Bream & Iris - Life afloat on my historic boats

Iris finally reaches her new home

Steve — Fri, 03 May 2024 20:45:54 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted an update – nearer two months than one, in which time lots has happened on board Iris Abbott, pretty much all of it good! There is lots to say so this will be split over a couple of posts.

The big issue identified pretty much as soon as I’d arrived in Acton Bridge was that Iris couldn’t produce enough power to sustain herself. A new electrical system was needed but was going to take some weeks to plan, source, order and deliver. Meanwhile I was stuck at Acton Bridge. I couldn’t reliably generate enough power to run the compressor that was needed to start the engine and whilst I had enough air pressure in the tanks for an engine start to get me to the new mooring, I couldn’t say with confidence that I could get back to receive deliveries of equipment, and getting lots of large and heavy equipment on board at the mooring was a non-starter, as was trans-shipping it all on Bream. The local team from Canal & River Trust were brilliant with me, given that I was on a visitor mooring for weeks, though I only actually had any other boats moored nearby for a handful of nights, the whole time I was there, so no-one was especially inconvenienced by my being there.

In the last week of February I was treated to the amazing sight of a murmuration, which returned to the same spot, just downriver, every morning and evening for about a week, just before sunset. I had several goes at photographing and filming them, with limited success, but do like this early morning shot, with the moon setting in the background.

Starling murmuration near to Acton Bridge

The first part of the new electrical system to be delivered was the new battery. A huge beast at 960kg, plus a steel battery box taking the whole lot well over a tonne. Thankfully the cells can be moved individually, and are “only” 40kg each. Dave turned up with them on a trailer and friendly neighbour Leighton kindly assisted with his fork lift truck to get them to the top of the steps by the boat. From there it was a matter of carrying them one at a time, first into the wheelhouse, and then down the stairs. A scary moment came when the pallet tipped slightly as one was lifted and three cells ended up on their side on the steps, but no damage was done, thankfully.

Battery cells being unloaded

Getting the battery box on board had been an achievement in itself. It took all the strength that two of us could muster – plus some ingenuity from Louise – to get it down the slope then up onto the roof. Finally, it was lowered into the main cabin with ropes. A huge hatch in the middle of the roof, just ahead of the wheelhouse is the only way to get larger items in or out of the main cabin, and this was the first time I’d needed to use it. I was very happy to see it land safely with no damage to anything, including the two of us. The drop is about 8′, so not a moment to get it wrong.

Preparing to lower the battery box

The box was put into position in the newly cleared utility space, and the batteries carried down the steps one at a time, before being lifted into position. That was more than enough work for one day, but it felt like a huge step forward, even though they couldn’t yet be used.

Battery in situ

Dave returned with the pipework (water fill and gas venting) as well as the interconnect cables for the battery, which was all connected up at his next visit. We had a long conversation about what was going where and I was left to puzzle out how we might hang a 51kg inverter and assorted other devices onto the wall. For all that this system had been specified and ordered at haste, a lot of thought needed to go into it. This will potentially be my power supply for the next decade or more, so it needs to be right. The step up to a 48V battery brings complexity, but felt like the right choice. Happily everyone I’ve spoken to so far about this who has an appreciation of the technology, agrees with us.

The rest of the systems, primarily the huge inverter, but also a range of other equipment was delivered on 1st April. Dave had brought a friend along to help with the unloading but also as crew as the arrival of this equipment meant that there was now no need to stay in Acton Bridge, and I could take advantage of extra pairs of hands to move Iris to her new home.

With three of us, and the river in a good mood, it was a relatively simple task to move. I have to admit she didn’t start first time, but there was just about enough pressure in the tank for a second go, so we got away with it. This air start is a fascinating feature but it does add a whole layer of complexity. I can see why they have all been replaced with electric starts on other boats (though I’m determined to persist with it.)

Heading upriver to the mooring

It’s only a short trip up the river to the mooring. The bank was horribly muddy, but I was prepared and had my wellies to hand, and the other two stayed on board.

Tying off at the mooring

Having tied Iris in position, I walked back to Acton Bridge and picked up Bream, while Dave got on with installing some of the battery connections. I had planned to deliver them back to their car on Bream, which was a lot easier than them walking back as Dave had tools with him. In the fading light we headed a short way upriver from Iris to wind and as I was about to do that the engine on Bream died. I’d run out of fuel! with all the other things that have had my attention I’d missed a really important one (and Bream has no fuel gauge.)

I steered her towards the side but we very gently grounded. However that slightly simplified things – I quickly decided that I’d try to refill and start her without deploying the anchor as the river was only moving very slowly so I had a few minutes before she would work herself free of the mud. Having crew on board made this less risky that it sounds, written down.

