Narrowboat Eileen Dover: Dive dive dive.

Thursday 1^st August

There was a marina/hire boat centre, Heritage Narrowboats, a couple of miles down the canal from our moorings, so we made our way down there and stopped to get a pumpout, diesel and water, so we were up to date on all our services. It is always nice not to have to worry for a while. The pumpout was particularly important, as last year on the Home Run we found a couple of pumpout places broken down, and there are none in any case all the way down from Red Bull Locks in Kidsgrove until you reach Middlewich.

Ramsdell Hall overlooking the Macc

We pressed on then, down to Hall Green Lock, which is actually the end of the Macclesfield Canal and the start of the Trent and Mersey, although you are still about half a mile from the main line of the latter. Apparently when the Macc was built in about 1830 the Trent and Mersey company were concerned about controlling the link and so they built the arm up to Hall Green, where there were two matching stop locks and to end. Nowadays there is just the one (with a drop of one foot four) and then a long narrow channel where the other lock used to be.

After that you sail over the Trent and Mersey main line, turn sharp left and go along parallel, past two locks which bring the main line up to the same level. You then turn sharp left again, which brings you out to a T-junction on the main line at Hardings Wood Junction. To your right is the entrance to Harecastle tunnel, but we turned left to start the long descent of Heartbreak Hill, 26 locks down to Wheelock.

Joining the Trent and Mersey main line at Hardings Wood Junctions

We still had the laptop to sort out, so after the first lock we moored and I cycled up to the computer place, only about half a mile now. I couldn’t get the exact power lead I needed, but they had one which will provide a trickle feed to the battery, so I can power it up over time. I set off back, and as I did so the heavens opened, again, and I was soaked by the time I got to the boat.

That set the scene for the rest of the trip, heavy showers interspersed with dry intervals. We had our eyes on a spot that we used last year on the Home Run, a good mooring with rings on a narrow stretch near Church Lawton, six locks down. When we arrived there was space, though there were half a dozen boats there already. We like to be well away from others, but the alternative was to do another six locks with no guarantee of anything better, so we tied up at around half five.

As I said we were close to Church Lawton, and at eight the campanologists of the church started to practice, going on for the full hour. At the same time the dogs, especially Posie and Mabel, started seeing or hearing things, and barked incessantly to warn us. Perhaps they were particularly sensitive to bad bellringing. All in all it was not a peaceful quiet evening.

Mabel hiding

And it was to get worse. At half eleven we went to take the dogs for their final walk, and I could hear a constant noise. It was like the central heating, but that wasn’t on, and we finally traced it to the automatic bilge pump, which was running constantly. Normally it only operates for a few moments when triggered by a float.

Investigating, I found that there was a steady and fairly rapid leak in through the stern gland where the prop shaft exits the hull. Fortunately, and quite by chance, I had had a conversation with the engineer last week, while we were pumping diesel out of the engine room, so I knew where the greasing screw was, and also where our tube of grease could be found. Did we have the correct Allen key? Knowing Steve Dugdale (the boat’s previous owner) there would be one around somewhere, and indeed I found it.

The challenges were not over – I had to sit on the engine and work well down below my feet – undo the screw without dropping in, screw in the grease tube and squeeze in the right amount, and then get the screw back in place and nicely tight. And talking of nicely tight, I had to do all this after two beers and half a bottle of Prosecco. I was also by no means certain that this would fix the problem, and as I started to squeeze the grease in the drips of water speeded up. However they then suddenly stopped entirely – the grease must have been pushing the water out of the gland, and once it was full of just grease, the dripping stopped. I watched for about ten minutes (by the light of my head torch) and didn’t see a single drip – so we could go to bed confident that we would not wake up at the bottom of the canal.