Water filler coming away from mounting

Thursday 14th August 2014: Cooper Bridge to just past Horbury Bridge

Still a day behind with the write-up, but there seems to be less time when there are visitors on board. The first task of the morning was for David and Penny to take their car to a nearby railway station so that they could retrieve it at the end of their time with us. Mirfield was selected as the most convenient; we arranged to pick them up at Lidl as we cruised past. This we did, but we were delayed half-an-hour by the excitement at Battyeford Flood Lock.

CRT were replacing the flood gates, so we had to wait until they could move their workboat-mounted crane out of the way. We were able to tie up to two other workboats; while we were there another boat came alongside us and one was held up coming the other way. All part of the fun of boating!

After Mirfield, to cut a long story down a bit, we made the very tight turn into the arm leading to Savile Town Wharf in Dewsbury. Half way along this arm is a splendid mural celebrating the opening of the Calder and Hebble navigation in 1770 and some of the cargo it carried. I ought to know what shoddy and mungo are, but I have either forgotten or else I didn't know in the first place. It's a shame the boat depicted is a modern pleasure boat rather than one which might actually have carried cargo.

There is another mural alongside the towpath which is rather more "street".

The text reads "chillin' @ da canal", complete with apostrophe. I wasn't best placed to do it justice with my photo - indeed, I have missed off the right-hand end altogether.

At the end of the arm I was surprised to see a basin full of boats. None of this was here the last time we visited in 2005. Good to see the Leggers Inn still doing good value grub and excellent ales. I sampled a half of Oak Stout which was very tasty. Back at the boat, which we'd put on a visitor mooring (angled short pontoon) it poured with rain. David had gone into the town; he came back fairly wet.

Continuing our journey we eventually moored just beyond Horbury Bridge near a water point. After topping up I was very surprised to find that the boat's water filler had popped out. Help! How did that happen?

The water tank below the well deck has a plastic liner, so none of the crud should be getting in. I'm wondering if the tank has expanded and pushed out the filler. I'm not sure what to do about it - pushing down on the filler it feels spongy in that it wants to come out again. Perhaps that explains the ring of silicone lying loose in that area. Maybe the filler had been fixed in place purely by sealant.

Up-to-date information: we are now (Friday evening) at Knottingley, just past Ferrybridge.