Boating soon - must get planning

Yes, we have a couple of weeks on Shadow coming up next month. Hooray! The boat is now based at Wigram's Turn, which will be quicker for us to drive to than Tattenhall, which is where it was before. And two weeks gives us a lot of cruising options. I'm looking forward to sitting down with a few Nicholson's guides, and seeing where we could go. There's a bit of the BCN we haven't done; or we could go to Oxford; or to Stratford; or down to Northampton or up to Stoke Bruerne. We could do one of several rings ... but we won't go on the Thames this time.

I'll have to check on stoppages, of course, but I'm expecting scheduled works to be out of the way by April. Oh, and CanalPlan will be consulted too.

The photo is of us returning to Tattenhall last July after a trip up the Llangollen Canal. That's Hurleston Reservoir behind the grassy bank and fence.

Engineer's Wharf

Kevin wondered yesterday if there were any boats using the marina by the recent Taylor Woodrow development on the Paddington Branch of the Grand Union. He's talking about Engineer's Wharf, near Northolt. Here's a link to BW's blurb about it.

A modern urban village provides the setting for a brand new basin on

the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal at Northolt in west

London. British Waterways has worked alongside Taylor Woodrow’s

Bryant Homes to develop the basin, known as Engineer’s Wharf, and

has created 20 new narrowboat moorings which we are now able to

offer boaters in the London area.

This is what it looked like when I passed in September last year.

I didn't know there was a "Grand Union Village", did you?

Engineer’s Wharf benefits from the proximity
of facilities in Grand Union Village including
shops, a nursery and community space.
‘Home Zones’ create safe residents’ areas and
the development boasts over 20 acres of
public open space, playing fields and children’s
play areas.

And here are the (2007) prices from the same Waterscape site:

Annual mooring prices
from 1 April 2007
Residential berths £5,250
Non-residential berths £4,000
All prices are inclusive of VAT

£4k for a non-residential mooring sounds pricey to me.

Timelapse: Bull's Bridge to Northolt

The final stage of our summer 2010 adventures on nb Willow is recorded in this timelapse film of 4th September 2010. After touching up some paintwork on our friend's boat we left the excellent mooring at Bull's Bridge Junction at 1110 to cruise along the Paddington Branch back to the boat's home base at Northolt.



The stop along the way was for me to cycle back to have a look at the boat we'd just passed. It had had a "for sale" poster in the window with a very low price. As I'd suspected, the notice was for a different boat. Not the bargain it initially seemed!

Top Thirty, 2011 week 10

Here is the UK Waterways Site Ranking as it stood at 1215 on Sunday 6th March 2011. This is taken, with permission, from Tony Blews's UK Waterways Ranking Site.



1 Canal World Discussion Forums (=)

2 Jim Shead's Waterways Information (+1)

3 JustCanals.com - Forums (-1)

4 Pennine Waterways (=)

5 CanalPlanAC (=)

6 Granny Buttons (+2)

7 CanalCuttings.co.uk (-1)

8 ExOwnerships (+1)

9 Retirement with No Problem (-2)

10 Waterway Routes (+5)

11 Jannock Website (=)

12 boatshare (-2)

13 Towpath Treks (-1)

14 Maffi's Boat (+2)

15 Canal Shop Company (+2)

16 UKCanals Network (-3)

17 Narrowboat.co.uk (+3)

18 WB Takey Tezey (=)

19 Water Explorer (-5)

20 Narrowboat Bones (+1)

21 nb Lucky Duck (-2)

22 Derwent6 (=)

23 Trafalgar Marine Services (+6)

24 nb Blue Moon (-)

25 nb Piston Broke (-1)

26 Narrowboat Caxton (+1)

27 boats and cruising (-2)

28 Narrowboat Alacrity (-)

29 NB Siskin (-)

30 Captain Ahab's Watery Tales (-2)


The figures in parentheses denote the number of places moved since the previous chart; (-) denotes new entry or re-entry into the top thirty; (=) denotes no change.

Halfie is at number 39.

There are 144 entries altogether.

Timelapse: Kingston-upon-Thames to Bull's Bridge

We're nearly at the end of the timelapse tour of the River Thames and some neighbouring navigations. On Friday 3rd September 2010 we left Kingston-upon-Thames and went down to Teddington Lock. There it seemed as though there was a long queue for the lock, but I walked up to talk to the lock keeper who said we could lock down straight away. Then it was a short dash down the tideway, a sharp left turn: and there were Thames Locks, our gateway off the Thames. We were glad to get back onto "proper" canals. But we hadn't left behind all adventure. This film shows us inspecting the opposite bank of the Grand Union after a semi-submerged log jammed the prop as we approached a lock. Fortunately fellow blogger Neil of NB Herbie was on hand to catch a rope and pull us in. Neil had come to help us up the Hanwell flight: you can catch brief glimpses of him in the film.

