fmc dove

Finishing off bits

2011-06-22T09:17:00.006+01:00

The little bits that make a boat looked lived in always seem to take ages to make, like the rail to hang the oil bottles on. Forgeing the ends flat and bending round, then making the hooks captive round the rail so they don't bounce off

The other thing I got round to is rope work...I've been looking at this for quite a while now, I keep getting various books out, get bluddy frustrated!!! and then put them back again. Anyway, while sat in Pelsall in the rain, I had another bash and made this little mat. Whoopee you might think, like anything else it's easy when you know how.

The thing that really did my head in, was the Crown Senit. I can do a Crown knot, no problem, but there I finish. The books or the animated knot link didn't help at all, I needed somone to show me. It just so happens a friend of ours tied up right behind us knows all about these. So, during a sunny period, we sat on the grass and I had a one to one and finally picked it up. Below is the result?

The other thing I've been looking for, is some toe edging for the steps, tool box edge and the doorway combings. It's only a little thing but it just finishes things off. After talking to a chap at the railway who owns an old bus, he put me on to a company in Walsall that does just what I'm looking for.

Right... next is handles, time to look at some old photos and go snooping round other peoples engine 'oles.
There is something else we need to look at and ask about. That's the Pantry under the back step?

The BCN challenge

2011-06-06T20:58:00.000+01:00

Here we go again, back on the BCN. We left Fradley on Thursday and waddled our way to our starting position for 24 hour challenge, this was the top of Perry Bar locks. Boating on Dove is pretty basic, like it's strip washes every night, so on arrival at Perry Bar to find the showers vandalised by the local bratts which peed me off just a little. After another hand bowl bath we settled down with a couple of beers and watched the sun go down over Birmingham and got some kip ready for the interesting day ahead.

8:00am...Aaaaannnnd we're off, engine started by hand, because the bloody starter motor's knackered again, Down the 13 locks to Salford junction sharp right, through all the mud, coal slurry, mercury, zinc and anything else you can think of.

It was then up the Aston flight of 11 and on to the Old 13 up to Birmingham. going up here there's load of little arms and wharfs, old bridges and this cathedral of brickwork, under the New street station.

At the top, right at the Old turn and on the New Main line. This part is quite well used, so it's nice and clear of debris and it's time to wind it on. Not long before we have to turn off to do the first loop, passed the BW yard with the towering reservoir at the back of it and on passed the now redundant works with the old pipework clinging to the crumbling brick arches of the now boarded up doorways, that once accepted raw materials from the canal.

Back to the Main line and straight across to the Soho Loop, this takes us round through more industrial history and passed the Winson Green Prison, oddly with its own arm?

We're then back on the main line and heading for Smethwick locks, only 3 here then we're on the Old Main line and on our way to Oldbury and a flight of 8 locks where most of the industry was chemicals and tar oil, so you can imagine whats in the canal here...We then bounced our way on to Titford to score an extra 10 point for answering a question. Then turn round and back down again. While on the Old Main line you come across patches of canal that are magnets for rubbish like this!

Usually where there's a School or night time drinking hole where the little darlings gather to spray a 200 year old wall with there illiterate scribble, I could go on!!!

Anyway, we then turn really sharp left and down the Spon Lane 3 and back on the New Main line, are you following this? At the bottom we exit the lock and come to a grinding halt! we're on the mud, and it's black with metallic bits in it, very pretty colours and it keeps the weed down. After a flushing session with a couple of lock fulls, rocking, rolling pulling and tugging, and not much movement, only from my bottom and not the boats. The only thing left to try, was to push the Bow to the bank then push it back as hard as I could to get Stern end to move out. After another bowel movement from me and some thrust from the prop we were finally moving again. But not for long, soon pick up a black bag along with various bits and bobs attached to it. Having no weed hatch this is the only way, on yer belly across the counter, pulling and riving with the shaft.

This picture should have been earlier, it's at Titford pool.

After turning right at Pudding Green junction and and then down Ryders green locks also known as the "gray-si-ait" according to the locals ( Thanks Blossom is that spelt right?) Due to the fact they were covered in grease from the industrial fallout. After a little episode with some lads from BW and tyre stuck in the paddle of lock 5, we were soon turning right again on the Tame Valley (here play theme to Jaws) you don't know what's under there!

It's not long before we found out. While tucking into my tea on the slide the engine suddenly stopped and so did the boat! Now, being stuck on the Tame Valley at 9:30 at night is not the best situation.

The problem soon showed itself, a metal sprung double mattress that was now wrapped round our blade and still attached to the bottom of the canal. After pulling and tugging for a good half an hour I finally found an end, now Andrea had to hand crack the engine while in reverse gear while I pulled and as luck would have it, it all unravelled. We couldn't drag it out, so it's still there, lurking in the depths.

Cruising resumed, now in the dark, well at the least the local mobsters couldn't see us. so we did the Tame Valley missile free. The only thing we had to watch out for were the Gauging Islands and the narrows. Turning left next and up the Rushall Locks. This was a right slog. It wasn't until we shone the torch we found we were going through what looked like a marsh full of Water Lillys. By the time we got to the top of the flight it was gone midnight. We stuck the boat in a load of weed and went to bed for a while.

About 4am we were up and digging our way out of the weed. From here it was a steady plod all the way to Walsall town arm where we arrived just after 12 noon. We then sat and watched all the other happy people come in.

If you like adventure boating do the BCN.

80 Locks

40 miles

24 hours

2 crew

70'6" boat 36" draught

Some new bits

2011-05-18T22:56:00.001+01:00

Now the main restoration of Dove is nearly at an end we have been putting the finishing touches to the engine 'ole and making access a little easier. First a set of steps.

Also a tool box to get rid of my spanners etc. that rattle and vibrate all over the floor. This also doubles as a step. To finish off the steps and tool box I have sourced some steel tread that was used on the old bus and lorry cab steps and they're only in Walsall.

You note that I've been splashing some paint about, the bottom sides of the engine 'ole is now green

bit brighter than black don't you think.

Another job that needed doing was the day tank level gauge and the fuel filler pipe needed redoing.

Now the next bit, is it a Pigeon box or, is it a biscuit tin? For a while now, we've been running round with a bodged box on the cabin top. Time to make a proper ventilator now the summer is here and the air cooled engine is getting rather warm.

I'm back

2011-05-06T20:38:00.000+01:00

Due to a blip in the new and improved blog system and, my computer not getting on. The last post has just gone on line.

I will now try to catch up with all the events etc.

The Docking

2011-05-06T20:33:00.000+01:00

As usual, we're on the last push. A week before we go to the port we're in the dock. It's been two years since the last docking so I thought we better have a knock round and a spot of blacking splodged on. Nothing seems to have deteriorated much except for the Shoe plate that's had a battering after being grounded several times round the BCN.

While we were in the dock I took advantage and finished the cabin sides with a couple of coats of shiny off white paint and touched up the black. Then on Saturday morning Jim turned up to do the lettering.Saturday afternoon I put on the cotton strings and that's about it, Sunday morning we're off to Ellesmere Port.

The Cratch

2011-03-19T18:00:00.003Z

A while ago, well two years ago actually. Doesn't time fly! I made a Deck board and Cratch so we could get some sheets on, just keep the weather out. After my efforts were scrutinized and basically pulled to pieces by them that know. I took advice from the same and had a second and may I say, last bash. Below is the final result barring a coat of paint.
Its all turned out a weird shape, we'll see what it's like with the cloths on.

I've had to reshape the Deck board to suit the new cappings and make new False cratch

The top plank, for reasons I cannot see, have wedges fixed on either side, tapering out from the false cratch towards the deck board, then the Top plank is dove tailed into the deck board

All this work will be soon covered up with cloths and white strings, never to be seen again. This seems to be the thing with old boats, you do a load of work that nobody ever sees.

The sun is out...

2011-03-17T19:57:00.002Z

and so am I. Had a very pleasant day making and fitting new capping's at the front end.
For quite a while, I've wanted to replace the capping's at the front of Dove. The first ones I made were not very good and soon split and looked a bit tatty.

I recently found a supplier of green oak, just up the road as it happens! He gets full trees in and will cut to size. Why didn't I know about the place before?

Working with green oak is a new experience for me, it's a good job all my power tools are industrial, I don't think regular DIY tools would cope.

After all the faffing about last time, steaming and pulling and riving the timber round compound curves. This time I decided to buy wide planks and just bend one way then cut to shape and put up with the waste. Sounds easy doesn't it, well...it was. You thought I was going to give you a list of cock ups then, didn't you. The only thing that did happen is, I dropped a plank in the cut. Not too concerned at first, then the bloody thing sank. What!!!! I fished around for a while but couldn't find it. I finally had to go and get "Rigsby" that's the Fradley dingy and go hunting further a field. I eventually found it yards away from where it went in. From now on it had a line tied round it until bolted in positions. I didn't know that green oak sank, you learn something new every day.

No oil painting

2011-03-07T20:19:00.002Z

With the cabin side rails being of Oriko, a very oily wood, painting seems to be an annual task. After taking advice from Jim off Chertsey this could be the last time for a while, fingers crossed!
Jim recommended washing down with an Acetone base fluid immediately before applying a Sikkens special primer.
After hours of rubbing down then cleaning with acetone base panel wipe I applied a coat of the primer. It's like painting on glue, but you could see it soaking into the grain, unlike the other stuff that just sat there then peeled off.

After a second coat it looks more like a good base for further coats of under coat and top coat. We will see!

Been here before

2011-01-30T20:50:00.003Z

Well you'll be pleased to hear I got the motor running ok, after clouds of black smoke and lots of fuel priming it finally set off. A bit lumpy to start with but when it warmed up it all smoothed out. Pumped some diesel in the day tank today and looks a bit aqueous, might have to do a little tank draining. This could be the root of my problems.
On to today's job and as the title suggests, I've been here before. Last year the boarder paint came off with water ingress and the frost. It did it again this year!
This time I thought I'd get vicious and get the blow lamp out and burn the lot off.

As soon as the blow lamp got close to the paint it started to bubble up and fry. Yes fry, spitting and cracking. The only thing I can put it down to is the oil in the wood. Iroko is very oily wood apprently and this must be the reaction. I just hope now I've scorched it a bit the paint just might take this time.

Bad start to the year

2011-01-23T20:42:00.002Z

Not the start I was looking for, in fact, it didn't start at all. Now the ice as gone and the temperature is back in the plus numbers I thought I'd give Dove's motor a turn. After flattening the batteries and burning out the starter motor, I decided to look elsewhere for the problem. First choice, injectors. took them out, had a look, not very good so took them to a friend of a friend. They were sorted in a couple days and only a tenner each too. The starter motor was a different story though, complete re-build £165!!!!plus VAT!!!!! This is definitely not a good start to the year.
After re-fitting all the bits, still no go, so what now? The only thing left is compression. After removing the air intake and turning the engine over, I noticed smoke coming from the intake valve, that means more valve grinding. I've only just done Achilles, I hate valve grinding.
On removing the heads it wasn't that bad with carbon but valve seats aren't too clever, quite a bit of pitting. Yesterday I spent a full day valve grinding and today re-assembled everything. The head gaskets are made from 10 thou copper sheet, these have to be annealed, very carefully I might say. If I melted these it would have really made my day.

After the re-assembly and priming the fuel system it's time to push the button....nothing, blast or words to that effect.
WHAT NOW!!!!

The Robin

2010-12-07T20:53:00.003Z

Well the Robin turned up, must have got breakfast down the cafe.
later we went for a walk to see what was happening, got some cracking pictures of frosty trees with sun shining through.

and BW breaking ice the easy way, get rid of the water, I bet that was noisy when it collapsed

Frosteeeeee!

2010-12-07T12:04:00.002Z

Still can't get motivated, I'm afraid my joints just don't work in sub-zero conditions.
The frost this morning was quite dramatic and canal is now completely solid, we don't even rock about now.
The frost is now growing like a fungus, everything is just white, never seen my strings that white.

It's that cold our Robin hasn't been for breakfast yet!

Winter Brrrrrr

2010-12-01T20:42:00.004Z

I see Chertsey has had a rethink on winter, well, I haven't.
We planned to have an outing today with a friend of ours, but as you can see the canal has gone rather hard

We don't seem to have had as much snow as everybody else but it's bloody cold, so all stoves fired up.

I'm supposed to be doing some work on Dove but I just can't get motivated, I'll try again tomorrow.

1945

2010-11-08T19:41:00.003Z

While in Gas Street last night I was having a tour round Google Earth and found that the time clock allowed me to go back to 1945.
You can see clearly the duplicated locks at Smethwick. After hunting round I found quite a few canals that are no longer here, such as, the Toll End, the canal that extended out from the Cambrian Wharf and lots of arms now filled in.
The other interesting place to visit in 1945 is London, seeing all the docks full of ships.

The bonfire and loop the loop

2010-11-07T15:13:00.003Z

After a couple of days on the arm with a few boats about and the beer tent to ourselves virtually, things started to happen on Saturday morning, boats arriving from all directions, lighting masts going up and the bonfire being built. It was all hands on deck for the transportation of pallets and various lumps of wood from the arm to the lock side at Smethwick top lock. About 4:00 bonfire was completed then guarded to stop the local numpties putting light to it. We sneaked off for pint in the tent, then Andrea had to do her stint in the Burger bar and I went to get scrubbed up. 7:30 the blue touch paper was lit and up she went, then followed a superb firework display. I tried taking photos and video but it was impossible trying to keep track of it all.
We finished the night off in you know where... and drank them dry.
Sunday morning we wandered down to help pack everything away but when we got there, it was all done. Don't know what time they all got up, must have been bright and early.
After a few had moved out of the arm we then set off. Only going to Gas Street and all day to do it in, we went for a BCN tour, we haven't done this for a while. So following the old way into Brum doing all the loops. First we headed off down Spon Lane Locks, turning left at the bottom in the mud and 100 years of industrial sludge. Next left turn into Soho loop passed the prison. A lot of the industry has gone from this area being replaced with park land and houses. However, towards the end of the loop there are one or two bits left. Like this...
and this...

oh! and this

Crossing the main line and into Icknield port loop, bringing back memories of my pipefitting days with the steam and condensate mains on the wall complete with expansion loops, wonderful stuff.

Passing the reservoir and the BW yard and then passed all the dereliction and back onto the main line then just a short way to Gas Street.

A bit more BCN

2010-11-05T16:56:00.004Z

Just thought I'd take a few more pictures...
This is looking down from the Engine Arm.

Looking at what industries were round here at one time you wouldn't want to fall in here. There is one thing, weed and reeds can't grow here.

At the top of the Smethwick locks there's a board hiding in the bushes giving the history of the place, makes good reading. The picture shows the duplicated locks and if you dig around in the grass you'll find remnants of lock brickwork still there.

This link is full of all sorts of stuff about the area, it's a bit hard to follow. There are 8 sections on the industrial canals.

http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/OtherTrades/BCN/BCNindustry.htm

Blue brick, cast iron and rivets

2010-11-04T18:03:00.007Z

Leaving Merryhill this morning and we're back in the land of blue brick, cast iron and rivets, all the stuff of the Black Country Canals.

The thing about the BCN, is all the now unused bits that makes you wonder what it was like in 1925, when Dove was brand new and doing it's first runs through Birmingham to Preston Brook.

When all the arms busy with boats and Bridges busy with rail traffic even if it was the GWR

Canals passing over canals and toll islands at every junction

Going up Factory locks where the bottom gates are single and the cast iron foot bridge has the tow line gap at the side.

On the way round to the Engine Arm we called for a pint or two at Glass and Bottle in the Black Country Museum and very nice it was too.

Up the Engine Arm you'll find the proper BCN, the backside of Birmingham, where not a lot has changed.

The water is black with shiny bits in it, the buildings are well used and full of history. They have bits of ironmongery bolted on the walls that used to serve some purpose at some time, but now redundant and rusting away, leaving you guessing as to their use.

There are Bridges made wider using riveted iron section supporting blue brick work to accommodate the industrial growth of the day.

We're now tied up opposite this building, which is still working by the way.

As far as I'm concerned, this is real boating, not poncing about on the posh bits, this is where it all started, the industrial heart of England, moving manufactured goods and raw materials by boat.
Use it or lose it

What a grand day

2010-11-03T20:22:00.005Z

We left Kinver this morning, a little late, but no matter, we're only going to Merryhill to team up with a friend of ours.
Soon up Stewponey lock and turning right up Stourton locks. I think it was the third lock up where the tow path changes sides across this little bridge. The railings look as if they were designed to catch the tow line and drop it through the slot in the bridge.
In this picture you can see where the cotton tow line has cut it's way through the cast iron. This explains why some of the cantilever brackets on other bridges have disappeared, the cotton line has cut right through.

As we motored on to the bottom of Stourbridge locks we past a little boat yard and sat on the side was Helen, a Leonard Leigh tug. The shape and depth of hull really caught my eye and would love to have a closer look one day. Sorry rivet counting.

