Heyford Fields on test, and Ivy on the cover

The February edition of Canal Boat is out, and it has one of my photos on the cover.  It's of Ivy, a self-built boat (and that includes the steelwork), which is the subject of a feature inside.

My second piece is a boat test of a 57 footer by Heyford Fields.

Batteries, and an empty museum

It’s fair to say that we have been struggling a bit with our batteries ever since we set off.  At first we hoped they’d just become a bit lazy while plugged in to shore power over the winter and they they’d buck their ideas up.  But it’s become clear that it was worse than that.  While we were moving each day, they just about coped, but a stationary day, even one like yesterday with masses of solar, and they just weren’t holding their charge.

This morning Adrian was up fairly early, as he was driving down to Weymouth to see his brother, who’s 60 today.  It was then we found there wasn’t even enough power to get the Eberspacher started.  Adrian went off on his long drive as planned, while I tried to figure out what to do.  A ring around of the local boat yards revealed that non keep batteries in stock; some of the car parts places had some that might have worked, but only ever a maximum of two.  So I looked to see what Midland Chandler’s had in stock: plenty for order, but not a huge selection in their shops.  However, Preston Brook had had a delivery yesterday of batteries that would do.  I’d also looked at car hire prices, and found I could get the smallest model from Enterprise for £36 for the day.  I booked online for 10am, and then set out to walk the mile and a half to their base.  It was only when I crossed the Caldon that I realised it was the office just down from the Ivy House lift bridge.  I was given a Ford Focus, which is at least one class up from what I’d booked, and drove up to Preston Brook, which took about 45 minutes.  They helped me load the batteries in the boot, and was back next to our boat at 11.30.

To fit the batteries, I first had to cover the solar panel so it wasn’t producing any charge, and found that putting beach towels over it just wasn’t enough! I ended up laying the wooden engine boards over it, and then it went off.  I also disconnected the solar controller, and shut everything down.  I cable-tied various cables together so I could keep track of what went where, then disconnected the old batteries and replaced them with the new ones.  They were the same size and shape, which helped immensely.  The only photo I took of the whole procedure was the old batteries on the towpath beside the boat, with the white hire car in the Toby Carvery car park, just to show how close I managed to get the car.

I had lunch and located a scrap metal merchant who said they would take the old batteries.  I drove over and weighed them in —100kg — for which I got £35, which virtually covered the hire car cost.  From there I filled up with petrol at Tesco which is by far the cheapest round here, and took the car back.  I’d only had it for about 4 hours.

For my walk back, I went down onto the Caldon towpath, which may not have been the most direct route, but was certainly more pleasant.  I joined the canal near the new flats with the bottle kilns, and then went through Hanley Park, where lots of people were enjoying the sunshine.

At Etruria Junction, I called in to the Industrial Museum, which is only open on a Friday.  The main attraction is the flint and bone mill that will be familiar to anyone who’s been up the Stoke Locks.  It sits just below the top two locks.  The whole place is fascinating.

The museum also seems as if it’s on the verge of failure.  It’s run by volunteers, three of whom were there today, but is only open one day a week, and there are appeals for donations at every turn.  It would be a shame if it was open even less than it is now.

So this was not the day I’d had planned (I’d planned to do the even more fascinating task of re-doing the shower sealant!) but I do feel I’ve achieved something.  We’re already seeing voltages that are higher than we’ve had so far this trip, and hopefully the new batteries will be able to last the night without falling over!

Caldon Cruise: Day 9

Yet another bright sunny morning.  We were away about 9am, and made our way through Milton and towards Stoke-on-Trent.  Many of the bridges are on bends, making them tricky to approach and impossible to see if anything is coming.  This is heading for Bridge 14.

I went and pressed the buttons at Ivy House Lift Bridge, holding up three cars and a pick-up truck in the process.  We waved at a group of school children out for a walk in Hanley Park.  When we got to Planet Lock, Adrian set the lock and then went to the shop across the road to see if he could buy a bottle of milk.  However, the only option they had was four pints of full fat — so he left it.  Meanwhile, a cyclist had offered to close the gate while I went and did the paddles, but then found there was such a big collection of branches in the water he couldn’t actually get the gate closed.  I fished them out with the boat hook, by which time Adrian was bc, empty handed.  The final locks on the canal were the Bedford Street staircase pair.

At the junction, we rejoined the Trent and Mersey, and headed north.  At the Steelite factory, they normally seem to be chucking away loads of rejects when we pass.  Today, all was quiet, even the car park — so maybe they don’t work on a Friday.  Anyway, the skip was already full.