I have a second fuel tank in the bow (for the stove) so as quickly as I could syphoned fuel out of there into a drum, and from there into the main tank. I’ve become a bit of an old hand at filling the fuel while standing on the gunwale, though admittedly had never done in in the middle of the channel before. We just about got away with it, and amazingly she started almost immediately. Phew!

I delivered my crew back to Acton Bridge before putting Bream back alongside Iris, reconnecting the power supply between them and settling in for my first night.

First night on the new mooring

A first run out on my own

Steve — Sun, 18 Feb 2024 21:31:37 +0000

I’ve been around boats for most of my life (I was 7 when we had our first holiday on a canal boat) but Iris is VERY different to anything I’ve handled before, so moving her for the first time was always going to be a big moment. For a start she is two and a half times the weight of Bream. She is also steered with a wheel, from a position very high up, towards the centre of the boat.

Then there is the engine. I’d never even seen a compressed air start engine, let alone used one until setting foot on this boat. Matt had been incredibly helpful, talking me through the process during handover, while I shot video which I then turned into a guide which was printed and laminated.

Consulting the user manual!

We initially moved Iris and Bream to Acton Bridge for practical reasons. I wanted somewhere that I could move things on and off the boats, as well as between them, and this was ideal. A car can be brought right next to the river here, and I’d taken full advantage of that over the past few weeks.

The plan was always to move her onto a mooring a short way up river from here, and my first step towards this was to take Bream to explore that location, which I did on 3rd February. Like most of the Weaver, there is a hard edge up to water level, but in this spot Mike, who owns the site, had build a couple of landing stages on top of this, when he kept his boats here some years ago. At present there is one other boat here.

The idea of the landings is that you get easy access to and from the boat, but also when the river is in flood, the boat can’t ride over the edge, which is hugely important. The landings do need some TLC, having not been used in years, but they would serve the purpose. I didn’t have too much difficulty getting Bream into the space, but didn’t moor up as there was no particular need to.

What I learned was that the downstream end of the mooring had quite a few branches which would be low enough to get in the way of Iris, and there was one branch in the water at the upstream end that would need to be removed to get the bow close to that landing, but it looked fine overall.

When I later spoke to Mike, I asked whether it was feasible to create a new mooring slightly further along. There is quite a bit of vegetation there at the moment but it is not overlooked by trees, so would be better for both light and specifically the solar panels, which I intend to make best use of. His suggestion was to moor at the existing spot, then explore that area from the bank at some point. New landings would need to be built after clearing the vegetation so it’s not a trivial task.

A small regret from when I bought Bream is how little record I have of the first couple of days. Kayty took some photos of the lorry move and I shot some video of that day (which was lost before I’d even seen it) but we took no photos at all until I think the third day out. I was determined to have a record of this day, so filmed as much as I could. I’ll share a link to it at the end of this post.

I’d been through my home-made guide book a few times before doing it for real, so was reasonably sure of what needed to happen, but inevitably it didn’t (quite) go perfectly. The engine start went as well as it possibly could, barring me momentarily freezing (I think in shock!) as she turned over when I should have been dropping the compressors, but it wasn’t a problem and she was up and running.

That moment of carelessness could have scuppered the day though, as I took enough pressure out of the air cylinders that I wouldn’t have got a second go at it, had I needed to. The compressor is powered from the Robin generator and that is misbehaving, so I wouldn’t have been able to recharge the system straight away.

My second mistake came as I moved Bream. I’m in the habit of using the centre line to do everything, which is fine on a canal but on the river the bow line should ALWAYS be the last one untied. I took the stern line off first, then the bow line and immediately she moved backwards, as the centre line was not tight enough to hold the boats tightly together. She started to find her way around the stern of Iris and before I could react she was nose 15 feet out across the river with the stern against the bank. The centre line was so tight and the river flow, whilst gentle was sufficient that if I’d released it Bream would be on her way downriver before I could get back on board. Thankfully a passer-by came to my aid, allowed me to get back on board then releasing the line. I’m really not sure what I would have done on my own, probably taken a knife to the centre line.

The centre line shouldn’t really have been there in the first place, but I’d added it a couple of weeks earlier when we had huge gales and she was bouncing around more than I was comfortable with one night.

Now it was time to move Iris. This where I realised that whilst I had steered the boat when I came down from Northwich with Matt, I’d not put her into gear before. There is a definite knack to both forward and reverse. I managed to get her to pop out of gear in both directions within the first few minutes.

