Worcester to Tamworth and beyond

 It is a long time since I blogged. However that is not because life has not been exciting. 

Sonflower was one of many boats at the IWA Festival if Water in Worcester over the August Bank Holiday weekend. This festival was arranged on the Worcester and Birmingham canal to celebrate 75 years since Tom and Sonia Rolt met Robert and Ray Aickman at Tardebigge Locks and the IWA was born. 

The festival was  a good weekend but low in “footfall”. The Worcester festival was in full swing with a line up of 100 bands and there was a lot of other attractions in the area. There was not much of a chance for boaty stuff either: the canal is not suitable for boat handling competitions or boat trips.

After the festival we moved down toward Worcester for boaty stuff like a pump out at Worcester Marina and a mooring near to Bridge 5 for a crew change. Sue left us and Alex came on board. Our bilge pump float switch failed so I had to get a replacement to fit when we returned. I rigged up a temporary bilge pump to tide us over and ensure that we were safe on the Severn. 

Our first challenge were the two wide locks that lead from Diglis basin to the Severn. Here, a couple of local moorers made things very difficult. As we were coming out of the top lock having set the bottom lock they opened the bottom paddles to drain the lower lock with the top paddles still open, The lady who did this was deaf so could not hear Alex shouting. He managed to retrieve the situation quite quickly but not before the intermediary pound had been lowered by about 18 inches!

Their local knowledge di provide a recommendation for dinner. We moored on the Severn beside the race course. £4 a night pay and display. We went to the pub htat was recommended to find that food is only served on Thursday to Sunday. We went to the kebab house instead. We did go back fir a beer as they had their own pale ale. It was quite good.

In the morning we set off up the Severn and made good progress. I was dreading the locks as Diglis lock had been firce and I thought they would all be like that. However they were quite gentle. Highlight was an otter seen swimming across the river ahead if us. Apart from that it was a bit of a boring trip to Stourport. 

We stopped in Stourport for lunch which was the remainder if the previous evening’s kebab! 

Onward again this time taking in the fabulous achievement of the builders of the canal who hewed channels out of stone cliffs to form the meanders and follow the contours. All the locks seemed to be identical in dimensions and fall. It was very enjoyable and we managed ti make out target of Stourton in good time. I had left the car here and used public transport to return to Worcester so we moored up on 5 day moorings to return home. 

Our only problems were made by the lack of repairs to paddle gear. Quite a few locks had only on paddle on the top or bottom. On top gates this was not really a problem because these locks have gate paddles which fill locks quickly but a single bottom paddle slows the process considerably. I spoke to a couple of CRT operatives wHo were tasked with fitting a pinion spindle to a paddle. They had difficulty deciding which gear train to fit it to as both paddles were equally worn! They only had one spindle with them. Other locks had leaking gates and some beams had been bound up and boxed in to keep then together until the winter stoppage season. It had all the signs of a wait til it breaks maintenance policy. 

Another navigational problem is reeds. Why are they allowed to reduce the canal to a boat’s width? It is difficult to see oncoming boats. 

From Stourton north The Best Mate was on the boat. We enjoyed the canal and made excellent progress to The Anchor Inn at Coven. Here we had a really enjoyable meal before locking the boat  up for another week. Here there was no 14 day moorings as all the mooring between the bridges is designated 48 hours. We had no option but to overstay. There were no other boats moored when we left!. 

Suepercrew came with us on return and The Best Mate and she navigated to Penkridge while I drove to Fazeley and returned by bus. I had fitted a new bilge pump float switch and put the temporary pump away. We cruised without problem onto Trent and Mersey Canal. At Fradley bottom lock we found the broken paddle gear had been covered with a  purpose made cover. Apparently it had been ot of action for months.

We had to make a stop at The Taft for a cup of tea. Peter and Julie have sold their wooden boat but still offer hospitality to all who want it and have set up very adequate safeguarding precautions to maintain their self shielding against covid

We achieved our aim to be in Fazeley for the Boaters Christian Fellowship conference weekend.

The weekend was lovely. The first opportunity to meet together on person since Lockdown 1 in February 2020.

The Best Mate and Supercrew returned to home for a short while and now Alex and I are taking Sonflower a little further and nearer to her home mooring. 

Water IN the boat again!

 

When we winterised the boat we removed the new water pump and in doing so discovered that there was an inch of water in the cabin bilge. The water pump is approximately midships and there was no evidence of water at the aft end of the bilge where I have an inspection hatch. I tried using a small bilge pump to remove the water but had little success. I decided the best way was to use the aquavac. Unfortunately we only have a 750W inverter and the aquavac is rated at 1100W.