We moored up at Westport Lake, on our own.  After lunch, we walked to the next bridge, crossed it, and went up the hill to the main road, where there’s an Aldi, which had semi-skimmed in reasonable sizes.  There’s also a Screwfix up there and a variety of other shops.  It’s only a short walk, so well worth knowing about.  Later we walked round the lake again, and found ourselves in front of the ice cream van, so it would have been rude not to.

8 miles, 3 locks.  (41 miles, 34 locks)

Pre Crick: Day 4

We were awake and up pretty early, possibly because of the noise of the motorway and the trains. By about 8 o'clock I was making a lemon drizzle tray bake, as I knew we had visitors later. Once that was out of the oven, I walked back up to the broken lock to see what was going on. On the way, I passed a floating crane on the way up, which soon arrived where it was needed.

The problem was that the pin on the bottom of the lock gate was sitting on the cill, and the guys were having trouble lifting it off, and getting it back into its pot. The crane was really only there to support the gate -- it wasn't really big enough to do a full lift. The heavy work was done by a trolley jack and crow bars.

Progress seemed slow, so after a while I headed back. Our visitors, the Herbies, Kath and Neil, who'd dropped in en route from Cropredy to Cambridge, had already arrived -- and we had a great couple of hours catching up with them. We normally see them a lot at Crick, but this year they've moved their boat to Cropredy so won't be at the show.

At lunchtime, news filtered through that the gate was back in place, the CRT staff were fixing it in place, and there would be movement this afternoon. It was about 3pm when the first boats went into the lock; I walked up to the bottom lock with a windlass to help, as had two guys from the camping boat, William, which was much further back in the queue -- including Ryan who's usually on the coal boat, Southern Cross. The procession of boats heading for the lock reminded me of the Heathrow approach flight path.

We were in the fifth locking, sharing with the Mannings on Ivy, the little boat I wrote a feature on a couple of years ago.

After a few locks we started to meet boats coming down. At the lock which had caused the problem, the gate has been wedged into place with struts, and the balance beam has been cut off as it was damaged. It means only one gate is operational on that side.

We got to the top lock in two hours, which isn't bad going in the circumstances. We turned right at Norton Junction onto the Leicester Section; the moorings were quite busy so we carried on to a spot we've used before, near Bridge 3. There's a field of barley opposite, but mostly it's quiet -- you can hear the motorway and trains if you listen for them, but birdsong is the main sound here. Tomorrow we'll go past Crick -- we may have lost most of the time we were expecting to spend up on the summit, but we'll at least get one night there.

3 miles, 7 locks. (23 miles, 14 locks)

 

Shropshire (wind)lass: Day 1

We have a week before our next planned use of the car, so will be exploring the English part of the Llangollen Canal, which means mostly Shropshire.  A bright start to the day, and we got a wash load of towels on the go before setting off.  With the wash part of the cycle done, we prepared to set off only to see a boat coming, then another.  They were the two Chamberlain fuel boats, heading to be docked at Stretton.

It’s very pleasant Cheshire countryside round here.  When we got to the Swanley Locks we found we were following a share boat.  It was the same story at the three Baddiley Locks, although there were also so,e boats coming down.  Because the Llangollen transports water from the River Dee down to Hurleston Reservoir, there are quite fierce bywashes, which often make steering into the locks a bit tricky.  The water pushes the bow over, and when you’ve compensated for that, it pushes the stern over.

One of the boats coming down turned out to be Ivy, a boat built completely by the owner, which I wrote a feature on in 2012, and which gave me a Canal Boat front cover.  After the locks, the obstacles become lift bridges.  The first one, before Wrenbury, is a manual one so a windlass is needed.

Adrian walked on to the electric bridge by the wharf, and signalled to me that there was a boat to come through the other way.  He used his key of power to lift the bridge and the other boat came through first.

Then it was my turn, and by the time I was going through the queue of traffic being held up went right round the corner.  There was also a very large lorry waiting on the other side.

The next lift bridge leads to a garden centre which now has a smart cafe we don’t remember being there before, built from shipping containers.  We might have to go there on the way back.

We had lunch on the move, then went up Marbury Lock, where the village pub has a good sign.

We continued to the moorings just before the next bridge, where there are rings to moor on, and there are plenty of them.  We went for a walk to have a look at Marbury village.  There are some nice old buildings — the one on the left is the pub’s outbuildings, while the house on the right looks very wonky.

We walked to the church, which sits on a bit of a hill overlooking a lake called Big Mere (there’s also a Little Mere in the village).

The village green has a bench encircling a tree trunk, and the Swan pub looks very nice.

We walked back via Marbury Lock, to make it a circular route.  Since we got back it’s been trying to rain, to add to the gusty breeze we’ve been battling most of the day.

The latest episode of my podcast, The Water Road, was out this morning, and I’m delighted by how many more people are listening.  Here are the links for the Foxton episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.

8 miles, 6 locks.