Gear lever and throttle in wheelhouse, either side of the door

I took my time moving up to the new mooring, getting the feel for her, and for the river. When I arrived, I soon realised that the river, whilst much calmer than it had been earlier in the week was too lively for me to moor her up single-handed. I could throw a line to the bank at the bow but she would have moved too far back by then for me to jump off. I had a couple of goes at different angles but didn’t get close enough to give it a proper go. With a crew member it would have been easy as I could hold her in place with the engine but I wasn’t going to chance it.

Approaching the mooring

Instead I decided a run up to Saltersford and back would be a better plan. I had No problems turning her, though did struggle to keep track of the rudder position as I was manoeuvring. Not being able to see that from the steering position is something I need to give a bit of thought to, though I do have a couple of ideas, markings on the steering cables being the obvious one, as they are visible down the inside of the wheelhouse.

As I winded a second time at Dutton locks, I realised that the water cooling pump had gone off. A quick check confirmed that the mains electric had gone off. I dived into the engine room and switched off the central heating then reset the inverter. That brought it back to life and the engine temperature came back to normal.

The picture at the top of this post shows the one other boat I saw all day, just after winding for the second time.

Back at Acton Bridge, my first experience of mooring up. Even at this much more accessible site it was quite a challenge. Iris is a very heavy lump (over 51 tons) and getting her into the right spot with a rope is a non-starter (I tried and she wasn’t having it!) Thankfully the winch is available to do the job.

Quite enough of an adventure for a first trip. From engine start to stop was over 5 hours. The video below is about 11 minutes long and tells the story as it happened.

How can it be a month already?!

Steve — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 21:09:13 +0000

I’m not sure where the time has gone, but as I write this it is exactly a month since I boarded Iris Abbott in Northwich and Matt and I brought her down to Acton Bridge.

To be fair, a lot of the answer is, as ever, work. As much as I’d like to spend my free time getting my new home sorted, it has to fit around the rest of my life. I spent a few days working in Swindon at one point, and have also spent time in the office or at meetings nearer to home.

When I have been home, I have quickly settled into the rhythm of river life. Acton Bridge is a popular spot and I have had lots of conversations about the boat with passers-by. Some knew her already, one told me his father had worked on her, and he had driven the grain lorries that replaced the boats when the trade from Liverpool to Kellogg’s stopped in the 70s.

The local rowing club also use this area most days. I’ve enjoyed watching them, though you wouldn’t get me in the water in something as small as that! One morning I was sat at my desk when I heard a loud bang – someone hadn’t been looking where they were going and the bow of one of the boats rode over the top of another one. They sorted it out quickly enough and no damage seemed to have been done, indeed everyone seemed quite amused by the experience.

They don’t half move though. The powered boats carrying the coaches need serious engines to keep up with the rowing boats out and produce enough wash to bounce Bream around when they pass in speedboat mode. Iris, of course, barely notices them!

I mentioned in the previous post that I’d been hopping between the two boats, sleeping on Bream, but with most of my things now moved across. Initially I was eating on Bream, but managed to at least partially solve the problem with the cooker and whilst it does need professionally looking at, there is now enough power in all but one of the rings to cook with. I’ll most likely change the cooker at some point, but for now I’d like to keep it going, until I have made more decisions about layout changes.

The real chore was keeping both boats up and running, with the generator running on one boat or the other for up to 6 hours a day. Things came to a head in the early morning of 7th February when after another sleepless night pondering my next step I decided that the right thing to do was to shut Bream down completely, other than as a power source, run a mains lead from there to the battery charger on Iris, as if she was on the shore line back in Northwich and move across completely.

Once I’d done this life immediately became simpler. There was only one set of batteries that needed to be thought about (the other set looked after itself) and the engine on Bream could do the job more quickly than the generator on Iris could. Within a couple of days I’d established that there was comfortably enough battery life in Bream to keep Iris running for a day, and possibly two, so a 2 hour engine run at some point each day is all that was needed. There is a plan to solve the battery problems (more of which later) but this move put me back on something a bit more like the original plan, which had been to move my stuff onto Iris, get Bream off the river and figure things out as I went along.

The photo at the top of this article was taken as I emerged from the cabin after my first night on Iris. I’m still taking drinking/cooking water from Bream so the first job most days has been to go and fill my large flask. I want to fit a filter in the water line as I did get a small amount of dirt from the taps when I first used the system. I’m also testing the water, to confirm that it is safe. It is stored for such a long time that this feels like a sensible precaution, but for now nipping next door once or twice a day isn’t a huge inconvenience and I’ll have the results after the weekend.

