Why can't all paddle gear be like this?

After realising yesterday that I might have been slightly too ambitious to get up all 42 locks from Huddersfield to Marsden in one day we set off earlier than normal (0800) and cracked on with it.

We paused briefly at the canalside Lidl at Mirfield for essentials (bread, milk and maple pecans) and soon we were turning sharp left and then right to enter the Huddersfield Broad Canal.

Phew! Back to good old canals, where the weirs are very tame and you don't have to worry about floods. At the first lock - and many of the Broad Canal's locks - the paddle gear is interesting. There's no pawl to fiddle with; when you wind the paddle up there's a tinkling sort of ratchet sound and the spindle and connected parts stay put when you stop turning. To lower the paddle you simply overcome a slight resistance and wind the gear down again. At first glance it looks like a Fenner system, common on the Leeds and Liverpool and the Rochdale canals, but some of the inscription on the cast iron casing reads "INTOGEAR" and "INTOVALVE". It was nice to use (but there was at least one broken one). Of course, this can't be installed everywhere. One of the joys of the inland waterways is the variety of paddle gear - this morning I was enjoying using a handspike at Cooper Bridge Lock on the Calder and Hebble.

It was a real shame we had no time to stop in Huddersfield. I wanted to do as much of the eastern side of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal as possible today to be certain of making our booked passage through Standedge Tunnel on Wednesday. The Locomotive Lift Bridge was fun, but then we passed through Aspley Basin and onto the HNC.

After the first lock we were a bit surprised to encounter a boat coming towards us out of the tunnel. They said there was another boat behind them but that they would keep the lock set for us, which they did. The following boat turned out to be Lillyanne; we were moored very near them at Crick earlier this year.

It was good to meet you, Pip and Mick, albeit all too briefly. As we were ascending in Lock 2E the water running out of the pound above, where Lillyanne was waiting, caused Lillyanne to tilt over alarmingly. I shut the paddles and helped Mick push the boat out towards the middle of the channel. When it was properly afloat again I finished filling the lock and we passed in the pound.

This wasn't the lowest pound by any means. That honour goes to that above Lock 10E. I had to run a little water down from the pound above, fortunately a longish one, before we could gingerly make our way down the middle. I say "we" - it was actually Jan as I was wielding the windlass. As she came into the lock the boat reared up as it went over the bottom gates' cill.

There was one incident later where we went aground. I must have strayed too near the edge. A bit of a push with the cabin shaft did the trick and there were no further problems, although Jan reported scraping along the bottom at one point.

Now we are in Slaithwaite and replete from a good curry at the Monsoon Indian Restaurant.

edited to correct spelling and add a link

Racking up the locks

A leisurely Sunday morning saw us in St. Catherine's church down Doncaster Road in Wakefield where the rural dean gave a good sermon. The church building was quite unlike a "conventional" mediaeval or Victorian pile. It burnt down a couple of decades ago and an excellent modern church was erected in its place. The church does a large amount of work to support the needy in the community with a café and a food bank supplied from local businesses (top marks to, among others, Sainsbury's and Greggs).

It was about 1230 when we untied. Our first job was to deliver an empty aluminium beer cask across the cut to the Ruddy Duck pub opposite whence, no doubt, it had come. It had been nestling up to the back end of Jubilee.

About a mile before Horbury Bridge Andrew and Bekka joined us, having walked along the towpath from Brewery Bridge. We called in to the services at Horbury Bridge, watering up in the disused lock which used to connect to the river through the basin. The rain started after we left there, getting quite heavy at times.

It must be many years since Andrew last did some locks. The paddle gear at the Figure of Three Locks looks heavy.

We called in at the Nelson pub at Brewery Bridge hoping for a Sunday roast meal, but they did little more than bar snacks. I was tempted by the beef in a Yorkshire pud but it wouldn't have been quite the meal I was hoping for. We ended up at the Ship Inn by Shepley Bridge, a Hungry Horse pub advertising two Sunday roasts for £10. Unfortunately, by the time we'd got drinks and decided what food we wanted, they had run out of roast meals. Ho hum. We settled for something from the grills menu instead.

