a Wigan Pier experience

Not long after dieseling up we passed this interesting group of young people.


I asked them to wave at the camera: they responded by dangling one of their number over the water.


Opposite was what is reputed to be the original Wigan Pier: a tippler for emptying the contents of coal trucks into boats.

Ambush in Wigan

And so to Wigan, where we put a round hundred pounds worth of diesel in the tank. We just caught Derek before he closed for the day.

Good pub food at the Dover Lock Inn

As mentioned in the last post, we had tied up at the Dover Lock Inn by bridge 4 on the Leigh branch of the L&L. The liver and onions was very good, and well worth £5.95. Bob, the landlord, keeps good ales, too. We stopped here on the way back and enjoyed more of the same. The pub is full of canalia: Buckby cans, brassware, tunnel lights, etc.

Unofficial dredger gets in scrap with BW and EA

Tuesday 8th July 2008

Worsley to Dover Lock Inn for lunch

it rained

After the fun and games replacing the split charge relay at Bridgewater Marina we carried on to the end of the Bridgewater Canal at Leigh. We watered up, and continued on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal (Leigh Branch) to Dover Locks. Here used to be two locks before they were "moved" to Wigan to counter mining subsidence.


As we approached Dover Bridge we saw a man repeatedly casting a grappling iron into the bridge hole. He stopped to let us pass, and we saw on the bank what he'd been dragging out: an astonishing pile of old bicycles. We tied up just after the bridge by the Dover Lock Inn and ordered food. While that was being prepared I went back to talk to the man, who told me that he was removing the scrap in order to sell it. What he was doing isn't sanctioned by BW: indeed it is strongly discouraged, despite his claim that he was doing BW a favour, as it didn't do any dredging any more. He was working his way up the canal, putting his haul in his van as he went. The Environment Agency also frowns on his activities: apparently resting the bikes on the bank before putting them in his van is littering. He told me that his record for one bridge was 40 bikes. Forty? How do forty bikes chucked in at random not form a mountain above water level?


He's pulled at least six bikes from one side of this bridgehole, so I suppose it's just possible. He gets £200 for each van load of dredged scrap.

Earthrace

It looks like something out of a James Bond film. And I was sent to film it in Lowestoft, Suffolk, this afternoon.


This outlandish-looking boat is Earthrace, a powerboat which has beaten the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe. It did the trip in a shade under 61 days, beating the previous record by a couple of weeks, apparently. The skipper was an engaging Kiwi - I could just run the interview - but I'd have to cut out a few swear words!

The boat is not much longer than a narrowboat at 78 feet, but has a 24 feet beam. In the 61 days it took the crew of four to do the 25,000 miles they changed the engine oil just six times! (Well, it didn't seem like much to me!)

Charging problems part 3

... and the culprit was:
the leisure batteries' isolation switch. The wretched thing had been throwing me off the scent by being intermittent. When I'd changed the split charge relay I'd obviously isolated the batteries by switching both the starter battery isolator and the leisure batteries' isolator switches: the latter had made contact for a while, I suppose, and then gone high resistance. Before disconnecting the offending item I isolated the batteries. Then I cleaned up the terminals and exercised the switch - but it was still intermittent, but better than before. As we were still outside Thorn Marine, being drizzled on despite being mostly under the bridge (I chose daylight over dryness), I took in the old switch hoping for a shiny new one as in the image below (from the Yacht Bits website).



But despite finding one with the same mounting hole position, the fat round black bit into which the red key is inserted was too fat. So I vaselined the terminals, put it back, and connected up again. From now on I checked the cabin voltage every time I started the engine, to make sure it was charging: if not, a quick exercise of the switch would sort things.

I was now much happier that I'd found the fault (even if it wasn't quite fixed yet - that's the owner's problem).


Here's another picture of "Elk", at Castlefield Basin in Manchester this time.

Charging problems part 2

After a while it became clear that the charging fault persisted (see previous post). Perhaps it was a bad earth connection? When the engine is running there are volts across the relay coil, but there's about 2.7V across the switched terminals - about the same as the voltage difference between the starter battery and the leisure batteries. So either the coil voltage isn't enough to energise the relay, or the contacts are high resistance, or there's something else going on which I hadn't spotted. (There was.)

