Sent to Coventry

Wednesday 9^th September 2020

Today we were going to be going onto new waters again, as we planned to turn down the Coventry Canal from Fradley Junction, heading for Birmingham. Looking ahead, Friday was going to be a big day, 27 locks up into Birmingham. To put ourselves in position for that, on Thursday we would have to go up the eleven locks at Curdworth. So our plan was to take it fairly easy today – there were four locks to climb to Fradley, but after that we would be in a long single pound on the Coventry, and we planned to finish early.

We started at about 10:30, and the four locks were no problem. I had to wait as a boat came out of the third one, and I recognised the steersman – he is a solo boater who has a YouTube channel called Cruising the Cut. He was a TV journalist who gave up work to live on the boat, and he is a good vlogger, comfortable in front of the camera, and with a journalist's sense for how to put information across. I follow a number of vloggers, but he was the first I found, and I have got a good few useful tips from the channel. When I got through the lock and told Loulie about him she said that he had been filming, and had explained to her who he was. Sure enough she appeared on an episode on his channel, helping him through the lock, and I even got a mention for having the foresight to leave the previous lock gate open to let him in.

We ascended the final lock, and turned left onto the Coventry Canal. There is a small swing footbridge just beyond the junction, but this had been opened by a boat going in just ahead of us, and as there was a boat waiting to come through the other way we did not have to close it behind us.

The is a water point just past the bridge which I had been hoping to use, but there was already a boat there and another waiting, so we pressed on. The map had shown a marina with water point and diesel here, but I had made an error, and it was in fact on the T&M beyond the junction. So we carried on, but I was keen to get water, and a pumpout and diesel too if possible, before we went into Birmingham.

Bridge on the Coventry

Earlier in this trip we had explored new waters on the Trent and Mersey, but today we were on an entirely new canal. This is an “old” canal, built in the 18^th century, snaking through the countryside, by contrast to the canals built by Telford 50 years later, like the Shroppie – he used embankments and cuttings to make the route as straight and quick as possible. In this the Coventry is like the Trent & Mersey, but each canal has its own little peculiarities. We noticed that the bridges all had little windows in the brickwork, about three feet tall, covered with a wooden panel and a padlocked grating. We were unsure what these might be, but later we discovered that they are where they stored the stop planks which could be used to seal the canal in an emergency, if there was a breach, or if they wanted to drain a section for maintenance. On the canals around us these are kept out in the open, or under a little roof. Another oddity on this canal was a swan and cygnet which pursued us for quite a distance, paddling and splashing almost frantically to keep up with us. Maybe they had been fed something very nice from a boat looking like ours, we couldn’t see any other reason why they chose to pursue us particularly.

A mile or so from Fradley the map showed two possible places to get the services we needed. The first, at Streethay, was on a wharf on the main line, and when we got there we found a boat taking on diesel, oddly moored so that he stuck out and partly obstructed the channel. There were also a couple more boats which seemed to be waiting, so we pressed on. The map showed a marina only a short way further on, so we turned in to the entrance there – this is a much more modern place, built off the main line with an entrance under a bridge on the towpath. We sailed through to the wharf at the rear where the services were, and I made a very satisfying landing, turning the boat broadside on and letting the wind push me gently into place.

 We had made a good decision to come here and not queue at Streethay – we were able to get all we wanted in one spot – pumpout, diesel and water, and even dumped our bin bags in their skip. I was alittle concerned that the wind might give me problems getting off the lee shore, but a bit of work with the bow thrusters gave me the angle I needed and we sailed away in an elegant curve, and back out onto the canal.

Very soon we came to Huddlesford Junction. This is where the Lichfield canal took off to the west, to Lichfield and beyond, meeting up with the northern part of the Birmingham Canal Network. There are plans to restore this, and indeed there is an aqueduct in place to take it over the M6 toll, if it ever gets that far. However at present the canal only goes a few hundred yards west from the junction, and this section has been commandeered by a boat club for their moorings – you can’t enter the stub of the canal unless you are a member.

The canal went around the outskirts of the village of Whittington, a nice looking place with a lot of attractive canalside gardens. We then headed out into more open country, and started looking for moorings. Just after three we found a nice snug spot on a curve, just before a stretch which had fairly unattractive banks of solid stone. We moored up and I went for a run along the towpath, while Loulie took the dogs for a walk. She found a splendid wood across a bridge, part of an MoD firing range which is closed off when it is in use. As I was running back Loulie stopped me to help her rescue Minnie, who had gone down a slope and jumped into the river Tame, and could not get out. Happily I was able to pull her out without falling in myself, this time.