On the way up Stourbridge I'm pleased to see this building still standing. However, not to my surprise it has been on fire and looks ready for demolition. Funny how many buildings go through this phase so developers can build new houses instead of renovating a perfectly good building.

Going up passed Dadfords yard, I like this clever piece of engineering. The locks look like a staircase but there is a pound between them, it's behind the house and tunneled into the gap between the gates

On reaching the Delph, a friend of ours joined us to do a bit of locking. At the top the weather turned a bit damp, rain coats back on for the last bit.

The funny thing about our friend, his boat is called Hector, who wasn't that friendly with Achilles. All we need now is a boat called Paris, then we better watch our heel.

Achilles and Hector laying side by side at Merryhill, we've never stopped here before, nice spot.

What a cock up

2010-11-02T20:14:00.004Z

All set for a blast down the river this morning, but as we're going down the locks a BW chap comes along asking if we're booked to go on the river? Didn't know we had to says I. Apparently in winter season you have to book a passage through the river locks. So BW chap gives us the number to ring. I ring the number and in true BW fashion I get an answer machine and another number to ring and then another answer machine. So I leave a message stating name, number and where we are, thinking the chap on the other end just might be busy! well you never know.
We waited in the the lock a while then set off down the river. About 15 minutes later we're approching the lock, there's another boat waiting on the moorings, as we get closer we see the crew all fishing and waving at us to go back, I don't think so! On pulling along side, it's a Canal Time boat waiting to go through the lock. They tell us they have to wait two days, the locks closed. So the first photo of the day is Achilles going back up the locks to Stourport.
Plan "B". We'll go up Stourbridge and the Delph spend some time at the Black Contry Museum. So today we just re-traced our steps and had an early stop at Kinver.
But on the way I spotted one or two things that puzzled me, first, why would they build stone steps into a wall you can walk round?

When they cut through the rock why did they leave the little lump on the right?

And what's the hole for, looking at the opening it used to have a door frame set in it. Inside it opens up into quite a large room. It 's on the off side with only foot access.

To the BCN Bonfire...

2010-11-01T16:55:00.004Z

...via Worcester? Well, you know us by now, we can't do anything straight forward. We haven't been down this end for about six years, so we thought we'd make a bit of a detour and do the Stourport ring. Just see if anything had changed.
We set off Saturday morning in no great rush to get to Penkridge for the night. It was a bit of a bland day, nothing much happened. To quote young Albert "there were no ship wrecks and nobody drowned, in fact nothing to laugh at all".
Sunday, got up nice and early thanks to GMT. On the way up through Gailey the trees are now taking on that rusty iron look, at lot more pleasing than green.

After Gailey, we're on the summit pound and the twists and turns, like at Coven, are no problem now we're on Achilles, it handles like a toy compared with Dove, so if you do have a senior moment or a brain fart, call it what you will, you're soon back on track and not up the bank.
While travelling this section there seams to be a lot of maggot downers, is it the start of the fishing season? I've never seen so many happy smiling faces.
On the down hill side, the canal seams to have a different flavour, as in lock bits, like the little foot bridges. The one pictured below is of cast iron section and one single span and unusually with no gap for the tow line to slot through. Most of the others have the slot or the remnants of.

Passing through Bratch and Wombourn and the very deep Botterham staircase and stopping at the top side of Hinksford lock.

Waking next morning and it's November. And looking out of the hatch it certainly is, Trees covered in browns and yellows wrapped in a fog, damp and cold, in the distance a lock, ghostly and gray. After a pot of tea things start to look a little better and we set off. Soon passing Greens Forge and into the quiet of the woods, you could be anywhere, turn the corner to Gothersley lock and you're reminded by the bloody graffiti that you're not far from the Stourbridge brainless brats. This part of the canal must have been the hardest to build due to the solid rock it has to go through. The canal in parts, is a stone trough carved in the hillside and must have been sole destroying for the men on the ground.

Arriving at Kidderminster and looking at picture below, you'd think what a wonderful place to stop...This is where a friend of ours was arrased by a group of fourteen year old brats at 4:00am and then attacked. On passing through I did notice a lack of boats tied up.

Back on the foot bridge theme, here's the one at Kidderminster lock complete with slot and line guards. It's been modernised some what but the main bits are still there.

Passing through Kidderminster I was glad to see this old mill building still standing and being used. I was going to take another photo of the other side but, I was gob smacked to see Debenhams had stuck a glass carbuncle on the front, are these architects blind or just daft.

Yet another bridge, sorry. But I really like this one

The last bridge of the day, shame there's no steam loco on it.

We're now tied up at Stourport, River Severn tomorrow.

On the Jam'ole

2010-10-25T11:19:00.007+01:00

Sunday morning 4:30am, Yaaaaawn...Breakfast...Light the oil lamp so I can see the engine and surprisingly it started. It's a bit like me, it don't like frosty mornings. Anyway, we set off and it looks like we're leading the pack. But in the first bridge 'ole the blade grabs something, we lose all steering and head for the green stuff, we've got Victoria up our backside with no brakes, I slaps into reverse then back into forward before Victoria smacks us one. From the off I was having problems, I just couldn't get going, so at Hartshill I had to pull in and let the others pass while I tried to clear the blade. We finally got on the way but it's still not right but we were making progress. As the sun came up as we passed the bottom of the Ashby and on the long straight down to Charity Dock, there was sign of the others.

We tried to crack on best we could and caught up with the chaos at "Sutton's Stop" it was total mayhem, boats everywhere.

Just as it was our turn through the lock, a boat came the other way so that put us back again. By this time Ling had caught us up and proceeded to chase us, in the end I had to let them pass, it was obvious they had to be somewhere quicker than us. However, we caught them up again at Hillmorton locks but due to one lock being busted, again! progress was slow with other boats coming down. It wasn't long before we bumped into them again, just before Braunston due to a cow taking a bath in the cut. This caused a lot of confusion and we finished up back in the middle of the pack.

At Braunston Locks we paired up with Renfrew

We blasted through the tunnel and it wasn't long before a plate of stew and dunking bread came out of the hatch. This is not unusual, I regularly have my tea on the slide. When we arrived at the top of Buckby locks we let Archimedes go with Renfrew, they had no grub and had to get to the pub and we went down on our own. It was now going dark and was a bit lonely, just me on the bank and Andrea steering. We arrived at Weedon about 8:30ish tied up and met the others in the pub.
Monday, 4:30am, again! trying to keep up and being chased by the Grand Union greyhounds round all the tight bends. Thrashing through Blisworth tunnel and on to Stoke locks. Here we paired with Stanton, what a cracking boat, the pride of the fleet. Andrea was steering and I went on to set the locks. At the third lock down I receive a message, Andrea has fell in, bottom over bussom, straight in the lock. My first thought was, I wonder if she checked the blade while she was down there. (joke sorry) She was dragged out by two gentlemen and nothing hurt, only pride.

We all re-grouped at the bottom of Stoke locks to take on water and take off...you know what. Pressing on to Cosgrove and now at the lowest point of the canal where it wiggles through Wolverton and Milton Keynes. Here the canal is very shallow and at this time of year, just make it worse, full of leaves. With a boat as deep as ours you are forever dropping into reverse to clear the blade and getting round some of the bends is damn near impossible. Soon at Fenny Stratford and we rise 13 inches, lot of effort for little height. Next is Stoke Hamond Lock then the Soulbury Three Locks. This is where we start to get hold ups, with hire boats freshly out of Wyvern Shipping not knowing exactly what to do with these windy up thingies and these swingy gate things. through Leighton Buzzard lock and just Grove Lock in the dark and stop for the night.

Tuesday, 4:00am there's a funny ringing noise in my ear, then an elbow in my ribs, is it time to go again? We left Grove surrounded by the stars, Orion very clear and the plough stood on end. First lock of the day wasn't far, Church Lock and we paired with Mike on Victoria, Andrea steered the boat in and came to an abrupt halt when something grabbed the blade, she slowly floated in. At the top I got to work with the shaft, I hooked something but it took two of us to yank off, it was a coil of barbed wire with a rope fender tangled in it.

By the time we got to Marsworth it was light. I went on ahead setting the locks and Andrea steering. At the top I stood and watched Dove and Victoria hugging each other across the pound and into the lock, not bang or a scrape, what a sight and no video camera on me, damn.

Across the Tring summit and on to Cowroast, where we start the long descent through Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead to Rickmansworth.

This is where the bikes came out, Victoria's crew, Julie, on a fold up electric model and me...

...on our 1956 model which got me the nick name "ET". Thanks Andrea. On the way we came across BW jobsworth who took exception to us using Thumb lines, 10mm cotton line is going to bend 1 inch solid bar and 5/8ths bolts, I don't think so! We told him to go and talk to the bloke on the boat in front, Ron Withy!

At Apsley Basin, Victoria picked up Ara and we went on with Mike's dad and Ron Withy on Kissmet.

This was good for me as Ron worked this area on his parents boats and later, with British Waterways, so it was quite an education. We worked on down to Ricky in the dark and the rain, not a pleasant experience. Finally arriving at 8:00pm, a long hard day.

Leaving Ricky at 7:00am and arriving at Cowley in brilliant sunshine ready to go en mass to Bulls Bridge

Boats all together at Cowley, Renfrew, Dove, Victoria, Stanton, Archimedes+Ara, Corona

At Bulls Bridge we had time to re-stock the food cupboard and tidy the boats. With Dove now fully clothed, the best way to get from one end to the other is by way of the top plank, probably not the safest especially when someone rocks the boat.

Here's the bow line up at Bulls Bridge, Purton joined us here but not pictured.

We then moved on to where the Jam 'ole used to be 40 years ago, coal delivered, speech made, flowers placed and champers drunk.

Then on to Willowtree Marina for the night. A meal was on the books for us all here thanks to Braunston Marina. However, packet soup, Pukka pie, frozen veg and oven chips all cooked by master chef "Ber Ding" wasn't my idea of a nice meal especially when gravy had to be asked for.

A couple of pints then off to bed, early start tomorrow.

4:00am soon comes round and it's time for off to re-trace our steps back to Braunston. This was the longest day and when you're paired with a boat that's in no rush it got even longer. We were heading for Bulbourn that night but due to several groundings in shallow pounds and prop fowlings, time drifted on and we only made Cowroast by 9:00pm. A 5:00am start saw us in the lead and paired with Stanton, after a frosty start the sun came out and the girls took the tillers

I think it was Church Lock we were met by photographers and they appeared at every bridge and lock all the way to the Soulbury Three. I'm used to having festoons of photographers on the railway, but never on the canal. On reaching Milton Keynes the trouble started, evey bridge 'ole we picked something up and finally had to pull in to have a ferkel round the blade. I found a load of that red white barrier tape wrapped round the shoe plate support bar. After that we soon caught the others up ready to ascend the Stoke Locks and some how, still paired with Stanton.

By the time we got to the locks it was dark, Victoria and Kismet were in front and Renfrew and Corona were somewhere behind. We didn't bother breasting up but boats stuck together all the way up and our team of four worked very well together. Once again we had tea on the move so on reaching the top it was quick wash then pub.

7:00am, the last hop to Braunston paired with Victoria arriving at 5ish and finished the trip with a meal and a few pints in the Plough.

The next morning we said our goodby's set off back to Fradley. We've really enjoyed the trip and would do another, but not for a while.

Next trip, Stourport ring on Achilles

Top of Atherstone

2010-10-16T15:06:00.002+01:00

Arrived at the top of Atherstone about 10:30 this morning. Rothens coal yard is now closed and empty so I thought I'd better take a photo, before the local little darlings wreck it, as...
with this one at other side of the bridge!

The photo above was actually to show off the new cloths and strings I fitted last night. I've being trying different string material over the passed few months and to get the propper effect, so I've gone for natural fibre, and finally went for Hemp. Synthetic fibre doesn't grip very well so you can't do up the strings as demonstrated in the Bill and Joe film linked earlier. However, Hemp shrinks like buggery when wet, so this morning you could play a tune on the side of the boat, they were that tight the planks were bending. Also, there is another bad thing... it stinks like a dried cow pat. So it is a little antisocial.

We're now having a relaxing afternoon ready for the 4:30 set off in the morning.

KWVR 2010 gala 957 coming into Haworth

2010-10-15T19:49:00.001+01:00

I forgot this, me playing trains last weekend. Andrea filming, me fireing this old L&Y loco

Clothed up

2010-10-15T18:50:00.005+01:00

Wednesday I had a free day, so I got stuck into fitting the last cross plank and stand. Due to the cross chain eyes being removed some years ago and replaced with new rivets, I had to drill and tap a 16mm hole to accommodate the new threaded eye. The problem is, the mag drill won't work on uneven surfaces, so, it had to be the hand drill, not the easiest of tasks. After a long hunt for the plank brackets I made ages ago and with a slight alteration to make them fit round a jointing angle in the gunwhale these were soon fitted and the plank slotted in. Next the hole for the Stand, with the stand being tapered It's a bit tricky getting the hole the right size so the stand reaches the floor but doesn't wobble about in the hole.
Thursday morning we set off to Atherstone to meet the Jam 'oler's, we're in no rush so we just made for Alvecote. While there we dropped of a mast case for a friend of ours and popped in the Sam Barlow for a pint, and very nice it was too. Some other friends were heading this way so we decided to make a night of it.
Friday we headed off up to Lock 8 on the Atherstone flight, where we could use the generator and power tools without upsetting anybody. Here I got on with making the top planks and then fit the rest of the cloths on.
All the planks, props and the stand now need painting, this will be done on our return

By the time I'd made the strings and got them all fitted, it was going dark so this is the best photo I could take for now.

The last hop

2010-10-06T09:27:00.002+01:00

We left Birmingham about 8:00am and wandered down Farmers Bridge then Aston, we had the locks all to ourselves, soon got into a routine and the wander turned into a trot, just can't help myself.
At Salford junction, Andrea still steering and made the junction in one, don't you just hate clever sods. Every time I do it, it's teaming down with rain, windy or I just have a brain fart.
Nothing much happened the rest of the way, just the regular run we've done many times before.
We were going to stop at Fazeley for the night but it was a fine evening so we decided to crack on to Fradley. However, while going through Hopwas wood we came across Monarch and friends and finished up in the Hopwas Social Club and very nice it was to, good choice of beers and very friendly, recommended.
On our way back to fradley now after very good trip out.
Get ready for the next outing now...The Jam 'ole...For thous that don't know what it entails It's a re-enactment of the last coal run to Kealy and Tongs jam factory in Southall, London. Leaving Braunston on Saturday morning, running to Atherstone then back to Braunston and then on down the GU to Southall, have a pint or two then, back to Braunston.
I'll let you know how we get on!

Braunston to Brum

2010-10-04T19:32:00.005+01:00

After meeting the Gang, I say gang, it was more like a troupe, there was two boat loads. We motored on to the top of Stockton locks. On the way we came across Dragon, this is Doves sister ship, so to speak, they both came out of Yarwoods together, January 1925.
On arrival at Stockton, the first port of call, the pub. It was littered with mums, dads and brats so we had a couple then off to eat on the boat. On our second visit to the pub someone pointed out a photo on the wall, it was a nice black and white of me steering Dove, ah...fame at last. Then it was noted it was for sale, 35 quid!!! The profiteering buggers, we do all the work somebody takes a photo and makes a load of money. If anybody wants a photo of Dove I'll give you one for free.
The next day we're all up at first light and off down the locks. The weather was absolutely crap so after the down hill bit and the two Cape locks we had a dinner time session in the Cape of Good Hope and got wet on inside too. Now refreshed we attacked the big hill, by this time a young couple on a Viking adrift hire boat had teamed up with us, little did they know what was in store. We got all four boats up Hatton in two hours fifteen minuets, not bad in the wind and rain. We got to Kingswood junction that night. This is where we part company with the gang, so a drink in the Navigation then in the morning we're off up the Lapworth flight to Brum. We woke to quite a nice day and set off about 8:00, we're in no big rush now so it was gentle morning plodding from lock to lock, loads of water and easy gates. Autumn is now here and the leaves are turning into yellows and browns and falling in the cut and fouling the blade. Bet you thought I was going to all poetic then, didn't you, sorry no, not me.

The run from the top lock to the Guillotine lock was better than expected, only touched the bottom a couple of times. The sun is shinning and we're down to Tee shirts now. At Kings Norton junction we hit the black mud and it took me one or two shuffles to get round. I was expecting plenty of water on this part of the run, but how wrong I was, we dragged the bottom all the way and bounced through quite a few bridge holes.
Going round the turn towards Worcester bar Andrea spots a sign..."Security Barrier ahead" It's the Conservative Party Conference and the top man's here. When we get to the floating barrier, we're stopped by a police man asking "What you carrying then" I says "nuclear waste" Policeman smiles. Next thing. we've got two armed policemen on board escorting us through the secure area and we got some funny looks from people as we went through.

Now tied up just outside Sherbourn wharf, Farmers Bridge tomorrow then home.