That early morning decision had resulted in me immediately disassembling my home office and moving it into the wheelhouse on Iris. It has always been my plan that I’ll work from up there and whilst it needs some serious reorganisation before I can properly do that, it was fun to do it for a day. I was very amused to receive what was captioned a “Statue of Liberty” screenshot from Mike after one of my first Teams calls on that day!

At the end of the day I moved the office downstairs and onto the kitchen table, where it can stay until the wheelhouse has been sorted out. With the boats in quite a public location, leaving a lot of computer equipment on display was not a good idea, anyway. The new office is working well, and isn’t in the way at all, so that is one problem solved.

Solving the power problems

I’d known before I bought the boat that there wasn’t enough power for my needs. After 24 years afloat, I’ve got a pretty good feel for this and Iris has less than half the battery capacity of Bream. What I wasn’t expecting was that she was so much more power hungry, due to the huge (but incredibly effective) central heating system. After a few conversations by phone, I went to see my friend Dave, who is my go-to expert on such things and we agreed a plan. Initially I proposed putting the new batteries where the current ones are, but it was a really tight fit and I would like to have more not less breathing room in the engine room, so have decided that they will live in part of what is presently the utility room, housing the washing machine, dishwasher and fridge, directly ahead of the engine room.

Battery box in engine room

Utility room

They don’t need all of this space, by a long way, and my present thought is that this area will be reworked so that most of it becomes part of the main cabin. The white goods will move into one of two presently unused rooms which were once bedrooms.

On the move!

Last Sunday I started the engine and moved the boat for the first time. We’re back where we started but it was quite an adventure. I’ll save that for the next post though, as this one is more than long enough!

The first few days on the river

Steve — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 20:48:00 +0000

I’m writing this on Monday evening, 22nd January, five and a bit days after arriving in Acton Bridge. It’s been a crazy few days, but returning to work today forced me to pause for breath and that in turn made me think it would be good to summarise the experience so far.

The run down from Northwich to Acton Bridge was great fun. I’d moved Bream as far as Saltersford Lock the afternoon before, then caught the bus back to Northwich on a cold and misty morning. Iris was moored on the island, just below the footbridge.

Matt and Mike were on board and we chatted for a while before Matt and I headed off for our 10:30 booking at the first swing bridge.

We passed under Hayhurst Bridge first, but that is plenty tall enough – once the mast has been lowered, so did not need to be moved. Matt pointed out that the mast is more than cosmetic, it allows the bridge operator to see where the boat is as his view is impeded by the swing bridge, so getting it back up after Hayhurst really did matter.

Town Bridge is much lower and CRT staff were about to swing it as we arrived. I’d not given any thought to VHF radio before this moment. I know the river well, but Bream doesn’t need bridges to be swung and the locks all have mobile phone numbers. Helpfully Matt had his portable VHF handset and was able to call up Town Bridge to let them know that we were were nearby.

The trick is to time your arrival just right so that you’re not waiting in the (moving) channel any longer than you need to, but also ensure that the bridge is open for the shortest time possible. You’re stopping the traffic on the main ring road through Northwich so it’s important to be on time and to not hang around.

Approaching Town Bridge, Northwich, 15th January, 2024

From this point I took the wheel, all the way to Saltersford. It is of course a very different experience to a narrow boat, but felt surprisingly natural. She’s a bit slower to respond, but not hugely so and I negotiated the bends before the boat lift with no anxious moments.

Iris passing Anderton boat Lift, 15th January, 2024

The wheel is geared, which means it stays where you put it and consequently you don’t need your hands on it every second and the sort of micro-adjustments you make on a narrow boat are just not relevant here. I said to Matt that it reminded me of trimming a light aircraft, you set a course then leave it to get on with it until the next correction. Dipping out of the side door to take the above photo was no problem at all.

The same CRT team met us at Winnington Swing Bridge and confirmed that they would then go straight to Saltersford Lock, which was great news as the official booked time would have meant a two hour wait.

As we went down Barton Cut, I checked the GPS on my phone and was amazed to find that we were doing 5mph. The engine was barely above tickover to my ears, and the size of the boat means you have a totally different perspective of speed. Definitely something to keep an eye on!

Bream and Iris in Saltersford Lock, 15th January, 2024

At Saltersford Lock I handed her back to Matt and picked up Bream, from the lock landing. It was rather fun to have the river to ourselves and shoot photos and video as we passed each other a couple of times, Iris barely drawing breath as Bream struggled to keep up. We passed the spot where I’m planning to moor her shortly, and waved hello to the owner of the other boat that is based there.

