Narrowboat steering from the bow; bleeding the skin tank

It was the wing mirrors which caught my attention.

As Sarah came up Watford Top Lock I asked the owner about them - and was surprised to find out the reason. Pete has modified the boat to be capable of being controlled from the bow; the rear view mirrors must help in keeping the boat straight.

The added controls are not hydraulic but electric. Pete being an engineer has installed a joystick on an arm which can swing to either side of the well deck area; this controls the rudder. (As I understand it, the swinging arm is merely to position the control to wherever the steerer is sitting.) What is especially interesting about his mod is that he has tried to mimic the dynamic feedback which tiller steering gives. In other words, to move the tiller a little in either direction requires a small amount of finger pressure on the joystick; to move it a lot needs more pressure, just as it would "in real life".

You can see the swinging arm in the next photo.

Pete explained that his method is better than hydraulics for another reason: you have the full range of rudder movement available, whereas a hydraulic system is limited to a lesser amount of arc.

Another feature of Sarah is the moulded canopies for bow and stern which Pete has designed.

A notice in the boat gives more details ...

I wish there had been more time to talk to Pete and Jill, but they were on their way back to Crick and we were on our way down the locks. One thing Pete did say was that you get interesting looks from people noticing that there is no-one at the tiller. On the Trent a cruiser raced up to tell Pete in the bow that his steerer had fallen overboard!

Today we have stayed at Braunston. After church we repaired to the Admiral Nelson for an admirable Sunday lunch of roast beef. Very tasty and, in my case, washed down with an equally tasty pint of ale, Everard's Old Original.

After lunch I went to see what bargains I could nab from Wharf House Chandlers closing down sale; I came away with a couple of air filters, a fuel filter element and a replacement drain plug for the CAV fuel filter. I fitted the air filter, checked there was no water in the CAV filter - there wasn't - and replaced the drain plug. I also did something which I should have attempted years ago but lacked the courage: I loosened off the skin tank bleed valve and bled off a huge amount of air. Perhaps this was why we overheated on the tidal New Bedford River last summer! I must have put four litres of water/antifreeze into the header tank to replace the air. To loosen the bleed plug I had to whack the spanner with a piece of wood, but when it started to turn it was easy. I just hope it stays leakproof now I have retightened it.

The weather seems to be gradually improving here, with some rain in the morning but staying more or less dry since then. Yesterday's sharp downpour looked like this from the boat.

Tomorrow the plan is to get to Napton, where Ally, Ben, Josiah and Micah will meet us for lunch.

One species of small furry animal*

Hello again! We've been in a signal desert, or so it seems, for days. Now we have a connection of sorts I shall try to upload a post and provide an update on where we are, where we've been and what we've been doing.

We are now in Braunston ... but I shall rewind to last Sunday. We drove back to North Kilworth on the Leicester Line and unloaded from the car to the boat. Jan spotted something small moving in the grass on the towpath. Can you see it?

Here it is. It was no more than an inch and a half long, plus the tail of a similar length.

The question is ... what is it?

I wondered if it was injured as it didn't scarper, just hung around for me to use my camera at will.

With our things back on board we set off for Foxton. We tied up immediately above the locks ready for a swift descent when the locks opened the next morning.

The locks had been desecrated by CRT. At the top lock nasty blue banners were wrapped round both bottom balance beams and the top balance beam - obscuring the lock number - with the exhortation to Save Water.

As a guide as to how to achieve this, written below was Close the gates, Lower the paddles. Well, dur!

We encountered the same official vandalism today at Watford Locks. I suppose we have to be grateful that they didn't suggest sharing the narrow locks. I really, really hope this blue rash isn't spreading all over the system.

So, where was I? Ah yes, Foxton. On Monday we had to wait for four boats to come up the flight before being allowed down; then we carried on in the rain to Market Harborough, one of our favourite towns. We stayed there for our 48 hour allowance, returning to Foxton on Wednesday. It rained.

On Thursday we were in the first batch of boats up the locks and continued - in the rain - to North Kilworth where we stopped for tea. Then I did a spot of car/bike shuffling, driving to Pailton and cycling the 11 miles back. To get away from the road we moved on to Welford Junction where we tied up for the night.

This brings us to yesterday: Welford Junction to Crick. In the rain. (Well, I suppose it wasn't raining all the time.) And today: Crick to Braunston. And ... it didn't rain much - hooray! Yes, I know the reservoirs need it, but it does get a bit tiresome when it rains during the day.

We tied up just below the Admiral Nelson. Jan walked in to Braunston to buy some milk and saw Sarah with Chertsey. When she told me I nipped along to say hello, and was invited in to Chertsey's luxurious hold and plied with ale. Thanks Sarah and Jim, good to see you both.

I have taken few photos recently. I don't like getting my camera wet.

*no cave, no pict

Sheringham level crossing sees action

In a short break from boating, we drove to one of our favourite north Norfolk spots yesterday: Sheringham. It so happened that our visit coincided with a fairly rare transit of the recently restored level crossing linking the Network Rail station (and line to Cromer) and the North Norfolk Railway heritage line.

Once a month a lunch dining train leaves from Sheringham (heritage) Station, crosses to Sheringham (main line) Station and on to Cromer, stopping there an hour before returning to the heritage line.

A small army of volunteers puts up temporary barriers across the road ...

... a man holds up a green flag ...