Andrew and Bekka (with Caspar the dog - how could I forget him?) drove back to Sheffield from the pub. I was interested to learn that Andrew had done a man-with-a-van job for Sarah of Chertsey. Perhaps Sarah will blog about the cabinet (or whatever it was) destined for her boat at some stage.

Looking back at today's photos I was amused to see Jan apparently caught between two paddle racks.

It really needs someone wittier than I to come up with a caption. Anyone?

Tomorrow's destination is Huddersfield. On Tuesday we have to get to Marsden for our booked passage through Standedge Tunnel the next morning. That's 41 locks in one day - eek! That really will be racking 'em up. Perhaps we'll overshoot Huddersfield tomorrow to make Tuesday a little easier. At least it might not rain tomorrow.

More boaterly kindness; jigglers

We left the visitor mooring at Castleford this morning in the dry, but not for long. A sudden short shower had me reaching for my coat - and Jan handing me my leather hat. Most of the day was hot and dry; although we had some torrential downpours after we'd tied up in Wakefield.

But that's jumping the gun. As I held the boat at a landing stage while Jan pressed the buttons to operate King's Road Lock I got talking to a boater, Trevor, who moors near the lock. I mentioned that we were on the way to Stanley Ferry to get diesel and that Supreme Marine were charging 95p/l in Castleford and that's why I got only 20 litres. Trevor said that Stanley Ferry Marina would charge about the same and offered to drive me to a nearby garage selling it for 71.9p/l. He also offered the use of as many jerry cans as I needed. It got so that I couldn't refuse his generosity; we filled three of his 20 litre cans as well as my 20 litre can while Jan went across the road to Lidl. Returning to the boat I put my funnel in the filler of the tank - and immediately realised that holding a full and therefore heavy jerry can at the right angle was going to be impossible without spilling diesel everywhere. Trevor said "you need a jiggler" and went back to his boat to get one. This is a length of flexible hose with a brass fitting at one end containing - as far as I could tell - a small glass ball. This acts as a one-way valve such that all you have to do to get the siphon started is jiggle the end of the hose up and down in the jerry can. With each "jiggle" a small amount of diesel is trapped in the "uphill" part of the hose coming out of the jerry can, adding to any diesel that was already there, until eventually it starts flowing downhill drawing more diesel up behind it.

I transferred the contents of all three of Trevor's cans into the tank - and I'm proud to say that not one drop of diesel was spilt into the navigation. That was enough to fill the tank; I put my full can away in the boat. We had invited Trevor and Amanda to join us for coffee, but they had to go and buy a present for a birthday celebration, so they left us to return the cans and the jiggler in their absence.

Well, it seems that all I have to do is say the word "diesel" and boaters go out of their way to be helpful. Thank you Trevor, it was good meeting you and Amanda. I wonder what your boat is called!

It didn't take long to reach Fall Ings Lock in Wakefield - we were back to using a windlass again. This lock, Trevor had warned us, was a bit of a pig when going up as there were no ground paddles. We took it slowly, therefore, but even with both top gate paddles fully raised when the lock was more than half full it took ages to reach a level.

We walked into Wakefield in the heat, risking not taking coats. This plan almost backfired as there were a couple of heavy showers while we were in the city, but we managed to avoid getting soaked by being, conveniently, either in the bank or in Sainsbury's.

The cathedral was closed for repairs and the Hepworth art gallery was closed by the time we realised what the concrete monstrosity we'd walked past earlier was. There was an interesting chapel on Wakefield Bridge, though.

According to the blue plaque the Chantry Chapel is one of only four bridge chapels remaining in England. (I have seen buildings on bridges at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts and St.Ives, Cambs - are these two of the other three?)

The footbridge to the Hepburn gallery crosses Wakefield Wharf on the weir stream of the Calder. An interesting effigy to rival any seen at Charity Dock on the Coventry Canal dangles from a crane.

We ate in the Ruddy Duck opposite our mooring. This is a Marston's "Two for One" chain pub like the one in Braunston (The Boat House, if I remember correctly). They managed to forget about us after we'd ordered our food; they were very apologetic and offered us a free drink or pudding as compensation for our having to wait so long. Oh, and they brought us free garlic bread while we were waiting for our first course.