Dog walking near Hopwas

TODAY: 4:45 HOURS. 7.9 MILES. 4 LOCKS.

Voyage: 43:55 HOURS. 79.2 MILES. 49 LOCKS.

On the Road Again

 Wednesday 2^nd September 2020

Wednesday dawned grey but dry. I had a shower last night, because I could not start the engine this morning, it would need to be cold so the mechanic could work around and under it as he lifted it up to get the gearbox off. I had a discussion last week with the NNC people about whether we should replace the gearbox at the same time, as it was going to have to come off as part of the process. It’s fairly clear we are going to have to replace it fairly soon, perhaps over the winter – it has been getting stiffer to get in and out of gear, and failing to go into forward when it’s cold. In the end we decided that it would extend the delay in getting the parts, so we elected just to change the drive plate.

The mechanic arrived on time, and everything seemed to go smoothly. It was all done in less than two hours, and I called Loulie to tell her to pack the pack into Jonjo’s van and set off. They got here with no problems, we moved everything into the boat, and set off at about half one.

I had sent another email asking for a booking for Harecastle tomorrow, and we had a spot on the first passage southbound, setting off at 8am – and we had to be there at 7:30. We did not want to leave ourselves any locks to do in the morning, but there are few and poor moorings on the Trent and Mersey between the top locks and the tunnel. Our plan therefore was to go up the six remaining locks, then turn onto the Macclesfield Canal. This would also allow us to go a couple of miles up the canal to Heritage Narrowboats, where we could get diesel, water and a pumpout.

Soon after we started it began to rain, and it set in to pour hard and steadily for the rest of the day. We worked up six locks, thus completing the twenty six of Heartbreak Hill that we had started in Wheelock a week ago. We turned right onto the Macc and cruised up to the Heritage base, keeping an eye out as we went for suitable moorings for the night. There is one lock on this stretch, the Hall Green stop lock, just one foot of rise, and we soon reached our target. Fuelling and pumpout was very wet, but it meant that we would not have to worry about stopping on the trip south for a few days.

We turned in the mouth of the hire boat basin, and set off back, with Loulie jumping out with the dogs to give them a walk. We went back down the stop lock and moored at a spot we had noted previously; a slightly overgrown bank but not too bad, and well placed for an early arrival at the tunnel mouth in the morning.

 

TODAY: 4:30 HOURS. 4.9 MILES. 8 LOCKS.

Voyage: 15:25 HOURS. 30.8 MILES. 18 LOCKS.

 

Free At Last

 

Monday 6^th July 2020

And so finally we got the word that, from the 4^th July, people would be able to sleep somewhere other than their principal residence – holiday cottage, caravan or, in our case, aboard your boat. We decided not to start on Saturday (the 4^th) as there would probably be a rush, so we started our journey home on the Monday.

We all drove over to Nantwich, with the dogs, though sadly not with Ruby. After unloading I drove home and left Loulie to unpack and get things ready, while Jonjo drove me back. We got a pump out and filled the water, and set off quite late in the afternoon.

These are familiar waters for us, of course. We had considered whether we might make some sort of diversion, perhaps up the Llangollen, but that option was limited by the fact that the Welsh stretches were still under lockdown. We also had in mind the fact that we needed to get home by the weekend, because Loulie had to help out with the Wilmslow Show on Saturday and Sunday. So in the end we kept straight on at Hurleston Junction, and left the Llangollen for another time, and turned instead at Barbridge.

We went a couple of miles down the Middlewich Branch, and through the Cholmondeston and Minshull locks, then we looked for a place to moor. Loulie had quite a lot of work to do for Wilmslow, taking memberships and entries on line, and so we needed to find somewhere with reasonable mobile signal so she could get onto the internet. There was a nice spot near a picnic site in a cutting just after Cholmondeston lock, but there was no signal at all there so we pressed on. Below Minshull lock, beyond Venetian Marina there was a place at the end of a mooring just before the Weaver aqueduct, and we settled down there. In the old days we used to try to find somewhere with not another boat in sight, so we could let the dogs roam freely, but we have become a bit more cautious about that, and so we can also be more relaxed about having neighbours closer.