Dove's off again

2010-09-30T19:51:00.003+01:00

Well, we're of again on our travels. At the moment we're tied up four locks up the Atherstone flight, stood on counter, drinking beer and train spotting, how sad does it get. (ar gerts idea, not mine, she's into heavy freight).
We're going to Braunston to meet up with some bods from the railway to do the Warwickshire ring. More on Saturday and some pictures.

A bit of Gardnering

2010-09-28T13:03:00.003+01:00

Sorry about the title, couldn't resist it.
We finally got round to removing the 4L2 out of the hold, trying to make some space for other things. A friend of ours just happened to have an Hi-hab to hand over the weekend while we were visiting so, we thought we'd make use of it.
A very useful tool when lifting nearly 2 tons of motor out of a hole. It took me longer to take the sheets off than to lift it out, all done in a jiffy.

The engine is now for sale, anybody interested.

The last bit

2010-09-15T14:50:00.002+01:00

Due to our groundings yesterday, at just before bridge 75 and more so at Rodbaston lock for one and a half hours then at Otherton lock, made us late for a call at Midland Chandlers for a few odds and ends. So it was a late start this morning, 9:00am and hoping for a better day. Down and out of Park gate lock but it's not long before we're scraping the bottom and we could see the level dropping. About half way on the pound and we're on the bottom smack in the middle of the cut and the counter's about six inches out of the water, no point in polling or anything, just wait for the level to come back up. After ten minuets or so the level came up a little due to an ex-Canal time boat coming down Park gate lock. On passing they agreed to give us a pull and while doing so the level came up further and we were off. As we motored on we could see piles of spot dredgings where we normally have problems which are now clear, well done BW, now just fix the gates and we'll be away.
It was plain sailing all the way to Great Haywood in the wind and the rain. On the approach to the junction the wind was getting stronger and in the wrong direction for me to make the turn. Well, with the Cratch up acting like a bluddy great kite it was was obvious what was going to happen, yep, you guessed it, round the turn and straight into the reeds. At that point, you talk about luck, some friends of ours with a JP2 power plant in the engine room came popping along and chucked us a line and dragged us out. We had to go right back to the bridge before the kite lost the wind and we could get back in the middle of the cut, then full chat forward passed the junction and into the cover of the trees. After that, the wind seemed to drop and we had no more mishaps for the rest of the way. Stopping for fish 'n' chips at Handsacre which were very nice, we arrived back at Fradley about 7:00 and the first decent shower for a fortnight.

Windmill End

2010-09-13T19:39:00.006+01:00

On the Friday before all the festivities James the steerer of Marquis, decided to have a jolly outing through Gosty tunnel to Hawne basin and back. This took us passed the site of Stewart and Lloyds, the holy grail to pipefitters.
We didn't get very far before the bottom of the BCN grabbed the blade and wrapped it in cable sheathing and various items of clothing so, someone had to go in, well done Joe.

We finally got on the way, soon looking at the derelict buildings of Coombswood industrial past and the very odd tunnel design, we decided that the tunnel roof was so high to accommodate the funnel of the steam tug. Correct us if we're wrong.

For the rest of the weekend we were surrounded by historic boats, beer and good friends. Also this year, some new friends, Chertsey and Minnow. There was the usual crowd as well, the ones that sit quiet and drink, the ones that talk endlessly ( Chertsey only had him one night) and the ones that make a total arse of themselves. It's all good fun and very entertaining.

One of the regulars to the event had a problem with his gearbox and asked if we could give him a tow when we left, so at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon we set off with The Gerald in tow. This boat was one of Stewart and Lloyds tube boats now converted to a cabin boat and very heavy as we soon found out.

What with the weight of the boat and the weed, our little AS2 was thrashing it's little nuts off. But once in clear water it was off like a good'n'. We stayed the night in the BW hole at the top of the 21, then set off down the locks at 7am Gerald went down first with some hired help and we followed and couldn't resist some more bridge spotting

Railway bridges cross at different levels. Note the viaduct has a skew arch over the canal. The red and white bridge behind is made from laminated riveted plates, lovely peice of work.

This viaduct is lower down the flight and again a skew arch over the canal but somewhat higher

At the bottom of the 21 we picked up The Gerald and towed him to Autherly Junction and there we left him.

We're now at Teddersley for the night and shattered after being grounded several times. Hope we have a better day tomorow.

Bent copper

2010-09-10T10:44:00.004+01:00

As promised, more bridges. These are the bridges are at Windmill End and are a single cast span by Toll End foundry unlike the Horseley type on the main line.
Here we are tied up near Bumble Hole bridge. The reason for coming to Windmill End early, was to re-pipe an engine for a Friend of ours. He has a Lister HRW2 that was piped up with bits and bobs of soldered and compression fittings and he wanted me to smarten it up.

The pipework in boat engine rooms is one thing that puts me on my soap box. People who install a nice vintage engine then festoon it with domestic plumbing and yellow handled ball valves really get on my nerves and should have their engine room doors welded up. It doesn't take much to do it as it should be, when you've spent £xxxx why scrimp on the installation. Mind you a lot of boat yards don't have the skill nor the inclination to do a proper job.

As you can see, all the pipes are bent, no elbows, which are flow restrictors and of course potential leaks. All couplings are heavy duty LG4 brass and silver soldered.

Back on the BCN

2010-09-07T20:37:00.006+01:00

Got to Curdworth last night in the pouring rain, wind and dark, what a day. We had the company of Swallow, the Cowburn boat with David Lowe steering, until Fazeley.
We left Curdworth at 6:00 this morning ready to attack the climb into Brum. The usual problems going up Curdworth, low water and bottom gate on lock 2, it doesn't open fully back so it's a pain in the arse to get in. Minworth was the same except for a sunken boat in the middle of the cut, just managed to get round it. Then came Aston, Andrea had to run water down every pound, even when the pounds were nearly full I was still bouncing about on scrap metal and bricks. The photo below is of one of the side pounds
Next came Farmers Bridge Locks, surprise, everything was great, we flew up. Even had time to spot this little gem of old Birmingham trapped between two modern Lego type structures.

This is what I like about the BCN, the industrial bits. It's a shame it's all disappearing.

While motoring down the New Main line I thought I'd do a bit of bridge spotting, how sad can it get. If you look at the photo above there's one of the most common bridges on BCN, these are of cast iron and in sections. The one below shows the Engine arm aqueduct, this is a real fancy piece of work, I can't see how it's constructed, must have a closer look one day.

The next shot is of Galton bridge through the railway arch with the bottom summit tunnel in back ground

It's now throwing it down with rain and I'm trying to hold the camera, brolly and the tiller. This is a concrete affair that seams to be falling down. It's steel clamps holding it together, obviously not a success.

I thought this was interesting, the stone arch joining the now derelict buildings to the railway, with the Old main line aqueduct twin arch in the distance and topped with the M5 monstrosity

This is the bottom of Spon Lane locks showing more cast iron tow path bridges, I think when horses were used you really had to know your way about.

Remnants of the industrial past, factory closed, wharf choked with weed. Shame!

Pudding Green Jct. with it's riveted lattis work bridge. I wounder why it's different to all the others.

Right, that's the bridge spotting over, next was the Netherton Tunnel then Windmill End. More bridge spotting tomorrow.

Shackerstone

2010-09-06T08:32:00.003+01:00

What turn out, I think there were more working boats than modern boats this year. We were tied up stern on to Empress, two FMC's, two Armstrong AS2 and the steerers born on the same day would you believe it.
While walking round the field, trying to steer away from beer tent we spotted this. Knowing a thing or two about Sea Otters, I don't think this Moggy Thou is up to dragging this about.

After an excelent weekend we left Shackerstone late Sunday afternoon being buzzed by the Red Arrows for part of the way and then chased by a Bolinder powered Dory, we were thrashing through the mud and shallow bits and he's in just above tick over... someting wrong somewhere!

We're now on our way to Windmill End see you there.

Bikes and Cloths

2010-09-03T15:27:00.003+01:00

For quite a while I've been looking for a good old bike to go with Dove. The one's I found all seem to be a bit over priced for the condition they were in so I stopped looking. Then out of the blue a friend of ours had been to Cambridge visiting and came across this little beauty.
It's a 1956 Raleigh and really good condition, it's a ladies bike, so Andrea's really but you may see me on it from time to time.
While at Braunston, Sam Noon measured up for our new cloths. Well they have arrived, sooner than expected. Sam delivered them on Thursday last and we fitted them the following day.

As you can see, they all fit and definitely look the part.

After a close inspection, they are very good quality and very well made and would recommend Sam to anybody wanting new cloths.

We are sat at Shackerstone Festival surrounded by working boats, drinking beer and enjoying the sun.

From here we'll be heading for Windmill end and it looks like we'll be in the company of Blossom and Chertsey, see you there.

Fenny to Newbold then to Fradley

2010-08-16T20:32:00.004+01:00

This part of the Oxford canal must be the wiggliest, following the contour of the land. Just passed Wormleighton the radio mast comes into view, while travelling round the hill the mast is viewed from all four points of the compass. After motoring for miles and not getting very far we reached Marston Doles, this is a very well kept area with very well maintained buildings.
This is the top of the Napton flight that takes you down to the old quarry at the bottom. It looks like the quarry is now closed and being demolished, yet more industry bites the dust. From here to Braunston there's not much to see or talk about except a few wooden boats either sunk or see through. Turning left at Braunston turn and making our way to Newbold, this part of the canal, in fact all the way to "Sutton's Stop" has been re-routed quite a lot, it used to wander round every hill there is. Now it cuts through the hills, leaving redundant loops, some returning to nature and some being used for off line boat yards, such as Viking adrift, sorry afloat, and Brinklow boats. We got to Newbold around tea-time and got tied up just before the rush, by the time I'd done a few jobs around the boat, tapped the home brew, or is it boat brew now, we settled down for the night. Setting off early next morning hoping to make plenty of progress before the battle of the bridge hole started. We didn't get far before we caught up with Dad trying to teach son to steer, it was a bit like the blind leading the short and blind. We watched with amusement and plodded on behind. At "Sutton's Stop" they went round and round and finished up behind us, don't know how but did. The first bridge hole battle was at the narrow bit just on from the junction. A boat coming the other way obviously didn't see the narrow, he hit the wall at a good speed then gave us a good glancing blow. No damage done only to his pride and probably his crockery. After that, we had a steady run to Atherstone expecting to see queues at the locks, but nothing, amazing! As we descended boats came up just right enabling us to leave the exit gates open and entering a lock set for us. Until...we caught up we the boat crew from Benidorm. I'm not a snob by any means, but these people must have booked the wrong holiday.
The first episode was to virtually drain the pound between locks 8 and 9 then after my input, decided to be just bloody awkward at lock 10, to the point I had to open one top paddle to flush their boat out of the lock. At this point one of the day-glow-track-suited half breeds decides to square up to me and make an issue, he soon backed off and they went on their way, albeit very very slowly through the last lock. Not wanting the situation to get any worse we decided to hang back a little and let them get out of sight. We past them at Fazeley taking water, we just made eye contact and left it there. I was in the mood for cruising so we motored on, arriving at Fradley 12 minuets before time was called in the Swan.
All in all, it's been a good trip out but a bit busy for me.

Heyford to Fenny

2010-08-16T07:03:00.006+01:00

After watching By Canal in the '50s last night we were keeping an eye on things today. Things haven't changed that much, obviously trees have grown over 60 years but, paddle gear and buildings all seem pretty much the same. The railway secretly follows you up to Banbury, I say secretly, because it's one of the few lines not festooned with dam gantries and electric wires. It only shows itself when a train goes past or you spot the odd signal post or bridge. Could be a nice steam run, Oxford to Cropredy?

Arriving in Banbury I was expecting the smell of the cast iron foundry we had a whiff of, on the way down, forgot it's Sunday and all's quiet. Just the intermittent clang of a hammer making adjustments to some piece of machinery. We meandered through all the moored boats in Banbury. By now it was a pleasant day with lots of people just watching the boats go by and men sticking their noses in the engine room and boring their wife to death with their running commentary. Approaching Cropredy the south bound traffic was nose to tail and the queues at locks were endless, obviously the Cropredy festival was over. We came round in to Cropredy and spotted a boat with it stern against the bank and its bows adrift. It was obvious the steerer had too many things to do at the same time and the brain couldn't cope. As we approached, he's shouting "you're going far too fast" and calling me all sorts of names. At this time I had just passed a canoe, the skegs in the mud and we're doing about 2 mph. Anyway, to our amusement, he was that busy teaching me a thing or two, he went up the bank and grounded. I later discovered it wasn't his boat and I've put the incident behind me, but at the time I was quite irritated to say the least. Cropredy was still quite busy with boats and now it was the shinny boat brigade turn to irritate me. Why won't they just keep coming, stopping and reversing only makes things worse. After Cropredy lock things got better and we just followed the stream of boats up the locks. by the time we reach the top there was just a little boat called Purple Haze, Purple boat, purple lady, infact purple everything. They cleared the way through the Fenny Compton Tunnel for us, which by the way is no longer there, it's just a narrow cutting now and very shallow. We then tied up for the night just past Fenny marina.

Oxford

2010-08-15T21:49:00.003+01:00

Well, we got there, turned round...
...and came back

Someone at one of the locks said "It's not what you think, you'll be disappointed" He was right, there's nothing there. I was expecting a lock keeper at least, but nothing. I must admit the houses that backed onto the canal were quite interesting in design and construction. That's about all I can say. We headed back doing everything in reverse what we did earlier. The weather deteriorated as the day went on and at Shipton weir lock, the heavens just opened for ten minuets, wet eveybody through the sun came out. We plodded our way to Lower Heyford and tied up for the night and watched a DVD containing a 1952 film of the Oxford canal. The film is by Ralph Lee when took Stentor around the country, very good viewing.

Banbury to Thrupp

2010-08-13T21:00:00.003+01:00

When leaving Banbury this morning we passed Tooley's Historic boat yard, can't see much history except the little building on the left. We didn't go in to see the all the carefully placed paraphernalia, might call on the way back. Apparently this is where Tom Rolt soaked up all the little gems for is book. I did start to read Narrowboat but thought it better to sit for a while with the likes of Joe Holinshead, Henry Johnson and George Wain. I remember as an apprentice in the Sheffield steel works, incomers, similar to Rolt, sat in the snap cabins being entertained by the old hands and their tall stories and basically having them on. Believe what you will.

Soon out of Banbury and into the greenery. Every now and then there's an odd building to look at and a lock to break the monotony. Soon at Aynho, can't pronounce it but it has a peculiar lock. According to the reading, It only has a rise of 12 inches and it's there to prevent flooding but also to pass the same quantity of water as a large lock. And it takes ages to empty.

There's another one of these at Shipton, still don't get the design, I'll have another look on the way back.

We're now tied up, out side the The Jolly Boatman which was very luck it was the last place for miles. Off for a pint then Oxford tomorrow.

Achilles and Jack meet

2010-08-12T19:55:00.002+01:00

I know this blog is about Dove and not Achilles but I'm not starting another blog just for a few posts. Last week we had a visit from our Son, Daughter-in-law and Grandson Jack. So I smartend up the Gardner ready for a small trip out.
As you can see Jack came dressed for the part, wearing his Gardner jumper and with no fear at all, sat watched the 4Lw wizz round.

We only went up to Hoo mill and turned round at the winding hole, If we'd have been on Dove I'm affraid the dopey hire boat tied smack opposite would have had to move. However, Achilles being only 57 feet, we managed to turn after a little contact. Jack didn't make a full shift and passed out on the table later in the afternoon.

This outing was a good test for our trip out on Achilles down to Oxford. The engine hasn't had good run in quite a while so this was an ideal time to see what bits are going to fall off. As it happend, none did.
We're sat in Banbury at the moment, nothing much has happened, yet, I'll take some photo's on the way back. Looks like things could get interesting tomorrow with these weir lock things.

Miles and Miles

2010-07-28T19:26:00.006+01:00

Andrea's been totting up the log for Dove and we had quite a shock, since the 23rd of April this is where we have been.
Huddlesford - 3 hrs 10 miles 0 locks ( engine test)
Huddlesford - 3 hrs 10 miles 0 locks ( L&H Walk)
Hoo Mill - 13 hrs 26 miles 12 locks
Erewash - 40 hrs 84 miles 66 locks
Rickmansworth - 164.5 hrs 350.5 miles 317 locks
Braunston - 70 hrs 156 miles 98 locks
Titford - 32 hrs 60 miles 94 locks
Walsall - 44 hrs 79 miles 73 locks
So that's a total of 369.5 hrs, 775.5 miles and 660 locks, no wonder the engine's ready for a coyt-a-lukin-at.
Anyway that's it for now, next trip out for Dove will be Shackerstone in September, time for some maintenance now I think.