Tomorrow (Sun) we look forward to Andrew and Bekka joining us for a while.

Andrew introduces us to a Sheffield delicacy: the pork sandwich

After a foggy start the sun soon got going, bringing T-shirt weather. We had a day out in Sheffield, visiting Andrew and Bekka. I had left the car in Fazeley for this purpose; I'll drive home next week and return to the boat by train.

We arrived at lunch time; Andrew suggested going to Crookes for a "pork sandwich". This is, apparently, a local fast food fashion. Crookes is an area of the city which is home to a branch of Béres, the best (according to Andrew) pork sandwich shop. It consists of a "bread cake" (bap) sliced in two, dipped in juices and filled with slices of pork from a freshly roasted joint. Andrew said that it's best to ask for it "with everything", so we did. It comes with apple sauce, stuffing and crackling ("crackles" in their terminology) and is served in its own paper bag.

We ate them at Bole Hill ...

... overlooking the Rivelin valley and Stannington beyond. My pork sandwich was very nice, but I could have done with another one.

As soon as we had finished Andrew led us on a walk, together with Caspar the dog, down to the river and a park café there for an ice cream. Then we walked along the river Rivelin past remains of mills. Two grooves for the mill wheel are visible to the right of the arch.

And look at this paddle gear by the derelict mill leat or goit. Remind you of anything? Yes, it's the same as on some locks on the Calder and Hebble, those operated by a hand spike.

Before I sign off today, here's a daft sign at Tibshelf Services on the M1.

"Do not leave any items in your vehicle".

On to Knottingley

Friday 15th August 2014: just past Horbury Bridge to Knottingley

I'm trying to catch up here, but sometimes I've been too tired in the evenings to spend an hour and more composing a blog post. Now I have a chance to put things right, as I've come home for a couple of days to mow the lawn and collect the post. Back to Jubilee tomorrow.

So ... last Friday. We soon got to Wakefield, where Nicholson said there was an elsan point. Well, we couldn't see it. Was it among these warehouses at the basin? The sign (on the extreme right of the photo) indicated that we had to turn right, but I think I should have explored the basin.

Just round the corner is Fall Ing Lock, with a sunk burnt-out boat providing a resting place for a family of swans. Having descended the lock we were now on the Aire and Calder Navigation, which takes rather longer boats than the Calder and Hebble.

At Stanley Ferry we stopped to explore the aqueducts. Upstream of them is this "trash screen", presumably put there to catch branches etc. in times of flood, before they block the narrow gap under the concrete aqueduct.

Confusingly, I've come round to the other side to take this picture.

The prettier aqueduct is the iron one.

At Ferrybridge we came to the coal-fired power stations, only one of which (I think) is still in use. The cooling towers make a dramatic backdrop to the lock, which David is operating.

We tied up on the offside moorings by the Steam Packet pub. That's us on the right nearest the camera.

We walked past several fairly grotty-looking takeaways before passing one of the factories making fancy glass bottles. We treated ourselves to an Indian meal at Ruchee. It was pretty good, and we could take our own booze. Excellent. I returned to the nearby Morrison's for wine and some bottles of Ward's ale at only £1 each. That's the ale, not the wine.

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.

How to work paddle gear with a hand spike

Sowerby Bridge to Cooper Bridge, Wednesday 13th August 2014

The day's boating started half-an-hour earlier than scheduled, as the CRT lockie knocked on Jubilee at 0830 and asked if we'd like to go down the lock with the other boat, which was booked in at that time. (We were booked in for 0900).

So, of course, we started the engine and untied our ropes and followed Dogstar into Tuel Lane Lock 4/3.

I can't think why this counts as two locks, even though it is as deep as two locks being just short of 20 feet. There is an extra set of bottom gates which, if they were used, would make the lock longer, but it's still one lock, isn't it?

Then it was straight into the tunnel under Tuel Lane. This has a couple of bends in it, the first much sharper than the second.

There's little danger of meeting another boat in there as it's all controlled by CRT.