Moorings at Calveley

The mooring was nice – a ring at one end and shuttering with a mooring clip at the other. It seems to me that we are seeing more shuttering (Armco) all the time, I guess they are now using it whenever they do a repair to the towpath. It makes mooring easier – with pins you always have the challenge of finding somewhere that you can bang them in without meeting solid concrete or stone, but also not so soft that they will pull out. A clip on (sound) shuttering is much more reliable, and much less work with no hammering.

The mobile signal turned out to be less reliable than we thought when we moored, and Loulie had a fairly frustrating evening connecting and disconnecting. Despite that it was great to be back sleeping on board for the first time in more than six months.

The crew on board

TODAY: 2:50 HOURS. 6.5 MILES. 2 LOCKS.

Voyage: 2:50 HOURS. 6.5 MILES. 2 LOCKS.

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.

The prop shaft with the stern gland. The greasing screw is top centre on the gland.

Mooring at Church Lawton 1-8-19

Map at 1-8-19

TODAY: 7:00 HOURS. 5.2 MILES. 7 LOCKS. 0 BRIDGE.

VOYAGE: 69:10 HOURS. 81.8 MILES. 62 LOCKS. 8 BRIDGES

Hitting the Peak

Thursday 25th July

As I mentioned yesterday, we wanted to call in at Dukinfield Junction to get a pumpout, so we only had a short run, about 45 minutes, after leaving our moorings, until we got the the junction, where the Ashton, the Peak Forest and the Huddersfield Narrow Canals all meet.

The Museum at Portland Basin

The start of the Peak Forest Canal at Portland Basin

The pumpout was at Portland Basin marina - Portland Basin is the place where the three canals meet. This was like no marina we have ever seen - it was down a narrow arm between brick walls - essentially just a short dead end of canal with some boats moored on it. We got a pumpout but they told us they didn't do water and we'd have to back to the museum in the Portland Basin. This we did, and we were directed to moor alongside two old boats. Having done that, the owner of the boats appeared and said he had been told not to allow people to do that, for insurance reasons. (As it happens I had slipped on some rotting wood on the gunwale of one of those boats and scraped my shin, so I had some sympathy).

He was in fact very helpful, and apologetic, and he helped us moor with our bow in alongside one of his boats, so I could get the hosepipe to our water inlet. With no further excitement we completed the watering and set off along the Peak Forest canal.

Starting down the Peak Forest

The difference was immediate. The canal travels along the valley of the Tame, which flows far below, and it is wooded in many places. There were no locks today, but a little bit of exercise for me as I had to work a lifting bridge - lifted manually with a windlass handle. It was a fiercely hot day and we were concerned for the dogs; Loulie kept putting wet towels on them and encouraging them to drink. We passed Hyde, and then in Romiley we stopped and I walked to a nearby Aldi to get ice lollies, drinks and some chicken for Minnie. The best bit was that the supermarket was air conditioned, very cold and lovely.

After that we didn't go on very far. We had exchanged the Tame for the Goyt, but again it was flowing far below us on the right hand side. After going though a tunnel (300 yards, very short by our usual standards) we found a mooring in the middle of nowhere, much more our style. We are only a few miles from Marple, but there is a flight of 16 locks to tackle before we get there. For today we moored quite early, about 16:15, and Loulie used her new washing machine for the first time. It is threatening to rain, and indeed we need the clouds to open to clear the air, but so far it is just occasional showers. If it doesn't break it will be a very muggy night.

Mooring near Hyde Bank Tunnel - including a view through the tunnel

TODAY: 6.15 HOURS. 8.2 MILES. 0 LOCKS. 1 BRIDGE.

VOYAGE: 26.25 HOURS. 37.2 MILES. 27 LOCKS. 2 BRIDGEs

Ellesmere Port June 2019

We were able to get away for a week at the start of June - we're going to have a full two weeks later in the summer when we plan to do the Cheshire Ring, so we had to decide what to do with this shorter break. We opted to tick off Ellesmere Port from our list - it is the extreme northern end of the Shropshire Union canal, and also has the National Boat Museum, so it is somewhere we had down to get to, and a week seemed like a fairly easy round trip. Our plan was to crank it down to Ellesmere Port on the first few days, so that we could come back in a much more leisurely fashion on the return. Loulie needed to be back home on Friday evening for a horse event on the Saturday, and we didn't want to be under time pressure.

Ready to sail

We actually set off on the Thursday evening (30th May). We drove down to the marina and put the dogs and luggage aboard, then Loulie drove home, and cycled back up to Preston Brook, while I took the boat out and met her under the M56 bridge. We put the bike on board, and got through the tunnel at half three, which put us through the Saltersford tunnel at half five. At the Barnton we had to wait as there was a boat coming the other way. As we stood there we thought we could hear music, and sure enough when the boat came out there was someone playing the violin in the stern. We wanted to get on as far as we could that evening, and in the end we moored in a spot we have used before, just short of Wincham bend.