More adventures

2010-07-27T17:34:00.003+01:00

Just lately this blog is more like the adventures of TinTin rather than the restoration of Dove. We will get back to some serious restoration later this year when some funds appear in the bank, but for now, we may as well be out and about ploughing our way through the mud and the weed.
The latest outing took us to Walsall for an art thing at the New Gallery in the town arm. As the BCN Challenge was cancelled this year, we thought we'd do just a bit by going to Walsall via the Tame Valley and back via Wolverhampton. We set off just after dinner on Thursday and gently plodded our way down the Conventry canal then on to the Birmingham and Fazeley. A quick note here for those who didn't know, from Wittington to Fazeley the bridges are named and not numbered. This is because the Coventry Canal Co. had a few problems and the Birmingham and Fazeley had to bail them out, so this stretch of the canal is actually the Birmingham and Fazeley. Look out for the stone marker near Wittington Bridge. We arrived at the Dog and Doublet at about tea time and got not further due to low water, so we got as near to the bank as posible stayed the night. By 6:00 in the morning the levels were up and everything looked ok so we cranked up the motor and just as we did the boat behind started up and set off before us, mmm. By the time we got going they were out of sight but for some unkown reason we were left with a broken paddle on the next lock up and every pound empty! Generally levels were down all the way to Minworth but after that everything was fine. As we past under the gloom of the Gravely Hill Interchange, that's its' posh name, I was expecting allsorts of horrors but, nothing, just a bit slow going through the narrows, quite supprising. By the time we got to Perry Barr Locks it was my shift on the tiller and Andrea was locking. As I entered the bottom lock we tried the automatic gate closing system, this is where the gully from the top paddle runs to the front of the lock as normal then under ground to the middle of the lock and then on to the back of the bottom gate. So the first gully stops the boat, middle holds it and the last shuts the gate. However, due to lack of use it didn't work that well, so back to shutting gates by hand. At lock three our progress was halted, Andrea informed me that every pound was well down and she was off to run some water down. I tried to get across the first pound but no chance a bit too much rubbish in there. Entering the next lock was like going into the Amazon rain forest, there were trees growing out of the walls. Nearly at the top and a BW person appeared asking if there was a problem and if we were ok as a boat had gone up not 20 minuets ago with no trouble, sounds familliar this! At the top, looks like plenty of water and plenty of rubish, plastic bags, tyres and lumps of wood. We've now got quite a few miles of level water with an unlevel bottom, it was hard work all the way on the Tame Valley, with the mud and the weed and of course the occasional metalic object. On arrival at Tame Valley Juction the fishermen weren't that pleased to see us and on making the turn we saw why, the stuff that came up from the bottom and the smell! we left a glimering silvery black sludge. Now on the Walsall canal, if you want a word to describe it, you'll have to make one up but for now, pure crap will have to do. Basically, it's a long garden pond complete with flowering Water Lillies and pond weed on a grand scale. The motor is wound right up and we're doing half a mile an hour! Every bridge hole is a nightmare, with kids spitting and throwing cans. It's impossible to get a run at them to ride over the crap, at Lea Brook bridge we finish up bow hauling with help of some kids, they're not all bad here. The final crunch came at Spinks Bridge, we ran into a pile of bricks. After two hours of proding about with the shaft, we had chain blocks pulling from steelwork, we recruited five blokes as they passed, who we can't thank enough. I finished up climbing in and move the bricks with my feet the best I could, only find concrete blocks under the bricks. The only thing left to do was to rope the boat back then all of us pull like hell forward. We got to the concrete and started rocking side to side and after a while, it climbed over and we're free, what a relief. It's now going dark and we've got another 6 bridges before the town arm. As it happends we did'nt get stuck again but it was a hard slog right into the arm. We came to stop in the basin and didn't bother to tie up there was no need, the weed held us. In the morning we woke to find us in the same place so I started the motor and turned the boat round and reversed to wharf side, this took about 20 minuets but it didn't half clear some weed. After a while Paul and Laurence arrived to sort out Barnet, they couldn't belive we did what we did, as it turn out , the area we travelled through last night is very risky.
Saturday saw quite a bit of interest from the local shoppers, obviously not a regular thing, seeing boats in the basin. Saturday night we waited for the attention of the teenage drinkers but they were all well behaved and there was no bother at all. We popped round to a nice little pub in the town, the Red Lion, however, we did notice as the night went on, the couples were girl/girl or boy/boy so probably not the place for two over 50 fuddy duddies. Sunday morning 9:00 not a sole about so we set off up the Walsall locks, what a difference, lock beams all painted, grass cut and plenty of water. At the top it's a bit weedy in places but better than the bottom. As we progressed things got better and better and by the time we got to Birchills Junction things were great. Turning left onto the Wyrley and Essington canal and to our supprise, deep water, no weed and every bridge hole cleaned out. We motored on through various scenery some better than others but all interesting. Fishermen nodding back to you, kids waving, no graffiti, is this Wednesfield or have we ended up on some other planet. We're soon at Horsleyfields Junction and turning right onto familiar territory. Its all plane sailing from here.

Braunston and back the long way

2010-07-08T22:39:00.006+01:00

I know this is a bit after the event but we've been just a little busy of late and time seems to have scooted on without us.
Anyway, the trip to the Braunston annual get together for ex-working boats and this year, boats still earning a living such as, Roach, Archimedes, and Ayr.
We set of late, as usual, this been due to work commitments. It was Wednesday night 6:00 when we finally got away. We decided to try and catch up with one or two boats that had passed Fradley earlier, so that meant motoring on into the night, which on a clear summer night is really good.
While ascending the Glascote Locks, someone in the Flats adjacent took exception to us going through the locks at about 10:00. Well, tough s h 1 t, go and live somewhere else. probably a good job I'm deaf and didn't hear it all, otherwise there could have been a debate on canal history. Not being put off any, we pressed on and passed the Samual Barlow about midnight and to our surprise quite few a boats were all tied up in the wharf. So, sneaked passed (sneaked...that's a joke) and decided to tie up at the bottom of Atherstone Locks at 1:45am.
The following morning, 6:00 we're off up the locks and it's not long before we're meeting other boats, must all be early risers too. After a bit of a bumpy ride at the top of Atherstone and through Rugby we arrived at Braunston around 8:00pm and went directly to the beer tent.
Friday morning we pushed open the back cabin doors to see everybody doing their brasses and mopping the cabin tops. Not wanting to be out dazzled I thought I better get some cleaning done.
I got out our new big tin of Brasso, took of the lid and promptly spilt a quarter of it on the cabin top, (insert various swear words here) after a frantic mopping up session and dowsing everything that was brass, I finally got a shine on the brassy bits and the not so brassy bits.
I didn't bother taking any photos, you've seen plenty before I'm sure so I did a bit of video instead....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyUqx2kIats the music you can hear is our wind up gramophone playing Glen Miller's "Who's Sorry now". I did quite a few to different tunes and put one or two on Youtube for a laugh.
We weren't planning to do the procession this year due to the total chaos of previous years, however, having the new engine and the Cratch up we thought we'd go and show off. As we set off some friends shouted out to hitch a lift, these were customers of mine from years ago (Sea Otter days) I built their boat called "Marrionette" It's still going strong and they still love it, one of my few successes. After the long drag Mike and Marrion treat us to a couple of pints in the beer tent. While at Braunston we met up with Martin and Sam off Kestral and Vienna so they could measure up for Dove's new cloths. They are just starting up in business so we thought we'd give them a chance, keep it on the cut and all that.
About 3ish we made a move and set off up the Braunston locks with the plan to go the Leicester way home. We stayed over night at Norton junction along with John and Jenny Jackson and a couple of other coal boat people we know by sight but not to talk to.
The following morning, up bright and early, and off to Watford. Dove's never been up this end before and it's a long time since we've been up this way too, so we've forgot most of it. Had really slow start up watford, three boats coming down first, seamed to take ages. The lock keeper just said "looks like you know what you're doing, I'll leave you to it." We got to the top no problems and motored on to Foxton. Not much to say on here really, it's, err, green, just endless green.
We did have one little episode, when we caught up with a boat who wasn't that comfortable with us up his rear and I think he was looking for the Welford arm, because he made a hand signal to turn right. But, went into a winding hole, then emergency stop. We just went on by and left him to it.
On arriving at the top of Foxton the lock keeper waved us straight in and left us to it Saying "ya know what to do, don't ya." I think everybody does now days "red before white and you'll be alright" as Mike and Christel used to say. At the bottom we were met by a very loud group of beer slerpers, Lucy Tucker and her Mum & Dad, Dave Ray and Sue Cawson, they'd been in the Bridge 61 all afternoon and were quite a few pints in front of us. We tied up against Dave's boat "Ant" and joined them for a few more. Dave was having a spot of bother with his motor, a Gardner 5LW, it turned out to be lift pump problems. We tried alsorts to get it going but failed, so after Lucy made a group chilly with everything we had between us, we all went back to the Bridge 61. to make a plan to get Dave home.

Desending the Foxton flight

Next day we awoke to Dave clattering and banging about still trying to get going, but it was no go. He finally had to phone for help and buy a new lift pump so we left them to it and we went for a walk around the plane and looked in the museum. At about dinner time we set off towards Leicester, yet more green stuff, we just plodded on putting the world to rights and wondering where to tie up for the night. Ho! and I lost my Neil windlass in Kibworth lock, dam! blast! after an extensive search, no luck, it's gone for ever. We had to press on as we needed some provisions, so Andrea said she'd like to get to South Wigston as there was a shop close by to bridge 92. It didn't look to be a good place to stop the night, in fact we couldn't even get in the edge. So Andrea got off in the bridge hole and I waited there while she nipped to the shops. After about 30 minuets I was getting a little concerned, so I thought I'd phone her, as I waited for an answer I could hear her phone ringing, in the boat! Not knowing what to do for the best I climbed up the bridge, taking the back rail line with me to see if I could see her or the shops. I finished up stood in the middle of a busy road holding a piece of rope, this must have looked very perculiar to passers by. I did ask one lady where the shops were, she replied, " just up that path and on the right" so where's Andrea? It's been an hour now and I'm getting ready to phone the police and she comes trundling down the road loaded down with shopping. Andrea didn't know about the Path and had walked for miles round the road. We now carried on a while and tied up at the top of Dunns lock with a couple of other boats.
In the morining we attacked Leicester and everything is going well until North Lock. We came out of the lock and sat firmly on a pile of breeze blocks in the shallow water. We pulled it, tugged it, rocked it and flushed it, stuck solid. I noticed the water level was falling more and more. After consulting the map, it was a pound with no river feed like all the others, so boats in front at the next lock were using all the water. After a while the plan was, Andrea would drop a Lock full and I would pull on the line at the same time and hope that at some point one of us could get back on the boat. Thankfully the plan worked and we were on our way, after the next lock we're back in deeper water and we're scooting along nicely. At Barrow Deep lock and it is deep! we exit to a brand new lock landing. Due to the design of the lock I had to the landing to collect Andrea, to my amazement I was bouncing over rubble, I came to rest in a hollow, I couldn't go forward or backwards, not even sideways. A chap came across from the moorings on the other side to give us a push but, there was no way out. So, we were back to the flushing plan, Andrea went to fill the lock then let it go as me and the helping hand pulled on a line. We just scraped out and I made a jump for the boat, Andrea caught up and got on at the next bridge. We were trying to get to Zouch for the night and thinking nothing else could go wrong. Then we got to Bishops Meadow Lock! As we're going down I'm thinking this is a bit short, as the bow is on the bottom gate and I'm not far from the top gate. At the bottom we found you can't open the gate, not even with all the fenders up. We discovered the only way out is to open the opposite gate then slide across. So, how did they go on with a working pair. They must have gone down single. We got to Zouch that night, quite early too. had tea on the bank and wandered round to the pub for a drink or two.

Next day we're off down the Soar the flood locks were open, so we're straight through no problems. Next is the juntion with the Trent, the wind is blowing a touch, so I wind up the motor and we're off round, what a piece of cake, wind the motor up to full chat and it's off . Arriving at Sawley Lock we caught a boat up and went in together, well neally together, I don't think he wanted us to scrach his boat. We then made our way to Shardlow and spent night with The Trouts. We've done the BCN Challenge, now we've done the Leicester Challenge.

BCN Old and New

2010-06-15T22:17:00.011+01:00

Last weekend we attended the Titford pump house rally. This meant doing a bit of the BCN Old Main Line, which happens to be covered in new bits, part of the way. It just so happens the new bits are falling down, as you can see from the photo below, and the old bits, over 200 years old are still standing, this is called progress?
On the way we past quite a few pieces of history that didn't survive, such as Sandwell Colliery coal drop. However BW have left an information board in it's memory. Not has good as the real thing I think.

The cast iron 1828 structures of Smethick Junction seam to be lasting better than the modern concrete type and a lot more attractive to look at too.

After viewing the latest DVD of Laurence Hogg's, we've been spotting how things used to be, sad isn't it. We've done Smethick lock many times and never noticed they used to be twin locks.

If you look at the photo below, albeit modern, the right arch as been reproduced for the second lock.

And at the top you can still see the remnants of the other lock. It's a shame the B16 brats have burnt down the Toll house. I don't understand the youth of today, they want somewhere to go out of the weather, so they burn the roof off! Does that make any sense at all?

You may note the above photo we're heading the wrong way, that's because the photo I took on the way up was crap so Andrea took another on the way back. Same for the one below.

I thought this showed how things changed, even in the early times of the canal system. You can see the original Brasshouse Lane bridge then the later addition of the cast iron section. Road traffic on the increase, even in those days.

In the DVD mentioned earlier this concrete monstrosity doesn't exist.

Nor this one at Spon Lane Junction!

Now leaving the concrete jungle and heading up the Oldbury Locks to Titford

We had all day Saturday and Sunday morning at Titford talking to the locals about boats and engines. Saturday night we had various brews and were entertained by a group that really didn't get it going till the end of the night. Shame really, they were very good musicians but left it too late to play popular music that people knew.

Sunday morning we had the company of Joe Hollingshead telling his tales of days gone by. I tried to video this but camera decided otherwise, I'll get him on film one day.

We left Titford at about 11:00 and decided to make a bid for The Dog and Doublet at Curdworth.... we made it, eventually!
The run through Birmingham was brilliant, just a bit bumpy in places, which is to be expected. Down the Farmers Bridge Locks, no problems at all, then Aston! mmmm.

Into the top lock, fine, boat coming up the second lock down. The bottom gates open, no water, well not enough anyway, I bounced over the cill and then sat on the mud. So after letting another lock full down I finally drifted into the second lock. It was like this most of the way down until lock number 4. Here everything looked ok until I went into reverse gear to pull away form the gate, nothing happened, I just sat there, I checked, we're in gear, water coming out of the sides, couldn't understand it. I then looked over the back to see the uxter plate about 6 inch out of the water...we're on the bottom of the lock...bluddy hell. It was then decided, by Andrea, to put just enough water in the lock to float us back to the cill, then empty the lock again, this would the allow us to open the gate. (Just as a note, the Aston locks, like all the BCN only have one bottom gate, so things are little tight with a boat 70'-6" long and even tighter with a big GU boat. I think that's why the cill stonework is squared off on one side, the rudder just fits in nice.) Then flush us out into ever so slightly deeper water, where I bounced and scraped my way to the next lock and the next, and the next. Then to top it all, a down pour of rain and I mean down pour. When we got to Salford Junction I had to change coats while under the motorway and weigh up the situation. As time was against us I decided to carry on, I've never seen so much water cascading off the motorway into the canal, it was just a water curtain. We then had a soggy plod down Minworth and Curdworth locks, arriving at the Dog and Doublet at about 9:30. Dumped the boat nearly on the lock moorings, quick wash, pub.

The photo above is out of the back doors where we left Dove. The lock silhouetted in the bridge hole.
We left here at 6:00 the next morning and got back to Fradley around 12ish

A few Photo's of the Ricky outing

2010-06-07T21:19:00.005+01:00

While we're out and about working, I though I'd take advantage of the hotel wifi and post a few photo's of our Ricky trip.
Starting with the Gauging Lock at Brenford.
Then the Loading Dock at Brentford

Bull's Bridge, the Layby now surrounded by factory units and full of floating blocks of flats, not working boat in sight.

Dove surrounded by the red and greens

This is just after a rain storm, the rainbow doesn't seem to show up very well, it was really vivid in real life.

Couldn't resist this one, Dove sat at Little Venice with a setting sun

No flies on me.....

2010-06-05T23:49:00.004+01:00

....oh yes there is. Why is it as soon as you get the paint pot out the flies zoom in? I've been trying to paint the boarders of the cabin for weeks now. It's either raining or too hot and now the flies. I finally beat them yesterday, I got up before they did and sucsessfully painted the all the cream. We just need Jim to re-write the registered at Birmingham bit to complete the job. I've been doing one or two jobs that have dragged on a bit, like the new Swan neck/Rams head, call it what you will. (Que Blossom) I made this quite a while ago and fially got round to fitting it. The Britannia model was not quite right, wrong diameter and the wrong shape. I had a piece of tiller bar spare so I've made a dummy to cover the rusty bit. Don't know if this is right or wrong but I've got one, somthing else to Brasso.
While I had the paint brush in hand, you know what it's like, I went round touching up all over, then forgot what was wet and finished up with more paint on me than the boat.
Next weekend we're off to the Titford rally, so get ready for another trip report

Bill and Joe

2010-05-30T21:04:00.002+01:00

Just a thought, I've rattled on about Bill and Joe Beresford in my previous posts. This might help you understand. Thats if you haven't seen it.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3155844753118741601&hl=en-GB#

We're home

2010-05-29T10:26:00.008+01:00

Due to the lack of signal this is the first chance I've had to finish our trip report, so here goes.