The friends we met the day before took some photos of us emerging from the tunnel.

After filling up with diesel at Shire Cruisers in Sowerby Bridge Basin (and dealing with water and elsan) (oh, and a spot more shopping - handy Lidl up Tuel Lane) we continued on our way.

At the junction with the Halifax Arm we went straight on, i.e. onto the arm. At the end is Salterhebble where a Premier Inn dominates.

After winding ...

... we came straight out again, stopping to take a few logs from the recently fallen tree. Looking back we could see a pair of lock gates, apparently enclosing a private mooring. Did this go anywhere else? Was there a dry dock here at one time?

Then it was on to the fun and games at the Salterhebble Three. The top lock has no conventional paddle gear: a windlass is useless. Instead the paddles are lifted directly using a hand spike operating on a ratchet at foot level. A length of timber does the job.

The hand spike is inserted into the holes and pulled round to rotate the gear which lifts the paddle. A pawl stops the paddle falling down again. To lower the paddle you take the weight with the hand spike once more, disengage the pawl, and swiftly pull the hand spike away. The paddle then falls under its own weight, with no way of slowing its descent. Some gear of this type is stiff and so has to be wound down again.

Finally for this post a shot of Jan steering Jubilee along a leafy stretch of the Calder and Hebble. Actually it's all leafy (so far).

I'm now a day behind with this write-up of our summer cruise. I might catch up tomorrow but, for now, sleep calls. We are now just east of Horbury Bridge.

Falling through Fall Ing Lock

Nine week cruise - day 18 - Tuesday 19th July 2005

Horbury Bridge to Leeds


Some of the local plant life

I got up at 0625 and walked to the sanitory station and found the BW key wouldn't fit the lock on the loo door. Oh well. Back to the boat, and away at 0730. Watered up at Broad Cut Low Lock at 0830, and in another two and a half hours passed through Fall Ing Lock, the largest so far.


This waterway is so big it needs traffic lights


In a large lock

Stopped at Stanley Ferry Aqueducts to buy gas and have a look round the boatyard. David bought a handcuff key and I wish I'd done the same. There was one on the boat, but having ones own is very handy. We are now on the Aire and Calder Navigation - wide and deep, with electrically operated locks. We tied up for lunch just above a lock at 1345 (this is where writing up the log nearly three years after the event gets tricky: I've left a space in the original obviously meaning to write in the name of the lock when I had a chance to look it up. Well, that chance has been and gone. I suppose I could try to work it out from timings ... must have been Woodnock Lock, or possibly King's Road Lock.)


I wonder what's down here


Ah. More of the local plant life

Stopped at Castleford Junction to investigate the BW office - free Waterways World magazine - and to buy a BW key each. Approaching Leeds we discovered we didn't have a vital ingredient for the planned spaghetti bolognese, so David swopped a can of tomato soup for a can of tomatoes at a moored narrowboat. Eventually moored up in Leeds Canal Basin at 2115. Didn't quite have the feel of Birmingham's Gas Street Basin which we'd visited three years previously, but I think we were officially now on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, yet another first for us. Ate the spag bol.

Mushy peas and vindaloo

Nine week cruise - day 17 - Monday 18th July 2005

Huddersfield to Horbury Bridge

John and Jan up at 0715. Walked to Huddersfield Station for Jan to return home and for John to buy a ticket for Skipton to Kidsgrove (for future car shuffling). Back to the boat to continue cruising at 1145. Now it's just the two of us: David and myself. At 1535 we tied up just below Battyeford Lock on the Calder and Hebble Navigation for a lunch of filled jacket potatoes. Under way at 1600 making for Dewsbury. At 1845 we tied up at the end of the Dewsbury Arm. At the pub there we had a pint of ale, John helping his go down with a pie and mushy peas. I've noted that the pub was "good", but I didn't record its name. Here I put the wide angle lens on the time lapse camera which is recording the whole cruise.

Under way again at 1950 and moored for the night at Horbury Bridge, four hours behind my original, fairly tight, schedule. Hungry again, David found a Chinese takeaway, and I had a very good takeaway meat vindaloo for £4.00 - with free rice!