Bed shenanigens

The next day we pushed on to Middlewich, and took on water just below Big Lock. After going up that one and the three-lock flight we refuelled at Kings Lock, and then turned onto the Branch of the Shroppie. We went up the Wardle and Stanthorne locks, then moored out in the country at a remote spot. The next day we stopped in the morning at the Aqueduct Marina for a pumpout, then found ourselves in long queues for the final two locks on the Branch, before turning right at Barbridge and heading for Chester. Down the Bunbury staircase, and then we met some first-time hirers and did a couple of locks with them. They stopped at the Shady Oak, and we went on a bit and moored well out from the bank, on the usual Shroppie shelf.

We planned to get all the way to Ellesmere Port the next day (Sunday) so we got off fairly early. Soon after we started we passed Tattenhall Marina, where our adventures with Eileen all began last year. The new people from yesterday caught up with us at the first of the five locks down into Chester, so we did those with them - I found the bicycle really useful on this flight, which are spaced out so that walking is rather slow. We stopped in the pool in Chester and did some shopping, then carried on down the three-lock staircase under the shadow of the city walls. This is quite spectacular - each lock drops you about 11 foot, but because of the way the staircase works, the gates are looming twice that height above you when you are at the bottom.

We emerged into the basin at the bottom, where a flight of locks leads down tot he River Dee - the bottom lock is permanently closed now. We went on through the suburbs of Chester, around the zoo and then headed off across the flatlands of the Wirrall towards Ellesmere Port. It must be said that the surrounding became less salubrious as we travelled, and we decided we did not want to moor close to that end of the canal. So we reached the Boat Museum, turned in the pool there, above the three locks which lead down to the Ship Canal, and headed back the way we had come. We eventually moored at quite a nice spot near the village of Stoak, on an Armco bank with no shelf.

The next morning the engine wasn't keen to start, though it caught eventually, and we noticed that the starter battery was very flat, and there were warning lights on the battery control panel. We called Matthew at the NNC, and tried doing a few things he suggested to relay power between the batteries, but nothing seemed to work. We decided we would take Eileen in to Nantwich the next day, to get it looked at, so we wanted to get on as far as we could. We went back up the staircase flight - even more imposing when you enter from the bottom and look up at the lock doors above you - and then we worked up the five locks out of Chester. We kept going up Wharton's Lock and we eventually ran out of light above the second Beeston lock, the Stone Lock.

The next morning when we tried to start up there was no charge in the battery, so we had to call the NNC for help, and waited for a couple of hours until someone came. In the end all he had to do was put a jump lead across from the leisure battery bank to the starter, and that got us going, but of course we needed to get the problem fixed, so we carried on to Nantwich anyway, arriving late in the afternoon, after a very wet trip in the pouring rain. They couldn't do anything then, so we slept overnight in the finger moorings in the boatyard.

In the morning I cycled off to Sainsbury's on the other side of town, and when I got back I discovered that the engineer had found and fixed the problem, which happily was not a failed alternator but only a loose connection. He also advised us to rev the engine hard on starting each time, to get the charger to kick in properly. We were back on the canal by lunchtime, and now we were under no time pressure, so we cruised to Barbridge and then did the first two locks on the Branch before mooring at a nice spot just past Church Minshull. I went for a run on the towpath, which was no fun as the footing was horribly uneven, and the Strava app which I used to track the run lost credibility when I told me that I had done 50 feet of climb - on the towpath.

On Thursday morning we started without hurry, and found ourselves in queues at Stanthorne and Wardle locks. However when we turned north to do the three-flight and Big Lock it was quiet again. We picked up water below Big Lock and did some shopping, and then decided to push on through some rainy weather, eventually mooring near Wincham at the same spot we had a week ago. On Friday morning we again had an easy start, through Saltersford at 13:00 and Preston Brook at 15:00. Loulie cycled home to get the car, and I moored very comfortably in calm weather back at the marina. Quite an eventful trip, but good fun, and Mabel seems to enjoy the boat as much as the Labradors - it's only Ruby that hates it. We can cross Ellesmere Port off our bucket list - it's not a stretch of canal we're likely to want to revisit very often, I think.

Voyage: 56.75 hours. 105.8 miles. 46 locks.