Here she is moored up by one of the locks:
She is a lovely little boat and very easy to handle, so despite the wind blowing us about at times, it was an easy trip, almost without incident. However, one error on our part made us re-evaluate how we do things.... When we enter a lock, the person on the tow path uses the central line to help stabilise the boat while the water level drops. On leaving the lock, the line is passed back to the steerer. This has always worked well for us in the past, as it gives us both good control of the boat and if ever there is a problem, the steerer can throw this line to the person on the tow path.
However, at one lock Phil threw the rope short and it fell into the canal at the side of the boat. This is where I made a fundamental mistake. I should have immediately thrown the gear into neutral, but instead I reached over to try and get it out of the water.... too late, the rope wrapped itself around the propeller and brought the boat immediately to a halt. It took us half an hour to extricate the rope from around the prop via the weed hatch, ( a small compartment at the back of the boat, which enables you to access the prop and clear out weed and other things which get snagged on it). That was a lesson learnt. We are starting to feel like experienced boaters, but there is still plenty to be learnt, particularly on safety issues such as that.
Another area where we feel we are gaining expertise is our allotment, which has gone from this at the beginning of the year .....
...... to this
and this .......
We have had an abundance of Onions, Beetroot, Broad, French and Runner beans, Lettuce, Gooseberries, Apples and Raspberries. In addition I entered some of these in the village show and won 3 first prizes and 2 third prizes.
Of course, the allotment involves a lot of hard work and its success depends on regular maintenance. This is also the secret of an incident free boating life and although I may have mentioned tasks that need doing on a regular basis before, I thought that I would set them out all in one place here, along with the frequency that they need doing. However, do bear in mind that these are tasks that we do living on a Marina. The frequency and type of task could be different depending on circumstances.
Here we go ......
Daily
Empty the cassette toilet. (Many people will try to reduce this unpleasant task, by using public toilets whenever they can).
Sweep out. Quite a lot of debris can be brought onto the boat, especially when out cruising and you are entering the boat from a muddy towpath.
In winter, clean and lay the fireplace, chop wood and kindling, fill the coal scuttles.
Weekly
Fill the water tank with fresh water.
Run the engine.
Check battery charging performance.
Monthly
Check the gas bottle. We do this by attaching a luggage weighing strap to the handle. Phil lifts the bottle while I check the reading. We know how much a full bottle and an empty one weighs, so can gauge very well how much is left.
Sweep out the chimney in winter.
Bi-Monthly
Give the cassette toilets a full chemical clean, soaking them in solution for 24 hours.
Put sterilising tablets in the water tank.
Yearly
Change the water filter.
Touch up paint work.
Every Three years
Lift the boat out of the water, clean and black the bottom and replace the sacrificial anodes (these are small metal alloy plates attached to the hull which have a more active voltage, so the anode corrodes in preference to the metal of the structure, thereby protecting the hull from corrosion). We plan to do all this next summer.
Empty and fully clean out and sterilise the water tank.
I think that is everything, but if I think of anything else, I will post it here.
I cannot stress enough how regular maintenance is a feature of trouble free boating. Unfortunately the same cannot always be said for the canal as a whole. We have had quite a disruptive summer due to low water levels, which may be inevitable as a result of the warm weather we have had, but doesn't really excuse the fact that many boats have become stuck on the bottom, in silt and mud when cruising the canal. Added to this, a number of boats are so firmly stuck in their moorings that they cannot get out of the marina. We have put in a request for the canal and marina to be dredged and I will keep you posted on progress .....
Bye for now
Al
