Ice

 Ice to the front of her,

ice to the rear of her,


ice to the side of her: our boating was postponed this afternoon because of ice.

Although there was a change in the outside temperature which was soaring toward 10 degC the water was still at zero, the temperature of melting ice, and it was impossible to move. It may look like there is clear water around the boat but the rudder was locked in until we moved it, and not without a bit of force.

I recollect the chapter in Tom Rolt's book "Narrow Boat" where he describes ice in Banbury and the joy that the arrival of the ice breaker brought to the locked in crews. We await the ice breaker because to try to break this ourselves would damage other people's vessels at the waterline and could put fibre glass boats in jeopardy.

We spoke to a fisherman who told us the score along the canal: the only ice free spots were under the bridges and even there he got no bites.

Ice Breaking

We awoke to a red sunrise after a chilly night. The fire was still alight but had not been fully effective at keeping our noses warm throughout the whole of what was probably our coldest night for some time.

We needed to get to Braunston to retrieve the car as we needed to be in Banbury this morning at ten. So we had to break ice! I don't like doing it but needs must.

We arrived in Braunston and found a spare length of 14 day mooring. Of course the rings in Brauston appear to have been put in haphazardly. Some are 10 ft apart and some are 40 ft apart. We happened to be next to two of the latter and the next ring is twenty feet from our bow and useless to us. So we are moored on the stern rope and centre rope. I do not like to use this but, once again, needs must! There is nowhere to drive a pin into on the concrete pileing cap of the GUC and no piling rail to clip to either.

We got back to Banbury in time for our appointment and then went to London to visit the Best Mate's mother. Another sucessful day.

But my nose is still cold!

The car is in for MoT tomorrow!

"Red sky in the morning: shepherds warning"?

I waited patiently for the sun to appear. I expected a large red disc to slowly ascend into the sky, yellowing as it progressed in a long lazy arc.

I anticipated a gorgeous bright but crispy cold day.

Actually the sun never shone. The clouds were already gathering on the eastern horizon and the sun has been masked from sight.

Cold it is though.

We had the first ice of the winter on the Canal this morning.

If it clears during the day I may go down to town for water. A long freeze would be a little inconvenient!

The warning this time is for a cold snap I think rather than a storm or rain. But who knows.

Oooh Expecting Company

The ice has gone. For how long we have no real idea but it means that boats are on the move again. (Not that it stopped a solo boater in a tiny fibre glass cruiser from nipping up and down without a care for his gel coat. He seemed to like to be boating at midnight as well! Or a local moorer crashing his way through the ice making a tremendous noise and crashing ice into all the moored boats as he passed them. For third of a mile they had to travel I dont think it was worth the effort and diesel.)

And we have just heard that friends will be making their way down from the Rugby to Banbury soon.

How exciting. We don't get too many visitors in the winter.

's n'ICE problem

Here is the reason my friend's narrowboat stopped driving. He was following the lead of another boat in attempting to get to the water point. Forward and back to crush and split the ice when he lost drive. The coupling had failed in a big way. Fortunately, our wonderful alladin's cave of a chandlery at Tooley's had the appropriate coupling. Here is the replacement.

Of course, the price tag was not his only problem. I gave him the good news that fitting the key was a skilled job. The key steel has to be the correct size and a beautiful slide fit (+0.000" to +0.002" fit) in order to transmit the toorque from the engine to the propeller. It is not just a case of wanging up the nuts and tightening up a grub screw!
"Surely you knew that!" came a voice from the next bar table.
My friend, I hope is now looking for a marine engineer to fit the coupling correctly. One thing he did know was that the nyloc nuts are not re-useable. He has a nice colection of sixteen previously owned nuts to confirm previous sorry attempts at making the coupling couple.

Trying to be an ice breaker is turning out to be an expensive occupation

On a Mission

It is very cold! This is the icebreaker coming to Banbury. With much noise of ice cracking and slipping sheet over sheet and higher than normal engine revs, the couple on this boat made their laborious way into the centre this morning. They overcame difficulties of steerage and gave a few boats a glancing blow, hit them all below the waterline with sheets of ice and generally left mayhem in their wake. But they were making progress toward their goal.

I wondered what could be so important that they couldn't save it until a thaw but I didn't get a chance to ask.