... and a beautiful diesel loco pulls the train across.

At this point we walked down to the beach to eat our sandwiches. I returned to see the train come back, this time steam-hauled.

Did the locomotive pull tube trains when the electricity was down? It was in gorgeous condition.

This excitement over, we walked up the road to Upper Sheringham, a hamlet built of flint.

From here we walked into Sheringham Park ... but I am boring myself as well as you, so I'll stop.

Smelling out a cassette problem

Warning: this post contains disgusting content!

It began a few days ago. The smell of stale wee grew stronger all the time, despite my thorough cleaning of the pan. We had arrived at Welford and taken the offside mooring at the very end, so were conveniently placed for the services. I pulled out the - not very full - cassette and immediately found the source of the smell ... and managed to spill some of it on the floor - yuk!

A puddle of the yellow stuff had formed on top of the cassette. Oh dear. Why?

I took it to the service block, emptied and rinsed it. Then I slid off the cover and operated the device to open the black plastic disc which seals the cassette. With a cloth I started cleaning the rubber gasket, and found that there was a lot of what seemed like limescale inside the groove. I think this must be (sorry about this) solid matter precipitating out of urine over the course of years. This hard stuff was probably preventing the rubber gasket from sealing properly.

With as much of the scale removed as I could, and after another rinse, I installed the cassette back in place. Prior to this I cleaned the cassette housing as best as I could. Then I cleaned the gasket in the other cassette.

After several hours it all seems to be working as it should, i.e. no leaks.

So ... if you have cassettes, you might like to clean the gasket before you get the same horrible problem.

It's a mug's game

We still have plenty of cloth bags from last year's Crick Show, so we didn't collect any more this time. One freebie I did pick up, though, was a rather nice mug from the Environment Agency's Anglian Waterways stall.

The mug features a topographical map of the Anglian waterways, many of which we covered last year. It's attractively done in the style of a London Underground map.

Unfortunately ... there are several mistakes. Not necessarily in the layout, although some of the Middle Level navigations seem to be missing, but in the spelling.

The Cambridgeshire Lodes, for example.

Oops!

And the River Wissey has gained an extra "e".

It's a pity the EA doesn't seem to know their partner navigation authority is the Canal & River Trust.

I wasn't going to mention the missing apostrophe in King's Lynn, but it looks like I just have. Oh dear.

Sorry to be such a nit-picker! I'm sure it will hold a portion of tea perfectly well.

New mooring restrictions on Welford Arm

I seem to have somehow got a day behind with these blog posts. I blame the poor signals at Crick.

We moved on from Crick after a very pleasant few days there and headed for Welford. Our intention was to leave the boat there for a while so we could come home for lawn mowing etc. This plan was thwarted, as I shall explain later.

Travelling north from Crick, then, we passed under the A14 bridge. Here a boat had tied up with its mooring ropes across the towpath at perfect tripping height.

Near Welford Junction we saw gliders being given aeroplane tows.

At Welford Lock our first surprise was to find ourselves third in the queue.

Our second surprise was to find that the 14 day moorings have been reduced to two days. This was done, according to CRT, in advance of the celebrations a couple of weeks ago marking the 50th anniversary of the Welford Arm's re-opening. The CRT man I spoke to, who owned up to being the person who had actually put up the new mooring restriction signs, was unable to say whether the restrictions - applying from April to September - were permanent, but he thought it was likely. The signs look permanent enough (sorry, no photo).

There is, in fact, room for two 60' boats immediately above the lock landing, just before the first mooring restriction sign. But that's not much, and it's a fair walk from there to the pub and village.

Given that wherever we moored within reach of the end of the arm we would be on a two day mooring, we nabbed the single space on the offside immediately beyond the last winding hole. The Mikron Theatre's boat Tyseley was one of the two at the very end; I bet that will be there for at least another week as they are putting on a show on 5th (I think) June. Again, apologies for the paucity of photos.

Having tied up and had lunch I cycled back to Crick to get the car.

Nothing new under the sun

On our last full day in Crick yesterday we walked into the village again. I took the opportunity to photograph this apparently traditional gypsy caravan.

But closer examination reveals a solar panel on the roof.

It just appeared by the roundabout with three horses ...

... secured by mooring pins.

We walked up Crack's Hill via Jubilee Wood. Amongst the trees there are lots of wild - and some not so wild - flowers, attracting the bees.

Down on the canal a few boat chimneys were dispensing smoke.

Crick cracked

Last night I was too tired to blog, so here's a double dose. I will keep it short, though.

Today the rain clouds threatened, but didn't really produce much more than two or three very short showers. Nothing to deter the crowds.

Yesterday the Boaters' Christian Fellowship held a service in the Entertainment Marquee, otherwise known as the beer tent. Mark Chester, the head of the Waterways Chaplains, gave the talk: a cautionary tale about Little Jimmy.

About 60 people came to the service.

The BCF stand was busy most of the time, with people enquiring about us and entering our "find the duck" competition. With plenty of BCF members willing to run the stand in one hour shifts the task was not too onerous. Many stands had just two people for the whole extended weekend - I'm thinking of, for example, Paul and Christine of Waterway Routes and Mark and Catherine of the Cut Glass Gallery - they must be completely shattered.

On my way back from taking stuff to the boat I saw Kathryn steering Sculptor back towards Stoke Bruerne.