On arrival at Cathrine de Barnes we had to do a bit of shopping, it just so happens the pub is across the road from the shop, so we popped in for a taste, well you have to, don't you. We got our beer and noticed we were surrounded by a funeral party, so being a nice day, the garden looked a good option, where we are now in the company of uncontrolled brats and a gang of breast feeding mothers. We drank up and thought we'd come back when all the little darlings had gone home.

The next morning we set off at 7:15 thinking we'd have a good run to Samson Road due to Sagitta coming through last night and clearing the way. How wrong can you be...we ploughed our way through mud all the way and having to rope through nearly every bridge 'ole. At one bridge some kind person left us an industrial bin liner, with a log in the bottom, that nearly stopped the engine and caused some hard work with the shaft. As soon as we got to the more industrial area, things seemed to get better and the going got easier. Also, the scenery got more interesting with the remains of the industrial past. I don't do flora, I'd much rather see a nice piece of brickwork or a riveted structure and appreciate the craftsmanship.

Surprisingly some of the buildings are still in use and the aroma of metalworking drifts across the cut, jogging memories of my days in the Sheffield Steelworks.

On arrival at Samson Road Depot. things didn't look much like the 1950's film. Obviously parts had been filled in and buildings demolished. We got here anyway, but I doubt Bill and Joe could make the trip today with their loaded pair. The bottom of the cut is too near the top nowadays.

Leaving Samson Road we head off down the Camp Hill Locks. It's nice to be back in narrow locks, being able to stride the bottom gates and use my less bulky Neil windlass. The locks are in very good condition and a pleasure to use, no anti-vandal key needed and the pounds are full. However, on reaching the bottom, nothings changed, all the lovely bridges and buildings covered in mindless daub by the latest generation of brainless brats. The two blokes who invented plastic bags and aerosol cans should have been throttled at birth!

We now turn right down the Garrison flight and again, a pleasure to use everything working fine and plenty of water.

On reaching Salford Junction it's my turn to steer and it's going to be fun due to the angle of the turn, about 270 degrees. I ended up with the Bow and Stern touching concrete and had to resort to ropes, no other way.

Had a reasonable run to Minworth then arriving at Curdworth at 4:00 decided to carry on to Fazeley, "can't be stopping at this time". By the time we got to Fazeley the weather was good and everything was running ok, so, we said sod it and headed for Fradley. Arriving at 10:45 tied up and in the Swan in 5 mins.

We've completed 350.5 Miles, 317 Locks in 164.5 Hours (that's 13days)

The next day I had a close look at the blown head gasket and the associated drawings. I discovered the oil blow was nothing to do with the head gasket but, a broken oil pipe dripping down the cylinder head, then running round the gasket, then, being blown off by the cooling air escaping through a gap in the cowling. After curing that I could see a small blow from the gasket, a quick tweak with the Torque wrench soon cured that too. While I was at it, I adjusted the Tappets, which were miles out, then ran the engine up and it seems to be a lot better.

Now it's back to the restoration of the hull, now the warmer weather is here.

2010-05-24T19:50:00.002+01:00

Got through Stoke Bruerne and left the Gongoozelers in a cloud of smoke at the top lock. I forgot to mention earlier that the head gasket has blown and we're burning a little oil now, so it gets a bit smokey at times. We motored on and got to the bottom of Buckby by about 9:00.
Left Buckby at 7:30 hoping to get ahead start on the Sunday dawdlers but that plan went to cock at the second lock up, no water. The local locky was already on to it and running water down, top man. This delayed us by about two hours so the poor boat that came up with us ("Mel 'n' Colly") had to get into trot mode. By the time we got to the top the lady on the boat, Mel or Colly, I don't know which, was completely pooped and was fearing the confines of Braunston tunnel. We met again at Braunston top lock and she seamed to have survived the experience, after a quick descent we parted company and we turned left at Braunston turn and headed for Napton Junction. Due to us coming from Brentford, we thought, well I thought, we might retrace the route taken by Bill and Joe Beresford in the 1950's film "Inland Waterway" and carry on to Samson road depot.
It was a steady slog to the junction, the sun was beating down and we'd caught up with the Sunday dawdlers, we're in tickover and still gaining on them. Eventually we were waved on and we overtook. Thinking that would be the last we saw of him, I looked back and there he is, right behind us, all the way to the locks. I'm sure he just wanted someone to follow. We teamed up with another boat waiting at the locks and left him behind.
After a while we were on our own and trying to be good boaters and shutting the gates behind us only to find them open up again, so we gave it up and left them as they did in Bill and Joe's day.
When we got to the bottom we left the lock and we got him, Mr. sodding perfect, "Are you leaving that gate then?" my answer, "Yep...Why" his reply I didn't hear being a bit deaf but I got gist he wasn't happy. The top gates were tight as a ........ well they weren't leaking so whats the problem?
We then dragged our arse or Shoe plate if you want to be correct, all the way through Royal Leamington Spa where I had to out stare a few of the local brats armed with stones, I'm glad to say my scruffy hat, unshaven face and mean look won the day and the stones dropped to the ground.
After eating my tea on the move we finally got to the Cape of Good Hope, the pub that is, and tied up.

This morning, up with the birds and Hatton in front of us. you know the rest if you've done Hatton in the blazing sun. We were on our own, as usual, so it was a steady plod, 3 hour 10 mins.
and a pot of tea at the top. We're now at Catherine de Barnes and off to the pub.

2010-05-22T09:59:00.003+01:00

Had a very good weekend at Ricky and got a bottle of bubbly for our efforts, looks like we'll be there next year.
While down this end of the country we've had a run up and down, firstly through Little Venice, and onto Lime House. I always thought Nuneaton was the plastic bag centre of the world, I was wrong, It's Bethnal Green. I have never seen so much crap in all my travels, funnily enough we didn't get one thing round the blade.
After taking a look at the Thames we headed back to Little Venice and met up with some friends for a drink. Very nice place, I see why people don't want to leave.
The following morning, not too early, we set off to Bulls Bridge and turned left to Brentford. Here we picked up another friend of ours from the Keighly and Worth Valley railway who lives in the area and gave us a historic industrial guided tour. It cost me quite a bit of home brew I might add. Looking at Brentford, it doesn't look anything like the the old films, must look at the films again and compare with the photos.
Got back to Uxbridge that night for Fish and Chips, and, would you believe it, some Yorkshire beer.
Leaving the next morning we bumped into George Wain, he's working the Gravel boats for Land and Water, quite a thing to meet in a bridge 'ole. Had a chat then on our way up the steady climb through Ricky and Hemel then stopping at Winkwell at tea time. This has also changed a lot since the films were made in 1950. Called at the Three Horse Shoes for a pint.....five quid for a pint and a half!! didn't look at the menu. We only had the one then back to the boat, home brew 27p a pint, gammon, sausage, egg chips three quid...very nice.
Left early next morning, cracked on up through Berkhamsted, over the top and down Marsworth. While it was quiet I thought I'd have a bash at this Thumb lining business. Not very good with single motor but I've got the idea, thanks Malcome. Got to Soulbury three last night, the weather finally got to us, Knackered!
Set off this morning about seven heading for Stoke Bruerne.

Day three and four

2010-05-14T10:23:00.004+01:00

I tried blogging yesterday while on the move but the signal was up and down on Tring summit, since then I haven't had chance. So now we're at Ricky here goes.
After leaving Stoke locks it seamed to be endless miles of moored boats in various states of dis-repair. Nothing much happend all day until tea time when we were entertained by a group of Little Terns fishing behind us. Then at the last lock before Marsworth, I dropped my windlass in the pound! Not any windlass but my H. Neal and I was determined to find it. After what seamed like ages the magnet finally attached to it and it was saved, phew!
We arrived at Marsworth Junction at 9:30 had coulple of beers then called it a night.
Next morning woke up at 5:00 to a keen frost, this meant we were going to have problems starting the Armstrong, and we did! We finished up with Andrea on the starter motor and me on the cranking handle, after several goes it kicked up, smoke everywhere and twitching curtains.
Got going up the locks and soon got into a routine opening the paddles in right order to keep the boat steady. this was ground paddle on the boat side, then gate paddle other side, then the ground paddle on that side, leaving the boat side gate paddle close. About the third lock up we were joined by a Robin, cadging a ride and not in the least bothered by my pressence. By the time we reached the top lock it was a warm sunny day.
On the Tring summit, we were given a flying and fishing display by a Kingfisher and later going down to Berkhamsted we had the company of a very freindly Heron. Seem to be having a bird day.

Here we are at the bottom of Berkhamsted. Not long after this at Fishery Lock we found GU boat Belfast waiting for us to pair up until they got to their base at Nash Mills lock. Travelling down this area there are numerous GU boats, good area for Chertsey's "Spot Blog"

By the time we reached Cassiobury locks Andrea is loosing the will to live, here you can see her fed up gnome impression.

And here the locks took that long to fill she dropped off to sleep

After passing all the the floating sheds that some people might call home, we arrived at Rickmansworth at 8:00. to be greeted by Chris Bennet off GU boat Boldock.

Now we can have a weekend doing nothing after completing 127 miles, 99 locks, in 59 hours.

Trip to Ricky day one and two

2010-05-12T07:44:00.003+01:00

I'm writting this sat in the back cabin not too far from a AS2 thrashing down the GU, Andrea's steering, as she does every morning.
We finally got away on Monday morning about 7:30 and headed down the Coventry, through Fazeley and up Glascote locks. Here I was very supprised to see the lock keeper greasing the paddle gear and gate straps, before I had chance to speak he was off up to the next lock and we never saw him again, but he left his greasy evidence all the way up the Atherstone flight too, well done that man.
On leaving Atherstone and approaching bridge 38 I noticed most of the new wall toppers missing off the bridge and you don't need many guesses to where they are. I wound up the motor to put some water behind me then as the bows entered the bridge 'ole, I knocked of the revs and let the water wash me through then waited for the scraping and the bumping. But nothing happend, we just glided through.
Cracking on through all the places we normally get grounded, not a bump or a scrape... have BW been having a clean up. Even Nuneaton was clear, very strange. We didn't have any real problem until we got to Sutton's Stop. As we approached the junction we pick up a sheet of plastic and this cocked up my turn. By now night was falling and we thought about getting tied up somewhere. This turned out to be just short of Ansty at about 9:30.
Next morning 5:00! we're up an ready for off, got the canal to ourselves and the birds, funniest dawn corus I ever heard, sounded more like an episode of the Clangers.
After a while other boats began to get on the move and bridge 'oles became a challenge. The aquaduct just before Streton stop caused bit of confussion for one boater, he thought he had right of way, well he hadn't, then, the canal wasn't wide enough for him, it's only about 50 foot wide at that point, how much does he need?
Just as we came upto Braunston, I looked behined to see another blue deckboard gaining on us rather quickly. As we did the turn I could see it was Jaguar with Malcome Berge in charge. At the first lock he made it quite obvious without saying a word, he was pairing up with us and it looked like I was taking both boats. At the top of the locks I told him he could go first and crack on seeing as he looked to be in a hurry.
Not long after I could see the black clagg of Bollinder coming from the other side of a bridge, it was Jaguar with motor trouble. We then followed him to Buckby and desended using a Thumb line to open one gate. Having never used this method before I stood to learn something. Malcome made it quite clear that we had a lot to learn. For a Pipfitter I thought we did alright, I suppose I could teach Malcome a thing or two about bending copper steam pipe.

After that, Jaguar spead off and we just plodded our way down the GU, looking at things we'd missed before. At about 8:00 we passed Jaguar tied up and we motored on to Stoke Bruene for the night. Going through Blissworth tunnel was impressive with a demonstration from the Bat population, never seen that before. Arriving at Stoke Bruene about 10:00 just in time for a pint then bed.
This morning up at 5:00 again, Stoke locks to ourselves. see how far we get to day.

A bird and a fish go up the Erewash

2010-05-05T21:11:00.005+01:00

Thursday 29th April about 3:00pm we set off down the Trent and Mersey, destination, Langley Mill.

While getting going it started to rain, so it was hats and coats out. Our first stop was Barton Turns Marina to meet up with some friends for a drink and catch up on the latest gossip. On arrival, soaking wet through and not very happy at all, we were met by a typical dayglow jobsworth uttering " that'll be seven pound fifty please" my reply "how much?!!! for an over night mooring" Well after a bit of banter we wasn't messing about in the rain getting Dove out of the marina after all the trouble we had getting in so, we paid up and tied up for for the night.

After a very late night, we finally got on the way about 8:00am the next morning, heading for Shardlow for another drinking night with the "Trouts."
We had a good trip down, a bit dryer this time, paired up with a boat for the first couple of wide locks then we were on our own at Weston. The boat we were paired with went down with a Canal Time and has it happend another Canal Time was comming up so I thought I'd get some help with the bottom gates. No such luck, they all just sat on the boat. After closing both gates, twice, then cracking a paddle, I then informed them "I am not a lock keeper you know" and left them to it. After about five minutes, still no activity, I thought it time to give these people a lesson in locking. On their exit from the lock I asked if they'd grasped the idea and would be able to manage the next one on their own. How they got up the previous locks I don't know.
It was a steady plod all the way, arriving in Shardlow about 4:30pm, tied up and waited for the Trout's to arrive home.
Saturday morning, bright and early, well, eight 'o' clock. We set off down the Trent with Trout in front, then sharp left and into Trent Lock, blimey! never done that one with a seventy foot slug before, thought it weren't going to happen.

Has you can see we made it and here we are sat in the lock in glorious sun shine.

I was amazed at the condition of the canal and very pleasant as you can see in the photo above. There was quite a bit of industrial stuff which I like to see, especially when it's graffity free as most of this was.
All the locks were hard work, I think because of lack of use more than anything. They were all in good condition and well painted.

The canal itself is a little shallow in places and did become hard work at times especially on the numerous tight bends as Andrea found once when reverse was none existant and turning just didn't happen. We did have another incidend at bridge 27, a very low foot bridge. The underside of the bridge has a perculiar shape and it looks like a shadow, but it's not, as I found as we got closer, much too close as it happens. As we went through, the bottom of the bridge just took the rope off the looby, we were both waiting for the crunch.....lucky or what!

The next lock took us into Langley Mill Basin, here it says in the book we can wind, HA! Thought we weren't going to make it, only inches to spare.

Here we are tied up for the night BBQ, good beer, good company, good night

Sunday, back at bridge 27, knowing we only just got under on the way up, we thought it best we take care and a good job we did. I asked Andrea to stop with the Looby under the bridge so I could take a photo. We didn't get that far, we hit it with a right clout. Nearly pulled the Cratch down and split the Mast Case. By now the mast was stuck under the bridge so I had to go and stand on the Cross beam and push up under the bridge and bounce the mast over ridges of the underside of the bridge until we were clear.

Everything was easy after that. On the back we stopped off at Barry Argent's where he has Ex-FMC Perch in two pieces on his back garden. The bows are finished and stand on blocks high above the canal. The stern end is still getting attention but is looking good.

We then got back to our trip and made our way back to Trent Lock without incident I might add.

It was now testing time for the Armstrong, going up river. We left the lock in the middle of a yacht race but we all missed each other and we motored away. I was really pleased with the perfomance of the Armstrong it cracked on quite smartly.

We did some video between us and Trout so at a later date I might get it all together.

The rest of the trip was uneventfull so I will not bore you with it.
Must say all in all it was an excellent trip and suggest more people do it.

A Dove day

2010-04-28T18:35:00.003+01:00

Living in close proximity of Dove, like next door, it makes it easy to decide to have a "Dove Day" just when you want. As you can see from the above picture, I am notoriously tidy, I did put everything away once and couldn't find a thing for weeks.
Today, I thought we would make a new Scuttle hatch from some plate left over from the engine 'ole floor. Bending the plate proved a little difficult, not having a press brake. After cutting it to shape I had to grip the plate between two pieces of 3x3 angle iron in the vice, then heat it up and pull and heave like......well I'm sure you can imagine.

Making the hinges was just bits of 2 inch by 3/8th flat and bits of 3/4 inch round bar welded into 3/4 inch pipe. I think originally these would be forged or cast, but not having either of these facilities I have to cheat now and again.

After everything had cooled down it was time to get out the noisy tool and rivet on the hinges. With Andrea's help it didn't take long to pop in six 5/8th rivets.

The finished product, fitted and painted, looks a bit neater than the lump of ply wood we had wedged in previously.

We're off tomorrow for a trip up the Erewash with Trout for a few days. So next week we should have a trip report.