We carried on with the cruise, jumping across both sets of batteries when the engine was running. I occasionally applied my mind to the problem, but didn't get anywhere with it until five days later. Why, I asked myself, was the alternator and other nearby bits of the engine, covered in a black, rubbery powder? The engine was still virtually brand new and should still be bright shiny yellow. The alternator belt. Yes, of course. The alternator belt was loose: perhaps that would explain all. Flat leisure batteries would be loading the alternator enough for the belt to slip and start disintegrating. Must be that. I tightened the belt by moving the alternator almost to the extent of its travel - the belt had been very loose - and checked the charging. As before - still not charging the leisure batteries. Grrrr. Well, now I would have to buy a new belt, and perhaps I could ask at the same time for some advice.

We've jumped forward to Saturday 12th July and we were at Rufford (I'll fill in the missing days later). Walked up to the marina and asked Chris (is that his name?) [edit: no - it's Mark, at St. Mary's Marina] if he carried such items. He didn't, but promised to get his supplier to phone me. Well, perhaps my phone didn't have a signal at the right time ... but he didn't phone.


Thorn Marine

Jumping forward again - I'm doing this in order to keep with this topic, you understand - and now it's Wednesday 16th July 2008 and we're at Stockton Heath and Thorn Marine. At last - a decent chandler's. First thing was to replace the alternator belt as I was worried about the worn one breaking. Ah. No belt the right size. But ... Nigel would order one. Two, actually, as I wanted a spare. It would be there by 0900 the next day, so we went to the London Bridge pub for tea.


Willow sheltering from the rain

The next morning we returned to Thorn Marine (we'd moored a hundred yards up the cut) for the alternator belts. Good. It was there. Yes, "it" - only one had turned up. But no problem: Nigel would order another one straightaway. First I would fit the replacement belt to make sure it was OK - and it was. A bit tight, but once on it was fine. Once the trip boats had been sent out Nigel had a poke around with his multimeter. His verdict: the split charge relay. I wasn't so sure: the replacement relay I'd got from Bridgewater Marina hadn't made any difference - and I'd checked the operation of the original relay "on the bench". Did more measurements ... and ... YES! FAULT FOUND!! It was... can you guess?

I think I'll keep you waiting for the answer and post a "part 3". Well, I had to wait almost two weeks to find out!




While we're in the engine hole, perhaps someone could explain the black rubber pipe which connects the weed hatch to the prop shaft? You can see it has a tap at the weed hatch end. There was no stern tube greaser on this setup. Any ideas?

[edited to correct marina manager's name. Also thanks to Brian for the info on a "greaseless" stern bearing]

Charging problems part 1

The fridge on board Willow is more of an electric coolbox than a proper fitted fridge. In the door it has a fan which runs noisily all the time - so at night we unplugged it. On the second morning I reconnected it and tried to recharge some batteries via the small invertor. Hmm - invertor not working. I checked the input voltage - should be nominally 12V - actually 9.63V. Oh dear - the leisure batteries have run down. A lot. I started the engine and checked again: still the same. Bigger oh dear: the leisure batteries aren't charging at all. The alternator's fine as it's charging the starter battery, so we cruise from Grappenhall to Lymm (yes, I've jumped back slightly) and stop for Jan to get some provisions while I disappear down the engine hole to try to work out what's going on. Checking voltages at the split charge relay leads me to suspect that the relay is faulty (I was wrong, but I didn't find out the real problem until almost the end of the holiday).


the split charge relay

A boater who was tied up behind me suggested connecting the positive terminals of the leisure batteries to the positive of the starter battery (with the engine running) to bypass the relay. Good idea, as long as I remember to disconnect when I stop the engine (or there's a risk of flattening the starter battery). I had a pair of meaty jump leads with me so, in an instant, we had cabin power again. Hooray! (I had to be really careful when jumping the batteries: making sure that I was holding the free end of the jump lead well clear of any metalwork while connecting the other end to one terminal, before connecting the free end to the other terminal - and keeping the "negative" lead well away).

The next morning, at Worsley, I did some more voltage measurements. These seemed to confirm the diagnosis, so I walked round to the Worsley Boatyard to see if they had any spares. They didn't, but offered to order one for me. They also suggested Bridgewater Marina, just a bit further on at Walkden, might have one. In a short time we'd cruised there ... and they were friendly too. To the extent of giving me one exactly the same which they'd just taken off a boat!

I fitted it straight away, and it seemed to fix the problem. Result! We went on our way, passing Elk outside the pub.