my love was for real, seeing that I live in Australia. My wife is British, and needs to spend quality time with her aged parents, so probably would not want to be full time with me on a boat. Learning about single handling was my main ambition, which was amply fulfilled by my great instructor!

Everything went really well, my instructor seemed relaxed more than I would have been if someone unknown was steering my biggest capital possession down a narrow lane with clueless hirers coming at me from all directions.

The instruction was wonderful, confidence building, and any admonition was “ in a perfect world” this or that should have happened. Every hirer should be required to have more than 10 minutes instruction, as adequately illustrated by events.

Paul even acted as a marriage counselor in a lock where a family situation was becoming heated  and eased the situation with cool independent advice.

I am so glad that I took the Discovery Day. It has given me more confidence I my abilities, I have learned more that I could have imagined  in one day, and Paul has instilled in me some basics that I was not aware of and will remember forever.

We had a very windy day, which really helped to learn some techniques that will be invaluable when I get to do my own thing.”

Finally, I would like to thank Paul for a fantastic day that I’ll be talking about for a while to come. I also believe that it a brave move to trust a complete novice and stranger to steer your home up and down the canal. Thanks for all the advice and I hope to keep in touch and let you know how I get on buying and living on a boat.”

You can find out more about my discovery days and availability here.

I Need Some Help!

Each time I write a newsletter, I tick another subject off the list of things which those new to boating have told me that they want to read about. The hardest part of the process isn’t the writing itself, it’s constantly thinking of new content for each issue. The trouble is, I don’t know what you want to read. I think I keep the newsletters reasonably interesting but I don’t know for sure. That’s where I need your help.

Can you let me know what you would like to read in the future? Are there any areas of narrowboat life you don’t think I’ve covered enough or areas which I’ve missed completely? Please let me know what you want to read about. Thanks for your help.