Boating and walking

2010-04-26T21:22:00.003+01:00

The past few day's I've been re-arranging the all the stuff we have to carry around with us in Dove, spare Gardner engine etc. Trying to make things little more tidy and to give us a bit of social space in the hold for our outings. Social meaning, windup gramophone and home brew, or is that "boat brew" now.
After the tinkerings last week we had a test run to Huddlesford and back on Friday afternoon to see how things ran and all went well.
On Sunday, the Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Society had a canal walk to raise awareness and funds. This was a four mile stroll from the Lichfield cruising club at Huddlesford to the Fosseway lock 19.
We decided to go down to Huddlesford on Dove (again) then do the walk, while chatting to Viv at Fradley it was suggested that we might take Grimsby for a little jaunt, first time Dove's had a butty for few years.
Sunday morning we cranked up the AS and set off to Huddlesford, picking up the Butty at the Junction. Andrea steering Dove and Viv steering Grimsby, we're off round the junction and through the swing bridge just chugging past all moored boats then open water.....Andrea winds up the throttle and.......no difference in speed at all. With both boats half loaded and not a lot of water underneath us progress was to say the least, steady.
It was a quiet morning, not much traffic at all and quite pleasant just plodding on to the chug of the motor. Then we got to the A38 bridge and then hell broke loose, what a place to meet another boat. I'm steering by now, I'm in reverse with full rev's and us and the butty are not stopping, half way though the bridge hole the other boat got the idea that we just might meet so decided to retreat and then went a ground at the other side of the bridge. After ten minutes of forward...reverse...bowthruster...forward...reverse, we finally got through and after that didn't meet another boat all the way to Huddlesford.
After mooring up outside the club house we paid our two pounds and went for a very interesting walk and learnt about the design of BCN locks. Much recommended. Arriving back at the the club house two hours later and time for pint or two then off back to Fradley.
With Grimsby back in tow we set off, all quiet on the cut until, you're not going to believe this, the A38 bridge, we meet another boat, here we go again! and again we meet another boat all the way to Fradley.
On arrival at Fradley the usual audience are outside the Swan. We have to turn into Junction lock, breast up and then reverse back to Middle lock, dropping off the butty on the way and it all went to plan. Am I glad about that!

Tinkering

2010-04-21T20:23:00.003+01:00

Due to the lack of signal at Fradley, it's been difficult to post just lately. We are now sat in the Ellerby Hotel near Cleveland Potash and supposed to be working but found out I could latch on to the hotel wi-fi thingy.
Anyway to catch up on last few days, we've been tinkering about with the engine and gearbox.
The engine hasn't been running just right, a bit heavy on one cylinder, so I thought I'd have a play with injector pumps. They are independently adjustable, by shortening the length of the rods you can adjust the amount of fuel delivered to the injectors. After a hour or so I think I've got it about right, both cylinder are now firing even and at the same temperature, well, within a couple of degrees.
The gearbox top cover was also leaking badly, so a new cork gasket was needed, luckily I keep a sheet of 1/16th cork in stock for work, so this this was soon cut out and fitted.
After our little outing to Hoo Mill I've also made some changes to the gear change levers, I found out the bottom lever was catching a nut on the gearbox case when in forward gear and this was working the lever off the shaft. I've now adjusted the stroke of the lever making it fall short of the nut and also shortening the stroke at the steering position, which is now better all round.
On Monday we had a bit of free time so, we popped over to see Chertsey at Kieth Balls yard and met Sarah and Jim for first time. I must say Chertsey is looking very smart now with a new coat of black and will be nice to see it at Braunston in the water.
Right back to work.

What a do

2010-04-13T21:25:00.003+01:00

As I said previous we were taking Dove to Hoo Mill for a bit of a do. I wont go into detail about the party, as Blossom has written a wonderful blog on it already.
This outing worked out to be a good way of testing all the new bits, such as the engine for one and to see how the prop behaved.
Saturday was never going to be an early start, due it being Andrea's birthday on Friday and her swallowing copious amounts of what she called "pink pop" Rose wine, I think is the proper term. Looked more like diesel to me. Anyway, after loading the where with all for the trip we got underway. Up through Middle and Shade House locks, forward and reverse gears working ok and we're popping along quite nicely. Up Woodend lock and its a level run now until Colwich lock.
With it being a long level run you wind up the motor and steer, so I keep popping down to see if everything is still there and doing what it should doing, quite boring really. On approaching Armitage Tunnel, Andrea got off and went to see if anything was coming the other way and I just coasted along in tickover, Andrea signaled that a boat was coming through so I popped it in reverse and put few revs on to bring us to a stop. But, it didn't, it went faster forward, insert your choice of word here....... Andrea is shouting "STOP" I'm shouting "THE B######D THING WON'T". I dive down the 'ole to find gear link has fell off, after fiddling about I get the box in reverse which then stalls the motor and we're still traveling forward, quite quick. I then jump out of the engine 'ole grab the back rail rope and rap round the tunnel hand rail and stop the boat inches from Stem bar contact. Few!!!! Apparently the panic on the other boat was greater than mine. How this happened, I don't know, but I couldn't make it do it again, but still, time for a re-design. All ran well for a while then, just after passing Trent Aqueduct the motor started to fade away and come back then fade away again, this was obviously a fuel problem, but where? I first thought the day tank was empty but no. The fuel filter? No. It turned out to be the valve on the tank had wound it's self shut with the vibration, Never had that one before! We finally arrive at Hoo Mill and the party was in full swing, went to wind round, breasted up against Trout and went into beer mode.
The only other thing I found was the oil leak on the pressure gauge pipe I thought I'd fixed had got worse and we had used nearly as much oil as diesel. That is now re-piped and sorted.

All touched up

2010-04-06T20:58:00.005+01:00

Over the Easter weekend the weather allowed me to slap some paint on the cabin boarders and beading, so it looks quite presentable now. It's not the best of paint jobs, when the better weather comes I'll rub it down and give it another top coat, then get Jim McCormick to re-do the registration numbers. While I'm at it, I'm giving the cabin top another coat of red, after plugging the holes left from the old gear change and throttle rod brackets.
In and amongst, I've fitted an alternator to the engine and now in the process of making a guard for it and also the low level crank which has a James Bond DB5 type claw at the end of it, just right for taking you leg off. It's had a tug at my Overall leg already.
While I've been busying myself on the outside bits, Andrea's been washing and cleaning all the Back Cabin stuff, Sidebed covers, curtains and lacy bits. She also blacked the stove which had started to show signs of neglect. It's now looking like home again.
We're taking Dove out for a jaunt next weekend, up to Hoo Mill for party. Will be in the company of Trout, Monarch and Lily although Lily is not in good fettle just yet, after the fire.
Edit...After reading Blossom other boats attending are, Minnow and England

2010-03-29T20:38:00.003+01:00

Above is the finished tank complete and piped up, I'm quite pleased with the outcome. Just got to find a level gauge glass.

While the fine weather lasted, I decided to touch up the white boarders and the red beading. It turned into a bigger job than expected, as you may note from the above photo. With the timber frame being Eroko, a resinous hard wood and not the easiest thing to paint. You need to use a special primer to seal it. Howerver, if the wood is slightly damp on application the results are not good. In Dove's case everything was fine until Jack Frost got in there. It detached the paint from the wood but left it hanging there and you wouldn't know anything was wrong, 'till you touched it with a sander. As you can see very little stayed intact, so, it doesn't look like we're going to Coventry, by boat anyway.

Gone and done it now!

2010-03-25T20:00:00.003Z

Been a bit busy just of late, trying to condense one house and one workshop into two boats, they don't fit, so, blogging has taken a back seat till now.
We have now sold our pile of bricks and move onto the boats tomorrow, ready to explore England. We can now go places farther afield and come and go as we please and work on Dove when it suits us, not just at weekends when it's pouring down with rain.
Speaking of Dove, I got the day tank fitted and went for a tootle down to the junction and back, all of 200 yards, but it proved everything works. The gear shift is a tad long, might have to alter that, me thinks.
We're going to start splashing some paint about next week, see if we can smarten the cabin up a bit, the winter has really had a bash at the woodwork. Also, now the engine 'ole has dried out, I've got some Mid Brunswick green to paint the tanks and bottom sides. With a bit of luck and fine weather we might look quite presentable for Coventry Basin at Easter.
We wont have any new cloths though, the application for a Historic Ships Grant was turned down, so it looks like we'll be funding that too. Funny, we've never been lucky with freebies.
I'll be back with some pictures of the painting progress.

A bit more tank

2010-03-04T18:34:00.002Z

Got the flange riveted in today, still got the lid to make yet. Should get it finished and fitted this weekend. Might even get some copper pipe bent up and fitted

And just to prove they are real rivets.

New Day Tank

2010-03-02T20:18:00.005Z

Started making the new Day Tank today, the picture above has turned out rather un-square, must be the way I stand? With having a riveted bottom tank, I though it best to have a riveted day tank to match and, before you ask, yes they are real rivets. However, due to not having a Press Brake big enough to fold 4mm plate I have cheated and welded the corners and fabricated the bottom tray....and....welded the inside. So, really, it just looks riveted.
I've the top to make yet and that will be angle iron riveted inside, yes proper riveted this time, with the top plate bolted inside that to form a tray. The filler is to be a 3in hole with about 3in combing round it.
I don't know what to do about a level gauge just yet, I'll have to have look round to see what others do. It'll probably be somthing on the lines of a boiler gauge frame I guess, I'm open to suggestions.

Finishing things

2010-03-01T08:11:00.004Z

This weekend we just tinkered about finishing bits off. I fitted the prop shaft coupling then started the engine to see what the prop was like. The one that's on at the moment is the one matched to the Gardner, which is 23x16 the correct size is 22x15. It's surprising how much an inch on diameter and an inch on pitch makes. The amount of water coming out of the back was quite substantial and the engine went in to lumpy mode at tickover, creating quite a bit of smoke. So, it looks like we'll be changing the prop, the longest part of that job is getting into the dock.
Another job we did, was get the strap fitted round the bottom tank, this is made of 2in "D" section bar folded round the tank and bolted to the engine 'ole bulkhead, this stops the tank falling over which I think would be easily done with 180 gallons (820 ltrs) slopping about.
Blimey...just a thought, 820 ltrs at 60p a ltr. That's errrr 492 quid! for a full tank. I think we might go for a bulk delivery.
We had a couple of 45 gall drums of diesel in the hold so we popped them in and checked for leaks around the bottom of the tank....none yet, just the drain cock wanted nipping up a bit.
Sunday was a bit of a slow start due to spending a little too much time in the Swan on Saturday night. Fitzy the one man entertainment system was on and you have to stay for the laugh.

Don't assume.......

2010-02-23T15:00:00.007Z

.....anything, especially to do with old narrowboats!

At the weekend I found the coupling plate on the gearbox output shaft didn't fit just right on the prop shaft coupling, the outside diameter was ok but the PCD (bolt holes) was slightly out and there was only four and not six. No big deal, I thought I'd just take it all home, slot the holes and of course pop two extra ones in, due to four not going into six, geometrically that is.

Having a bit of time spare today, I popped the shaft coupling on the Mill/drill, with it wanting four holes I set it up all square so I could just use the x-y index table to save messing about marking out. Using a slot drill to slot two of the existing holes and then plunge two new holes at 90 degrees. All went quite well until, I came to bolt the plate on the shaft coupling....arrrggg, (look of disbelief) two of the holes in the plate were miles out. After checking all my doings, I found the plate to be wrong, the holes are not at 90 degrees. Is it some boat yards don't know standard engineering practice, don't have the tooling to do the job or, just don't care. Or, am I missing something.

Not wanting to start making a new plate, I thought the best thing to do was, (what I should done in the first place) is bolt the plate to the coupling and drill through it. Wonderful thing hind sight!

You would have thought I'd learned by now, because everything on the boat is out of line, twisted or bent.

Throttled

2010-02-22T08:30:00.010Z

Setting off from home Friday night and looking forward to a good working weekend on the boat, but on arrival finding Fradley once again under snow.
Saturday morning, looking out of a port hole and seeing that nothing had changed form last night, we decided to have another pot of tea while I persuaded my body to venture outside and lie about the cold around my feet. That just reminded me the January song by Lindisfarne.

After donning various jumpers, overalls and my now ripped and burnt orange dayglow jacket, I wandered off to the van for a load of tools, looking like some vagrant on the move.

Finally getting set up with welder, grinders and other necessary tools, I start to make the bracket for the throttle mechanism. As you may note from the above photograph, it's no tin can affair, made from 3/8ths plate and having three runs of weld alround. Most things I make tend to have that Brunnel look about them. I suppose it's with me being brought up along side steam hammers and rolling mills, everything was big and heavy.

After a bit of giggery pokery I had it all lined up, speed wheel fixed all the split pins in this time and fully operational. I say this because last time I did this, I did omit a split pin and eventually it did cause some embarrassment, I wont go into detail.

With this all connected we could now practice the starting procedure, in other words we could have a play with engine and do a bit of video

Sounds a bit better than the 4L2 don't you think and I hope it performs better.

A bit more done

2010-02-16T19:56:00.003Z

Due to it being my weekend at the railway, bending more copper pipe for 4 MT 75078 and being Fireman on Sunday, there's not much to report on the boat front.
Yesterday I had to go out and earn a living but today I had a fiddle day the workshop, making the throttle mechanism.
This entailed scrapping an old "G" cramp for the Acme thread and machining various bushes and pins. Surprisingly, this took me most of the day, welding all the little bits together then linishing them up to look like a casting. Cheating I know, but you just can't get bits any more and you'll never know the difference, once it's painted. Well, you will now because I've told you. (am I waffling)
Might start the day tank tomorrow.

Engine starting

2010-02-11T07:46:00.000Z

Following the failed attempts to start the AS at the weekend I just couldn't leave it there. I had to go back to Fradley to do some welding work on one of the Ownership boats so, I thought I'd have another bash at starting the engine while I was there.
I made contact with the previous owner, David, he described how it was when he had it, which by the sounds, isn't much different to now. He did say, when they were operated in carrying days, it's said the boatman would drain the oil out of the engine into a container and put it on the range for a time to warm up. Lot of messing about don't you think?
After charging up the battery again, making sure all connections were tight, I gave it a couple of turns, not much quicker, there was white smoke at the exhaust, which is a start but no attempt to fire. Right.....take out the injectors, on inspection they were completely carboned up, gave them a quick wipe, after checking the pumps were actually working I connected them to the pipes so I could see the spray pattern from the tip while cranking the engine over. Nothing but a dribble! AhAh! jets blocked. After finding the minute holes and cleaning them out a few cranks and a perfect spray, right, we're getting somewhere now.
Put everything back together, warmed all the engine with the blow lamp, removed the air filter and while cranking the engine over, played the blow lamp over the air intakes. Heyyy.....Presto gadunk, gadunk, gadunk, what a relief.
Letting the engine run for a while to get warmed up I noticed the output shaft of the gearbox going round, thinking this was just oil drag I put my foot on the flange to stop it......nope, it's in forward gear? moving the gear shift one notch back we have reverse, so, where's neutral?
I started to play about with the gear shift and found neutral a few degrees back from what should be neutral. So, the reason the starter motor is running slow and getting hot is.....we're in gear all the time.
Next job, gear box top off and find out what's amiss.

Condensation

2010-02-07T21:12:00.000Z

Due to the amount of condensation on the inside of the boat, we were limited to what we could do this weekend. As we lay the false floor, we normally paint the hull sides, give the bottom of the boat and the bottom chine angle the rust treatment but, the condensation was so bad we were just wasting our time and more importantly.......money!

To make progress, Andrea got on with creosoting the floor I'd put together on Friday and we'll have to take it back up again to paint underneath when conditions are better. Meanwhile, I tinkered about in the engine 'ole making the exhaust pipe and various bits and bobs.

The problem we've got now, we seem to have quite a collection of junk in the hold, albeit usefull junk such as an old Stratford stove, various oil drums, a Gardner engine and load of wood I just might need one day. This has to be moved periodically to enable work to progress, so we spend quite a bit of time shifting stuff around, rather like one of those little games we used to have as kid, where you have to shuffle letters round a square frame with only one spare space. Something has got to go!

On Sunday with the exhaust complete, oil in the engine and battery wired up, I thought I'd give the engine a whirl. Well.....It was more of a grunt than a whirl, things wern't spinning quick enough to make it fire. The battery had just come off charge so there's nothing wrong there, the only thing it could be is that with eveything being so cold, the oil had thickend up. Time for a bit heat then, got the blow lamp out (big blow lamp) and gave all the engine a good warming and tried again........no go!
The engine has an hand start facility so I though I'd give it a good hand crank (if you'll pardon the expression) to see how hard it was to turn over. I could spin it faster than the dam starter motor so, it looks like there's something wrong with the newly re-wound motor.
After trying to start the engine several times by hand, I am now completely knackered and calling it a day.......Pub here we come.

Another cold weekend

2010-01-31T21:00:00.000Z

Had an excellent weekend this weekend, got loads done. The picture above, is of the engine bearers with all the bolts fitted. I spent most of Saturday morning chiseling out the squares for the engine bolts to fit into, gawd it was cold!