• untying in the morning sunlight (0.02)
• Kingston Bridge (0.04)
• Kingston Railway Bridge (0.06)
• mooring for Teddington Lock (0.18)
• Teddington Lock (0.30)
• Richmond Bridge (1.01)
• Richmond Railway Bridge with train (1.03)
• Twickenham Road Bridge (1.05)
• Thames Locks (1.20)
• Brentford Gauging Locks (1.31)
• overhanging warehouse (1.42)
• railway bridge with train (1.43)
• A4 Bridge (1.44)
• Clitheroe's Lock (1.47)
• Gallows Bridge (2.02)
• M4 Bridge (2.05)
• Osterley Lock (2.06)
• Prop jams (2.05)
• Hanwell Locks (2.27)
• Pause to refill low pound (2.51)
• Bull's Bridge (4.32)
  
• watering up and tying up (4.32)

Fly tipping, windscreen wipers, and the importance of a good earth

Yesterday I drove 26 miles to the person who fixes my old Volvos. I needed a replacement windscreen wiper motor for my 24-year-old 240. I checked the wipers didn't work before I went; and I checked that they still didn't work when I got there. Nope, definitely not working. Brian, the PWFMOV, verified that that was the case. We connected up the replacement motor to make sure that worked OK - just a matter of pulling out a plug and pushing it into the new motor, and earthing it - yes, it worked. I pushed the plug back into the original, still-in-situ, motor. I was all ready to unbolt the old and bolt in the new (Brian had assured me that it was a simple job and that I could easily do it myself), when Brian suggested that I could check the motor was properly earthed. So I got out the jump leads, ready to strap between the motor body and the car earth - and switched on the wipers.

Now you will have guessed what happened. Jump leads in one hand, wiper control in the other. Yes - they worked! I hadn't even touched anything - the mere threat of making a good earth did the trick. I didn't know whether to be cross or pleased! Cross that I'd gone on a needless 52-mile round trip, or pleased that I'd saved myself 35 quid. Cross also that I didn't think of double checking the earth before. I mean, when there are three chunky bolts bolting the motor to the metalwork of the car you tend to assume that there will be a certain amount of metal-to-metal contact, don't you?

The wipers continued to work, even when I demonstrated them to Jan when I got home. My next task is to put in an extra earth bonding strap, to ensure the wipers don't fail again.


Now to the flytipping. On my way back from Brian's I pulled off the road for a wee break. I was horrified to find that a load of asbestos waste had been flytipped, along with a fridge, car battery and other rubbish.


I have reported it to the council, but haven't heard anything back from them.


This lot looks like it's been here for a while. And the council tip is no more than four miles away.

Timelapse: Chertsey to Kingston-upon-Thames

This 2' 06" timelapse film continues to record Willow's progress down the Thames. It's Thursday 2nd September, and we've had lunch in the Kingfisher Pub by Chertsey Bridge. I've successfully replaced the weedhatch seal, and we got under way at 1535. Just three locks on this leg, and we tie up at Kingston-upon Thames at 1900.

I've just thought: as I have reasonably accurately logged the start and end times of the timelapse filming, I can calculate various things. First, the camera was running for about three and a half hours, that's 210 minutes, or 12,600 seconds. The film runs for two minutes and six seconds, or 126 seconds. So things happen on the film a hundred times faster than they did in real life.

Inching though the film one frame at a time reveals that it replays at ten frames to the second. So in the three and a half hours it took 1260 images: that's one every ten seconds. Good: that confirms how I'd thought I'd set it up.

• Chertsey Bridge (0.00)
• Shepperton Lock (0.16)
• Desborough Cut (0.27)
• Walton Bridge (0.36)
• Sunbury Lock (0.51)
• Molesey Lock (1.26)
• Hampton Court Bridge (1.36)
• Kingston Bridge (2.00)
  

Timelapse: Windsor to Chertsey

This 2' 33" timelapse film records Willow's journey from Windsor to Chertsey on 2nd September 2010. We were not in so much of a rush now, so we didn't leave until 0910. On some days we'd already done three hours by then! We tied up by Chertsey Bridge so I could tackle the weed hatch sealing job. This went better than I had anticipated - details here - and we had lunch at the Kingfisher pub overlooking the bridge and boat.

• leaving a sunny mooring (0.06)
• Windsor Bridge (0.09)
• Romney Lock (0.13)
• Black Pott's Railway Bridge (0.25)
• Victoria Bridge (0.29)
• Albert Bridge (0.38)
  
• Ham Bridge (0.43)
• Old Windsor Lock (0.46)
• Bell Weir Lock (1.21)
• Runnymede Bridge (1.28)
• Staines Bridge (1.34)
• Staines Railway Bridge (1.37)
• Penton Hook Lock (1.50)
• M3 Motorway Bridge (2.09)
• Chertsey Lock (2.12)
• Chertsey Bridge (2.21)