I approached the nice people at Tooley's Boatyard to see if I could avail myself of their 240v electricity and they said that would be ok. They were chocker block with boats and work queuing back down Castle Quay so they said they would contact me when there was a space. That call came on Friday and told me I could moor across the dock on Monday. "There will be someone hear to sort out the leads".  I said I would be there at about 10am.

So I got to the boat and reversed SONFLOWER down to Tooley's Yard. I reversed because I wanted the port side to be against the dock so that I could heel SONFLOWER over a bit and get the  bilge water to flow to where I could access the bilge with the vacuum tube. It was a beautiful but cold morning. Because of lockdown there had been no boat movements and the canal was placid and calm. Ideal conditions to reverse a narrowboat passed 40 moored narrowboats on a narrow canal! Fortunately 15 of them are on the finger moorings of Sovereign wharf. I could still feel the "what on earth is he doing" stares of some off the moorers on my 70 ft passage past them.  When I arrived and moored up I found the gate locked up. A ring of the bell eventually stirred James the blacksmith to come to the gate. He was on his own, in the middle of something and did not know I was coming even thought it was his wife who had called me on Friday telling me John would be there. John had been called out on a breakdown. Plans were not looking good. James informed me all the extension leads were being used in the dock. Could I leave him for an hour and he would look for the special adapter that he knew existed that would convert the blue Commando CEE form plug system to the square pin 13A plug system that is used by the aquavac. I agreed

At this point I discovered that I had left the solid vacuum tubes for the vac in my car, back at the mooring. I used the hour to walk back home to divert Alex, who said he might help, and thence to the Canada Close car Park where I retrieved the tubes and walked back down the two path to return to Tooley's yard. Access to the part of Castle Quay at the back of Tooley's is restricted by the Castle Quay construction work so I had to swing myself out over the canal past the construction fence that is blocking the access at the access under Tom Rolt Bridge. 

On return, the adapter had been found and an extension had been provided to the back deck of SONFLOWER, I was in business. I pulled the mooring ropes tight and doubled one up, inserting a mooring pin between the two leads and twisted the ropes together as a turnbuckle to heel Sonflower over to the port side. I soon had removed two bucketfuls of water from the bilge but noticed that as soon as the slight depression on the rusty bottom plate was emptied that it refilled from both fore and aft directions. I went aft to investigate. There is another entry to the bilge beneath the port bunk, just forward of a disused poo tank. I removed the bedding and mattress and lifted the bed frame to get access. I then got to work on this deeper accumulation of water! 

By this time it was lunchtime. I gained access once more from James to the boatyard and asked for permission to go through to Castle Quay in search of some takeaway food. Not as easy to find on a Monday during lockdown as it initially seemed as the bakery and wholefood shop in Lock 29 were closed. I settle on a Philadelphia kebab from Mr Saulvivki's stall. I then walked back to Tooley's to find that the padlock on the gate had been snapped shut. No bell at this end! So I walked back through Castle Quay, round the multi story car park across the road to the Compton Road Car Park and back under Tom Rolt Bridge, swinging out over the canal round the fence once more and down the towpath to the back of Tooley's. As I passed another customer, liveaboards who are having an engine change, he asked why I was coming from that direction. I said the padlocks had been latched. Sorry he said, that was him when they returned form shopping. Do I want a cup of tea? Yes please I said and spent a nice time with him over a cuppa!

John returned from the breakdown, a serious engine failure nearby.  He enquired how thigs wer with the boat. I told him there was water everywhere including to much coming throughthe stern tube gland! I said that the gland was installed 90 degrees out so I could not reach the bottom gland nut! He told me he had done that because the gland housing thread to the stern tube would not tighten enoughto stop eakage when the stern gear was changed! He told me he would adjust it while I was here. Another job out out of the way. In chatting too he asked why I was running the engine while moored. I told him the solar panel was not keepoing up withthe charge required. He said he would incestigate the drain on the batteries as they wer nearly new and he had checked them in the Summer. Another job for Spring time.

Then back to the water which had drained down and re-filled the rusty depression in the baseplate. I removed as much as I could, about half a bucket more and called it a day. Leaving the hatches open and the bunk in disarray for another day I took the extension leads and adapter back to James, telling him that I would need to return another day.

So, I let go and returned to hime mooring. As I was positioning the boat to moor up, I was engaged in conversation by the owner of nb Black Velvet who had seen me reverse past in the morning and noticed that the boat was still pointing the same way. He was very complimentary about boatmanship and told me he would never be that brave! I told him that I had a particular reason, conditions in the norning were particularly kind and that I would not try it in a wind. It was good to get to know him as he was a new continuous cruiser who had stopped where it was most convenient for the month of lockdown2.

Of course that was not the end of my boating day. Because I am now getting old and my memory is not too good I had to return later in the evening to close and lock the swan hatch and look for my mobile phone!