I also got the floor plates fitted, these had to be trimmed to suit on site due to the engine ole being three inches narrower at the back, then there's the knees and also a butt strap to shape round, but after a bit of juggling everything went in ok.

Just to confuse everybody, I've left the mud box in position, I thought it might be a talking point. Due to the Armstrong Sidderley being air cooled it will serve no porpoise other than being a piece of history. Or you never know, Andrea just might come round to having a B####der. I dernt spell it in full, cos if Andrea sees it, I'll be in twuble.
Andrea has spent a lot of time talking to the likes of Henry Johnson and Joe Hollingshead and come to the conclusion B####ders are loverly engines...........in other peoples boats!

Preparing for the weekend

2010-01-28T20:41:00.000Z

These are the holding down bolts I've made, the square head will reacessed into the Oak bearers to stop the bolt from turning

Being self employed gives you a bit of time, when things are slack, for more important things in life, like messing about with boats. So I've been getting one or two things ready for the weekend. Such as, floor plates, a retaining strap for the bottom tank and of course, the holding down bolts.

I'll post pictures of the engine bearers complete with bolts after the weekend, just in case people don't get how I'm doing it.

Bearing up

2010-01-28T16:13:00.000Z

The past couple of days I've been running about collecting material for Dove's new motor. First stop, local bolt stockist, 6 inch by 5/8ths whitworth bolts and some 1/2inch whitworth studding. Next stop, Brinklow to see Steve Priest. He has acquired some diamond pattern checker plate, from some place across the lumpy water and kindly offered some to me....at price I might say.
On the way back to the boats I dropped in at Sykes timber for lump of Oak 4inch square by about 10 foot, this was to make the engine bearers.
Now, me being what I am, an old fashioned stick in the mud when it comes to engineering. I've put a solid shaft and flanged couplings in Dove, as I did with Achilles. This means there is no flexibility any where in the drive chain and everything has to line up. So, making the engine bearers is a right faff, having to plane and linnish the Oak to quite a fine tolerance. This took up most of the day, with the engine on chain blocks going up and down like a whores drawers and me in and out of the engine ole like.......well it must have been twenty times. It was a bit like scraping white metal bearings but in wood, mind you, not many people scrape white metal bearings anymore, do they. Anyway all done and dusted, prop shaft in and line up.
Just got to make some holding down bolts now, to keep the engine in place on the Oak and then we can give it a whirl.

The Tank saga

2010-01-25T08:11:00.000Z

As you may notice from the pictures above and below the bottom diesel tank is now in place

You may also notice, that the newly painted tank is covered in mud and very nearly something else!... bloody dog crap.

When I started this blog I said it was purely for the boat restoration and not like others, for voicing there opinions on the world. But, here I must just have a little rant.

I don't have a dog for various reasons, (you know whats coming don't you) such as, the stink, hairs everywhere and mainly, not wanting to go out in the teaming rain because the pooch needs a poo, the thought of putting my hand in a plastic bag to pick up the warm squidgy stuff left behind, makes me want to gip, then walking home swinging it in my hand like a fashion accessory. This begs the question, why should I have to clean up after someone else's bloody four legged crap producer.

So when you've driven ten miles to walk your sodding animal near our boat, please pick up the crap then I don't have to scrape it off my tools and equipment...Thanks!
Right....now I've got that off my chest, back to fitting the tank.

Now all the snow and ice has melted into spring time, it is time for the Heath Robinson's machine movers (Me, Andrea and Fradley Geoff) to get back in action and get this tank fitted.

After carefully.....I said carefully unloading the tank from the trailer and getting it to ground level, then sliding it through the now thawed out grass, mud and the above mentioned brown stuff, we got it to the side of the boat.

Then by the way of various planks, ropes, chain blocks and verbal persuasion it landed in the bottom of the boat. I wish someone could have took a photo, I thought it was quite impressive.

All we had to do now is spin it round, no...the other way, lay it down and drag it in to the engine ole. This was easy, once I found some slings the right length, I'll never win the Kripton Factor. Every sling I have, is either too long or too short. In the end I used a ratchet strap...that sorted it.

By hanging the chain blocks from the cabin top and the lifting hook into the ratchet strap then just dragging it under the cabin bulkhead. At this point Andrea was supposed to remined me to put the pipe in for the lift pump but due to her not being there at the time, it got forgot. Not realising this until the tank was in position and now there isn't enough headroom (insert swear words here). After a bit of head scratching and Geoff straining his manhood it went in.....just.

Now it's all in and settled I will be having a couple of days sorting the engine out and refitting the prop shaft.

Knots and Splices

2010-01-19T15:33:00.000Z

Following Blossoms piece on ropes, lines and strings. I thought I would add the animated knots link in the LINK box.
Splicing rope was part of my apprenticeship in the days before the dreaded H&SE! Hope it helps somebody.

Weekend away

2010-01-18T19:38:00.000Z

Every month we have a weekend away from the boats and this weekend was one of them.
Andrea catches up on things domestic and family and, I scoot off to the Keighley and Worth Valley railway, this is where I do my thing with steam. Saturday is taken up with the making of copper pipework for the restoration of a Standard Class 4 locomotive 75078, then on Sunday Fireman on the service train and in between a little social drinking to support the local brewery, the Copper Dragon normally.
Working on the boats doesn't stop however, I was up and at it this morning shortening the prop shaft by 12 inches and cutting a new keyway and fetteling the recently acquired bottom tank.
The tank has been in storage at Malcolm's wharf for a few years and has gained quite a bit of green growth along with the white oxide you get from galvanised plate.
After a couple of hours of scraping and wire brushing is was looking new, well.....nearly new.
While cleaning the the tank I did notice that all the bottom corners had been lead wiped, obviously to seal it up and it also look like the flange joints are of lead. I don't know exactly how old the tank is but, riveted galvanised plate with lead wiped joints is certainly before my time.

The coming weekend should see the the tank fitted and the prop shat back in position.

We can then replace the bulkhead and finish the last bit of hold flooring.....weather permitting!

2010-01-11T07:30:00.000Z

The engine in position, needs lifting 4 inches to line up with the prop shaft, also the prop shaft need shortening by about a foot.

Looking at my fellow bloggers, Chertsey and Blossom, seems we are all now getting a little tired of this cold snap, as the Met office call it, four weeks now, isn't it?

It is certainly playing havoc our work schedule and we are falling behind rapidly. We were hoping to get everything done for the Easter get together at Coventry, but that's looking doubtful now.

Having to work under the sheets is a right pain, especially when you're cutting out part of the old engine bearers that are soaked in diesel and old engine oil. The fumes....

Sunday, I spent most of my time looking and planning and figuring the geometry of the forward and reverse lever, also the throttle has land just where the existing exhaust pipe is, dam!

Bottom Tank

2010-01-10T18:23:00.000Z

Quite a while ago we were bashing away at Dove when, I heard a the sound of a two cylinder and as always you have to look, don't you?

Looking out to see a familiar Josher bow heading our way.......and the familiar face Jim Taylor on the back. This was just a bit of good timing due to us just purchasing the AS2 from David Dains and Jim Taylors boat Empress has the same motor. This gave me a good opportunity to have a chat.

On scrambling out of Dove we bumbed into another familiar face....Ian Braine, obviously giving Jim a hand.

While I went to converse with Jim about motors, Andrea had a chat to Ian, on my return Andrea and Ian were talking about Bottom Tanks and before I knew it was all priced and arranged for collection.

Well, on Saturday, in the snow, went to collect this tank, It turned out to be a proper riveted Josher fuel tank and in remarkable condition. While loading it on to the trailer Malcolm came out for chat, which I find interesting, he's always a good tail to tell.

We were hoping to drop the tank straight into Dove but, due to about three inches of ice, there was no way we were going to move anything, so the tank stayed on the trailer and back home where I will clean it up and give it a coat of paint.

Engine in

2010-01-03T15:57:00.000Z

The problem with doing anything like this at Fradley, even on cold winters day, you always get an audience and I find this a little unnerving, it's as if there waiting for something to go wrong.
Anyway, it didn't, it went to plan

In goes the AS2

2010-01-03T15:35:00.000Z

After nearly a full day heaving, tugging and pulling we finally got the Gardner out of the engine room and into the middle of the hold, and there it will stay until sold.

Now to erect the Heath Robinson engine lifting gear, this is our home made swinging gibbet. We made this while on dry land at Teddersly, it came in very handy for lifting equipment in and out of the boat and cheap too.

We now had to pole Dove down to the dock side, so we could get boat and trailer side by side to tranship the AS2.

After a trial lift it was desided best to put out a spud leg, this was a piece of steel "G" cramped to the top bulkhead flange of Dove's engine room and pack up with timber of the dock side. This now stopped Dove tipping over with weight of the AS2.

Let work commence

2010-01-03T15:02:00.000Z

After the compulsory eating and drinking was over, we set too and laid some more flooring. The flooring is made up of 9 x 1 inch boards sat on 3 x 2 inch battens and held in possition by a rebate in the kelson. While Andrea was sawing off the boards with her new Christmas presy....an "Evolution Rage" circular saw, (very inpresive, cuts through steel too!) I was nailing it all together in to panels, this would then enable us to move all the equipment from the back of the boat to about midships, giving us room to remove the bottom section of the engine room bulkhead and drag out the Gardner, all two tons of it.

Christmas on the the boats

2010-01-03T14:29:00.000Z

Just because it's Chistmas dosen't mean you can rest......there's work to be done.
Having both boats moored together makes life easy while we're down there, that is, you don't have to travel far to work.

On Christmas eve we packed up lock, stock and Barrel (homebrew that is) and set off to Fradley determind to have ten days hard graft.
In the van, was every tool I could think of and on the trailer all the wood for the remainder of the floor and of course, the AS2.
Ariving at Fradley in two inches of snow and ice made it very difficult to get out of a nice warm van and into two very cold boats.
We spent most of the day transfering stuff from van to boat and getting the stoves going, so not much progress on Dove. Also it was warmer in the pub.

2009-12-03T15:38:00.000Z

Having two boats with four chimney's in total it becomes rather costly at times. Due to a few being claimed by low trees, bridge holes and of course rot.

I thought having the equipment, I would have a bash at making my own, nothing special to start with, just galvanized sheet and pop rivets.

The brass, is sheard from 1mm sheet and the handle rescued from an old chimney.

It is actually tapered to the top but it doesn't show on the photo.

More Kelson

2009-11-29T20:43:00.000Z

While sat watching paint dry, I thought I'd better do something else.

So fixing another length of kelson to the bottom was in order.

Due to the boat having a steel bottom, I decided the way to do this was, to weld 2 x 2 angle irons to the bottom and bolt the 2in thick Pitch pine kelson to the angles. This would then give me the required 4ins for the depth of floor and, also, give the bottom some rigidity and allow any water free access without touching the timber.

More scraping and painting

2009-11-29T20:24:00.000Z

After a couple of weekends away doing other things, we're back in the bottom of the boat scraping off the old crud applied years ago by various owners.

We are trying a rust converter which is used in Locomotive preservation, hopefully it will stop the corrosion getting any worse and also create a barrier between the new paint and the bare metal. It's 70 quid a gallon so I hope it works.

Looking at the picture above you can see the white, which is the newly applied and the black/brownish that has reacted with the rust and created a sort of resin type coating.

2009-10-07T10:10:00.000+01:00

Having now done a couple of years with a Gardner 4L2 complete with No.2 reversing box, which is a good reliable motor but, not for this type of boat, it's time to put somthing more appropriate in the engine 'ole.

A few months ago an Armtrong Siddeley came up for sale. After a bit of asking round, found these to be a reasonable motor and would fit nicely in Dove. This would then enable us to fit the bottom tank and the correct day tank.

2009-10-05T08:25:00.000+01:00

Got the deck board and cratch built now, we've just put some temprary cloths on for now, just to keep the weather out.

Thought I'd have a go at putting the strings on, just see what it looked like.

2009-10-05T08:15:00.000+01:00

Been quite busy the past few weeks, started at the front end with the flooring boards and kelson. you'll also see we've got the brackets riveted in and all painted up.

Mast and Stands

2009-08-18T13:48:00.000+01:00

While at Braunston this year, Martin off "kestrel" very kindly donated a mast case. It needed some attention but is quite sound.
Also, a while ago the "Trouts" that's Dave and Karen off ex-FMC Trout, gave us a pair of stands that were surplus to their requirments. So, now we're getting the cross beams in, I thought it's time to splash a bit of paint about.
Turned out quite well, to say I'm no painter. Not sure about the blue though. I suppose some body will comment about it and put me right.

Remains of "Caggy"

2009-08-09T20:51:00.000+01:00

After the wrestling match with the brackets, I thought we'd move back and remove more of Dove's history, that is when "Caggy" Stevens had it.

These were well over engineered gussets welded to 6x3 channels and then welded to the sides and bottom.

Riveting

2009-08-09T20:24:00.000+01:00

Had a good weekend, made and fitted the Mast Cross beam brackets. Not an easy task due to the years of bodging, rivet holes plated over, bolts welded in and old rivets just welded up.

2009-08-06T21:27:00.000+01:00

Phase 2 of the restoration begins

Just getting the hang of this blogging lark, thought I might record our progress with Dove.

After running round like this for 12 months, we thought it was time to get on with the running gear. That is, Cratch, mast, stands and all the other bits needed to make the boat look like it should.

FMC Dove

2007-12-18T09:02:00.000Z

to see the restoration of ex-FMC narrow boat Dove click on
http://picasaweb.google.com/fmcdove

Dove, the home coming

On the 26th of August 2006 Andrea and I cranked up Achilles, and set off to Ricky. The purpose of the journey, to collect a boat, a boat called Britannia formally FMC Dove and owned by a well known character called Albert Jones. I could digress, because Albert can tell a tale or two, but that will have to wait until another time.

We arrived at Ricky the following Thursday 9am, had a test run? Handed over the cash and set off back to Fradley Junction.
Dove, as it will now be known, had a Lister SR3 under the 8 foot Cruiser deck, it was a proper conversation stopper, the noise!!!! At Batchworth lock I found the first little problem, to get it out of forward, you have to put it into full reverse, then to neutral really quick or the dam thing stops and will not start until its ready. As you can imagine the lock got a bashing. After that, we decided to breast up and let Achilles do the work, ( that’s what she was built for ). There is another thing, Dove has an “anti-brat device” that is, she has no Gunwales or Handrails so boarding and alighting has to be well judged.
After a few more mishaps, bumps and bangs, our boating skills were now being tested due to Dove running out of diesel and becoming a Butty and now under tow, at least it was quiet.

The journey back was interesting, what with gale force winds at Grafton bridge (57) and other boaters racing for bridge holes making life a little difficult, but all in all it was a good trip. One thing Andrea noticed, while she was steering Dove, that all you butty people take for granted, is the quiet and the lap of water going through bridge holes. (romantic isn’t it).

Arriving back at Fradley, on the Thursday 7th September, having completed 258miles and 204 locks and ready for a pint or two in the Swan. While there, we arranged with Geoff to pop Dove in the dry dock ( and that cost me some more beer ) to see what was what. George Wain came down to cast an eye over things and offer his help and advise, I suppose that will cost me even more beer.

After a serious dig round the hull, I decided it was best to put Dove on dry land, due to one or two dubious areas.
I arranged to take her out at Teddesley Boat Co. at Penkridge, there I under took a full out of water survey and thickness test of the steel bottom. Ultrasonic thickness testing the iron side wasn’t that accurate with my tester, so it was down to the old fashion method, 2lb hammer. However, I think the trip from London was test enough.

It was found the counter was completely rotten and the lower side plates just forward of the swim, and as George Wain said, I noted this rot was from inside and not from outside. The rest of the boat seems in good condition, with a new 1/2in steel bottom fitted in 1984 now down to 3/8th at the engine room area and, being re-footed full length.
Due to having a full length cabin since the late 70’s most of the insides and the knees are in good condition, just a few rivets to replace where they have been scuffed off the outside.

Dove, the repair

Firstly we had to remove everything that wasn’t Yarwoods, well, nearly everything, then start to take her apart, piece by piece, doing this, gave us a clue on how she was put together when built. It became quite obvious that the steel rule, centre pop or sharp drill wasn’t in the Yarwoods tool cupboard, there isn’t one rivet hole in line or at definite centres and it’s long since I saw a figure of eight drill. This meant we had to use most of the old plate as a template and drill through what was there and guess the rest. When we de-riveted the plates and angles, we found what looked like a linen type material in the joint. This turned out to be Boilermakers Felt.

