Day Out

 Thursday 28^th May 2020

Well, it has taken longer to get to this entry than I expected when I left us at Nantwich on the 2^nd January. Our plans were to get the winter works done, including blacking the hull, and then bring Eileen home in the last week of March. But the Coronavirus had not paid any attention to our requirements, and we found ourselves locked down with Eileen still in dock.

Even after the first strict lockdown had been relaxed, and we were allowed out more than once a day, the restrictions on the canals were only eased slowly. Liveaboards of course had been on their boats all along, they had nowhere else to be, but at first leisure owners were still banned altogether. The first concession was that people were allowed to visit their boats, but not go anywhere on them, and that wasn’t much use to us. Then in May the next stage was announced – we would be allowed to move around, but still not sleep on board. This was to conform with the more general rule against spending the night away from your main home, in holiday cottages or caravans.

No matter how long we sailed, there was no way to get back to Preston Brook from Nantwich in a single day. We did contemplate bringing her back in stages, but that would have meant leaving her tied up on the towpath unattended overnight, and we didn’t fancy that, so we resolved to wait to bring her home until the rules changed. However we did want to get aboard, especially as we had a long hot spell of weather, so we decided to take her out for a day trip. We loaded the dogs (minus Ruby) and drove to Nantwich.

Over the winter, apart from the blacking, we had some other work done – not as significant as last year, when we had the batteries replaced, but some useful improvements. Probably the biggest is that the little washing machine has been plumbed into the cupboard below the oven. It means we lose cupboard space, but t gets the machine out of the way, and it avoids a real chore of filling and emptying it in the shower. Apart from that, we had wooden dog gates fitted in the bedroom door and at the top of the steps to the stern, which will allow us to keep the dogs under control and still have a nice breeze. A small but useful improvement is little magnets on the stern gates, which will stop them swinging shut while we are getting the dogs out. We also had the engine taken out and serviced, while the engine compartment was cleaned up.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and we set off at about one o’clock. To get as far as possible without using a lock, we headed north west, past Hurleston and Barbridge junctions, and on towards Bunbury. After Barbridge we began to notice suspicious green stuff in the canal, and after a bit of Googling we concluded that it was blue-green algae. This is dangerous to the dogs, and it was bad news because it meant we couldn’t let them in the water where it was floating – and it was pretty dense.

We reached Bunbury, where the staircase lock was out of action. The algae was still there, so we took the dogs down to the road, hoping to find the river Gowy which was shown on the map. However this turned out to be a dried up ditch at this point, so we went back to the boat, struggling to keep the dogs out of the water, which they were naturally desperate to dive into.

We went back down the canal, getting used to the new positions on the gearbox. The controls have changed slightly, with the cables having been connected and the gearbox serviced; it doesn’t change how the engine performs, but it does mean you need to move the lever a lot further before it engages a higher speed.

We got back to the boatyard at about half six, and put our stuff and ourselves back in the car. It was a good day out and a reminder of life aboard, but we can’t wait until we can take her out properly.

TODAY: 5:30 HOURS. 12 MILES. 0 LOCKS.

 

Prologue - 29th June 2018

This blog will record our voyages in the narrowboat Eileen Dover. So this first entry puts me in a bit of a dilemma. As it took place before we had renamed her, does this count as a journey in the Eileen Dover at all? So if we call it a prologue, then we can regard it as attached to the main story, though not necessarily part of it.

We picked up our new boat - still called The Silver Kroner at that time - from Tattenhall Marina on Friday June 29th. We wanted to get a bit of work done on her, and where better than the place where she was built, the Navigation Narrowboat Company in Nantwich. So our first voyage would be 12 miles down the Shropshire Union, under a glorious sun.

We collected the boat from Stephen Harral at Ash Boats, the brokerage where we had found her. Great service from Stephen - he drove to Nantwich so that we could leave the car there to get us home. He also took us round to the fuelling point at Tattenhall - as we have only sailed hire boats previously, we have never had to take on fuel (or pump out - though that's still in our future).

On the fuelling point at Tattenhall

We set out some time after one o'clock, and immediately encountered a challenge. The T-junction out of the marina onto the main line is fairly tight, and the wind was against us, blowing the bows left when we needed to turn right. It seemed to be going OK, but then as we were about to emerge we saw another boat coming and had to stop. We also waited while a group of paddleboarders went past, and by that time we had drifted into a poor position to get round. I tried, but only put the bows into the opposite bank, so in the end I did what I should have done in the first place, reversed all the way back clear of the entrance and started again. This time it went well, and we were on our way.

We had six locks to manage, and at the first, Wharton's Lock, we caught up with another boat, so Loulie had someone to share the work. For now she prefers me to do the navigation while she works the gates, though that may change on days when the effort becomes too much. The next lock is Beeston Iron Lock, which is twisted so they recommend you don't put two boats in together, and we had to wait our turn. It's a bit of a bummer altogether - the pound below the lock is shallow, especially by the bank, so you have to hang way back rather than pulling in close to the bottom gates.

Waiting below Beeston Iron Lock

The next couple of locks were rather easier - Beeston Stone Lock and Tilstone Lock, out in the country. As we approached Bunbury we were rather surprised to see ahead of us two boats winding, roped together side by side - very smartly done. It turned out they were hire craft, being turned and taken back to their moorings to be made ready for hirers the next day. It gave us a small problem, trying to hold still in the breeze in a rather narrow and shelving section of the canal - no doubt I will get better at handling her. At 57' she is significantly longer than the boats we have hired previously, and it took a bit of getting used to.

Tilstone Lock

Bunbury is a two-lock staircase. We had caught up our companions again, so the two of us went up while a single boat came down. It's a busy spot, with plenty of tourists watching, and fortunately we had a CRT volunteer to help organise things. I had to cross over the lock behind the single boat coming down, and this time I was happy with the way it went.

That was the last lock for the day, so now it was relatively plain sailing - the biggest challenge were the paddleboarders who are a little like cyclists - they go just a bit slower than you want to, but you need to be very careful overtaking them. We went on past Barbridge Junction, and the entrance to the link through to Middlewich, currently blocked by a breach. It was getting well on into the evening now, and the canal was pretty quiet as we passed the end of the Llangollen and nosed our way into the pool at Nantwich, where we tied up at the dock by the boatbuilders. One of the minor problems they were going to sort was that the engine would not cut out on command (probably a fuse gone in the solenoid circuit). So I had to open the engine hatch and reach carefully round the side of the engine, under the air filter, to find the right button. Hopefully I won't have to do that again. We unloaded our stuff into the car, locked up and left The Silver Kroner to be transformed.

Today: 12 miles. 6 locks. 6 hours.