By the end of November all the plates were shaped and drilled, and the chine angles rolled and bolted in place ready for riveting. The 3 x 3 x 3/8th angles had to be, firstly cold rolled into a radius by Angle Ring Ltd. We had then to heat them up on site and adjust to line up with the original ellipse of the counter.
The first weekend in December saw the side and back plates cut to shape, then rapped around the chine angle. These were then ready for drilling through.
The following visit wasn’t until mid December due to my other hobby ( re-pairing steam locomotives ). Andrea had zillions of holes to drill and I set too and formed the deck support angle. Everything had to be ready for the Christmas week so we could have a riveting session to tighten everything up.
I must say, building boats this way, seems easier than when we built Achilles. There isn’t half as much plate wrestling and no weld dressing afterwards.
After the Christmas festivities and the Turkey was digested we packed up the van with everything we just might need for a weeks work and set off to Teddersly on Boxing Day. Wednesday, we finished off drilling the remaining holes and countersinking the one’s that needed to be flush riveted. We also had one or two practice rivets, to get the length right.
Thursday, Dave and Mag’s, friends of ours, arrived to lend a hand for the day. We got set up made a plan of action and made a start. After a few mishaps Dave soon got the hang of backing up and things were looking good. Until!!! Calamity, I accidentally touched the trigger on the Hammer and rivet tool shot about fifteen feet, straight in the cut. It’s funny how things happen in slow motion but, you still can’t do anything about it. After a few expletives, I had to go and find it, I can assure you hanging upside down in the canal, in December, is not a good experience.
I found the tool and we were back in business and finished the day with well deserved beer. It was noted that, the new rivets look more like welded on washers and was all this hard work worth it? The answer, yes it is, just to be able to say you did it.
The following few day’s, progress was slow due to the inclement weather, I’m afraid electric drills and grinders don’t mix with wind and rain, not in my hands anyway.It’s now 2007 and it back to work, to earn some more penny’s for the new cabin.

Dove’s Progress

The new year started a little slow, what with the weather and the inability to find any 2 ½ inch wide rubbing band. We searched high and low, after a month of phone calls and running round, and been told “yes we do have it, how many tons do you want”? We finally found something close. It turns out a boat builder up Atherstone way, advertises 68mm (them foreign things) wide rubbing strakes on his web site. I immediately telephoned the yard and a very nice lady there said she would enquire about this product and would ring me back shortly. To my surprise, the reply was, “yes we do have it, but he won’t sell you any”. Well Mr. Boat builder, I work on the principal, what goes round, comes round and I leave it at that sir.
Time was running on and something had to be done. So we, well I, decided to make our own rubbing band. When I explained to Andrea that we would buy 40 feet of 2 ½ inch by ½ flat bar and grind it to a convex profile then drill it every 5 inches, her face was a picture. Needless to say I had to do all the grinding.

By the end of February the backend was all about finished bar one two other minor repairs, so we had to start considering the back cabin and engine room. After taking advice from all quarters, we decided to build the cabin out of steel and trim the outside with timber.

The drawings we have for Yarwood boats are a little unclear when it comes to cabin dimensions. So we had to go hiking around the country looking for a boat of the same period. As luck would have it, we found Dove’s stable mate Dragon had just been re-built at Brinklow Boats. At this point I would thank Mr Malone and especially Steve Priest for there time and pointing us in the right direction regarding cabin construction.

As a matter of interest, Dove and Dragon were out-shopped together in January 1925, numbers 295 and 296 and here they are again 82 years later. Also that month saw Monarch and Marquis turned out after their re-fit. Would be nice to see them all together again. Anyway, I digress, come on, back to work. Braunston is looming.

Now we have some dimensions to work to, we’re hacking plate up and drilling holes like mad folk, until…. we came to fit the roof and found the cabin was out of square. After throwing the tape measure at everything we’d made, and a lot of head scratching and finding nothing wrong. We investigated further and found it to be the original bulkhead angle iron’s. It turns out all the hull is askew by one inch. Must remember this when we fit the engine bearers!

We are now in the process of riveting the engine room top, we’ve got to 250 rivets and there’s more to come.The engine room top is to be as per drawing, all riveted and bolted to the gunwale timbers and complete with wooden hatch and handrails. I must say, it does make the grey matter work overtime constructing something like this without welding and, it makes you appreciate the skills and effort needed by the men in 1925.

Dove on the move (at last)

In the last episode we were on with riveting the engine room cabin sides and front. Well, they were soon completed and ready for fitting but first we need the wood for the gunwales.

We collected about a ton of Iroko from our local merchant, well it felt like a ton. It had all been cut to various sizes according to our drawing. This will do all the exterior woodwork, such as the cabin sides, gunwales and handrails, also the main structure inside the Back Cabin. Looking at some of the timber sizes, like 6x3’s for the cabin frame! Obviously, the designer went on the top side of the build spec. just look at a modern roof truss, you’re lucky to get 4x2’s.

Not having a steamer to hand to soften the timber up a bit, we just left it in the rain for day or two, we had plenty of that.

Getting the 6x2 timbers on the gunwales, which runs from the deck to just forward of the engine room wasn’t that bad, with the help of various “G” cramps, a dozen 1/2in bolts and a set of ½ ton chain blocks, it all went quite well.

We could now fit the engine room cabin, using our patent home made crane the sides and front were soon in position and bolted down. Now for the roof, this is where we had to take our time. Due to the step in the cabin sides, where the timbers finish at the engine room doors, the roof sheet has to step out at this point, just the thickness of the timber.
Cramping a 2x2 angle iron full length of the cabin at roof level ensured a nice continuous curve. We could now measure the roof sheet and the three support angles. No sooner said than done drilled and fitted.

The hard part now, was riveting the roof, with just the two of us, it came apparent that I had to be some kind of athlete, I think it’s the industrial version of the pentathlon. I was taking the rivets from the oven, putting them into the hole inside the cabin, Andrea then backed it up while I climbed onto the roof to rivet it over, all before they went cold. I was up and down like a brides nightie most of the day. Mind you, Andrea got the noisy end, I suppose you can imagine being in a tin can with, some idiot on the outside with an air hammer

Fixing the timber to the side of the cabin proved to be just a little trying to say the least. Persuading 6in wide timber, to go where it doesn’t want to go, did take a few swear words. However, by the time all the side timbers and handrails were on, I was quite pleased with our efforts to say “I don’t do wood” and it was looking more like a working boat now. While Andrea plugged all the bolt holes and started to sand down, I went to fit the engine bearers.

Remembering things aren’t too true at the backend, I decided to fit the refurbished stern tube complete with propshaft, this would give me a line to work too, and as it worked out, it was a good move. The bearers are nowhere near in line with the hull centre.
Time now to slide the engine into position, which turned out to be easer done than said….?
We could now fit the bottom half of the front bulkhead…….engine room complete.

Thinking ahead a little, getting a hull survey sorted out might be a good thing, seen as Braunston is only six weeks away. I’d already chalk marked most of the repairs needed up the front end and, tested all the ironwork with my thickness tester ( 4lb hammer ), but, you have to have the piece of paper and I thought Malcolm Braine was best qualified for this. Malcolm turned up as agreed and went for a wander around the vessel prodding and poking here and there. After a complete lap of the boat and Malcolm being a man of few words, just said, “you must be a brave man” he then proceeded to tap his way round the iron work with his toffee hammer, listening to the ever changing tone and making even more chalk marks.
While waiting for the report to land on the door mat, we set too and got on with the repairs, basically it was few rivets that were scuffed off the outside and where the odd knee had blown.

Unlucky for us, Malcolm was busy with Cactus in Liverpool, which delayed the report, so, no insurance, no Licence, no Braunston. However, we did get her launched and proved the engine and gearbox works and everything was in line.

This delay must have been fate, as Viv Scragg needed a crew for Monarch and Grimsby to get to Braunston and it looked like we were it. Very interesting outing and learned quite a bit about steering with the unbalanced vertical rudder. Has you may note from the photographs, Dove has the same arrangement.

The gear box is a Gardner No.2 cone type, similar to the one in Skylark. This needs the prop shaft to slide backwards and forwards to engage drive. Then the thrust of the propeller holds it in drive. Having never fitted this type before, I was a little concerned that if the stern gland was too tight, it wouldn’t slide and, if too loose it would leak. As it turned out, everything worked a treat. However, it does take some getting used to, as there’s no detent for neutral and you can easily go from forward straight to reverse. This can get a little embarrassing especially when you’re off the boat and holding a rope by this time.

Dove made her maiden voyage to Fradley Jct on Sunday 8th July without incident, well, mechanical incident anyway, we did have a bit of a do at Great Haywood jct. When one of the intelligent boating brigade decided to do a full power manoeuvre, just as I’m coming round the junction and put my bows into the bank. We arrived at Fradley in time for a pint or two and let the Swan boating committee survey our efforts.

Now at Fradley and on the water, we are able to fit out the back cabin. The problem with having a steel cabin is you have to work inside out, that is, you have to put the side boards on then put in the support frame. This has proved to be quite awkward, having to fix in 6 x 3 timbers to the sides and 3 x 3’s to the roof and, make it look right, especially, when the middle frame has to be askew by 3 inches, this makes for some fancy angles.

The floor frames went in very easily due to all the original angle iron brackets being still in place and now with the floor in and covering the shaft bearings, I’m keeping my shin skin a little longer and reduced the swearing.

In and amongst doing the inside we’re also getting some paint on the outside. We’ve decided to have the black and white livery, I don’t know if this is historically correct for a 1925 boat, but I’m sure we will get to know if it isn’t.
It’s been a long 12 months! But, we’re getting there.

Dove goes on tour

Right then….. where were we…. Ah yes, paint. I put a bit of paint on the cabin at Teddersley just to stop the weather getting in but, it needed a lot more. We didn’t want Dove to look brand new, it needed to look just a little used. However, my attempt at painting made it look a lot used, so Geoff from Swan Line Boats took it in hand and, in his spare time did us a cracking paint job. He also arranged for Jim McCormack to do the sign writing, and that is definitely something to watch.

While all this was going on outside, me and Andrea got on with the back cabin interior, this wasn’t too difficult to plan due to having practiced on Achilles. We got all the frame work fixed, a Bed cupboard (without hinges), a few shelves and a side bed. Then the day before we set off to Shackerstone I put the Ash deck on, bolted down the side rails and planed the camber on the back timber. By nine ‘o’ clock that night the fenders and a dolly were fitted and ready for business. We always seem to be on the last push, but we made our minds up, Dove is going to Shackerstone one way or another!

Thursday afternoon, we finally got underway, well, not quite. What you can’t do, is come out of Geoff’s dock forwards and turn right down the Coventry. You have to go into the lock mouth, reverse back in front of the Swan pub and the audience, then turn down the Coventry. I’m sure every boat on the cut was waiting for me to do this, because when I set off, the Junction was empty, half way out, there must have been a dozen boats appear from all directions. Of course, you guessed it…. Chaos!!! Then Hyperion appeared out of Middle lock and came to join us. I was quite amused with all this. However, some of the shiny boat people weren’t that happy rubbing gunwales with us, can’t imagine why, we had a brand new paint job too.

After a while, the unofficial gathering dispersed and we got going, Hyperion leading the way. This turned out, not to be a good thing, everytime a boat came the other way, they were that busy looking at Hyperion they collided with us. “This weren’t half testing my rivets”! We spent the night at Atherstone bottom lock and arrived at Shackerstone in one piece the following teatime.

Over the weekend it was suggested that we took Dove to the Black Country Museum gathering. This meant we had to get a little more organised for cooking and sleeping. But there was only two and bit weeks. “Here we go again”, I took some time away from work and set too making a table cupboard, collecting and fitting the Epping and, making a chimney, also generally finishing off things from the last mad rush.

Andrea thought it would be good a idea to go to Birmingham via the Staffs and Worcester, then up through Stourbridge and the Delph, nice steady three days. I assumed with Jacko’s regular coal run the Staffs and Worcester would be quite deep. However, Dove found the bottom quite often and at one point came out of the water by a foot then went over sideways by 30 degrees, Andrea, who was steering at the time, was little concerned by this to say the least but she kept on going and things settled out.
The New Main line proved interesting, watching the reeds bow down to us as we cruised through at an energetic pace, plenty of water to play with. We gained some time here and arrived at the BCM early evening.

After a very interesting weekend moored next to Henry and Phyllis on Cactus and Pete on Hadley also having fender making lessons from Joe Hollingshead, we set off back to Fradley, this time via Farmers Bridge and Aston. This was the first time we’d been this way with a 70’ boat. Now we know why the cill stones are cut away coming down Curdworth locks. Don’t know how the GU boats go on.
Dove is now back at Shadehouse lock, where work will continue over the winter. There is still loads to do, so I may have some more jottings next year, that’s if you’re interested.

WINTER WORKING ON DOVE
(or Christmas day in the workhouse)

Now we’ve had our playtime we must now settle down to some serious work but, winter is upon us and we have to pick our jobs according to the weather. Arriving back from the Black Country we got on with more of the back cabin, this was basically making doors and drawers. Working in the back cabin is now getting a little cramped, there just isn’t room for two people, two four foot sash cramps and a ton of saw dust, so it looks like some of the work will have to be done at home. The only thing is, this means a two hour round trip if I get anything wrong.

We are deviating from the plan a little with the design of the back cabin, like with the engine room door, in Dove there are two and they open into the engine room, not as per drawing and into the cabin.

During a bit of a dry spell we had a go at the fore deck, I knew it was a bit worse for wear but, I didn’t realise how bad it was, until I started doing my archaeological dig with the gas axe. I found most of it didn’t have that iron oxide reaction I expected, it was more of a toxic melt down combined with luminous flares. It was about twenty per cent body filler and Aluminium mesh under twenty coats of paint. The repair methods of some boat owners does leave a lot to be desired. By the time you’ve messed about with filler and sanding discs, you could have riveted, or dare I say, welded, a new plate in. However, this way, they left enough original remnants to give us a clue to, how the Fore deck and Scuttle were constructed. There was even a number of pre-war 3/8th bolts and the odd rivet dangling from the bulk head angle iron and, the bottom of the original “T” stud was still rusted in position.

After removing the steel cants, which for some unknown reason, were full of leaves and grass, very odd! Revealed lots more holes, you can actually see the acid reaction where the Oak was bolted to the Iron. So this has given us a clue to the correct timber sizes for the front deck., as this does vary from boat to boat.
On close examination of the deck plate and using my dynamic thickness tester, I found the extreme front section to be quite thick, so I’ve decided to only renew from the bulkhead to just forward of the scuttle hatch. We will also, have to fabricate new angle irons in this area to support the new plate, especially near the bulkhead where the body filler has held the water.

Dove’s progress

We left you in the last episode with yet more rotten bits to sort out. After taking measurements from the existing fore deck plate, well, what was left of it, we set too to make the new one.
With having limited facilities at Shadehouse, I decided to make the plate and the new angle iron at home, good thing our neighbours are understanding.
Putting the radius on the 3x3 angle turned out quite easy, after converting my hydraulic pipe bender, but the plate proved more of a challenge.
It turned out, the original plate was quite a complex shape and took quite a bit of pushing, pulling, jacking and persuading into position. Obviously these were hot pressed in Yarwoods days. Once this was fitted and welded to the good bit I left in, we could then shape the hatch combing and rivet it in place, and also cork up the edge making it watertight.

When it came to riveting the deck plate, it was obvious that someone or something was going to end up in the drink, so we asked Geoff at Fradley if we could borrow his dock.

We laid planks across the dock and around the bows as a bit of a walkway, this proved to be the safest and easiest way to tackle the job. Due to Andrea being the weaker of the two sexes (no doubt I’ll get some flack for that statement). We decided it best to get counter sunk rivets and Andrea to back up on the outside and me put a snap on the inside, once I got the right size rivets, dam elastic tape measures! Anyway, soon rattled ‘em in once we got going, just got a little noisy in there, even for my deaf ears.

Now with the deck finished, time to fit the new cants. After the wrestling match we had with the Iroko on the cabin sides and gunwales, I decided to use the more traditional timber, Oak!
Before we did any more bent bits, I had to make us a steam box. I had full intentions of making a proper affair, however, time got the better of us and it turned out being made of some old plywood, a load of screws, humpteen yard of Gaffer tape and two wallpaper steamers borrowed from friends. Don’t laugh, cause it worked, well in a fashion.
When bending the Oak, I found you still have to watch the grain structure to avoid splitting, as we discovered when one piece exploded while cooling, which caused me to use words like “ dam and blast” and other well known phrases.

While waiting for more materials and, the money to pay for them, we got on with finishing off the little bits that got put to one side until you get a “roundtuit”. Well, I’ve got one now so there’s no excuse. (see photo)

We got to Braunston, has you may have seen, complete with new Oak cants and a more liverble cabin. While there, we had a look and compare with Owl, with it being of similar vintage. Also glanced at a few other FMC’s, looks like every bodies got different ideas how they should look. Also got talking to Barry Argent about Perch, that should be an interesting project to watch.

Arriving back at Fradley after our jolly outing, we finished off the back cabin and the following weekend Andrea got out the Ratcliffs undercoat and attacked everything that didn’t move. Then a good day saw off the Scumbling and a pint or two in the Swan to wash down the fumes.
During Sunday afternoon ex FMC Victory arrived for a spot of filming with Joe Hollingshead, so it turned into a mini FMC gathering with Dove, Monarch, Grimsby and Marquis
Next are the roses and castles? I’m afraid, I’m no artist, so for me this could be the most difficult part of the restoration.