At Acton Bridge we both winded (turned) to face upriver – something you should always do – and I pulled alongside after Matt had secured Iris at the visitor mooring.

Bream and Iris arrive at Acton Bridge

We then spent some time going through the systems on the boat, particularly in the engine room. I videoed it all was we talked, for future reference and to avoid the need to take notes. I’m writing it all up a bit at a time as I need to understand things, and it’s already proved invaluable a number of times. I even started the engine for the first time, quite a feat as it is a compressed air start. Let’s see if I can manage it completely on my own, another time!

Rebekah came down by car to meet us and took this photo, with Bream just about peeking out on the outside, and now looking very small indeed!

I spend the next couple of hours photographing and videoing Iris from all directions. I then spent a bit of time planning my next moves, broadly speaking what was going to move from Bream, where it would go and what order it needed to happen in.

On Thursday I moved kitchen things across, and also rearranged some bits of furniture that had been left on board. A lovely table that was in the wheelhouse was disassembled so I could get it down the stairs, and reassembled in the galley, with a smaller table that had been there previously moved to become a sideboard, and a chest of drawers moved into the main bedroom.

I put some throws across the settees, and with a couple of cushions they were very comfortable. I even managed to get the huge wall-mounted TV up and running, and watched a bit of a documentary, that was on my laptop. It was starting to feel a lot like home though by 10pm I was flaked out and fell into bed, back on Bream. I was definitely too tired to make the bed up!

I spend a bit of time on Friday morning looking at a couple of problems I’d uncovered. The central heating had gone off mid evening the night before, and I established that the batteries didn’t really have the capacity to keep it going for very long, certainly less than 24 hours. Not the end of the world as I was planning to replace the batteries anyway, but it needed a bit of thought in the interim.

I also struggled a bit with the gas cooker, which would just about light but had very low pressure on all four rings. I initially thought it was the feed from the bottles on deck, but lighting the grill proved that was not the case as that ran fine, so there must be dirt in the injectors on the hob. They’ve been unused for a while so perhaps not a surprise. It’s not a huge job to clean them but I don’t have the right tool so that will have to wait for another day.

On Friday afternoon I had my first visitor. It was lovely to see Eve and to show her around. I do think this will be a lovely place to welcome visitors into, once I’m sorted. I then had to go out for a while to do some jobs so not a lot more was achieved.

On Saturday I moved my clothes across and made up the bed. What fun to have a huge bed (it’s nearly twice the width of mine on Bream) and also it’s nice for it not to be high up. Sometimes jumping up into a bed at waist level is as much as I can do at the end of a long day, though having the microwave and fridge under the bed has been quite a talking point with visitors over many years!

I spent a bit of time looking at the electrics, partly to understand the systems but also as I’m wondering whether it will be feasible to power Iris from Bream while a larger battery system and generator are being sourced. The central heating is quite a beast, it works fabulously, but doesn’t half use some power when the burner jets are running. More experimentation is going to be needed on that front. It will mean a change of plan as I’d hoped to get Bream off the river in the next week or so, but that is starting to feel like it will be the best plan for now.

One bit of fun was that I discovered that the electrical systems can talk to my phone or laptop via Bluetooth. I can check the state of the batteries without moving from my chair and can even see what the solar panels on the roof of the wheelhouse have put into the system today. Very impressive!

Work has to be my priority for a few days now, but I do want to use any time I can to definitely prove that I can run Iris from Bream, as that will allow me to move on board completely. At the moment I’m hopping from one boat to another multiple times a day, depending on what items I need. Most of my stuff is over there now, with just the office and some cooking things, on Bream.

It’s been a good week. Not what I expected, but arguably that was in itself what I would have predicted!

I’ve barely mentioned the river itself, the views by both day and night have been stunning. We’ve had some really dramatic weather, with both boats bouncing around a bit in the high winds but this is a beautiful place to be based.

A New Year and a new adventure

Steve — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 20:27:09 +0000

The question of whether I would live afloat “forever” has come up quite regularly over the past 24 years. I very quickly came up with an answer, which I’ve repeated many times – “I’ll do it until something more interesting comes along.”

About 5 years ago, the answer changed. I said to people who asked, that I didn’t see myself living on Bream in another decade. It was the start of a thought process that has gone in and out of my mind ever since. I wasn’t actively looking, but I wasn’t actively ignoring either.

That thought came into my mind around the time that I’d achieved the last few big goals that I’d had since moving afloat in 1999, getting Bream to Huddersfield and subsequently to Hebden Bridge. Both were bucket list canal destinations for me. I’d lived in Huddersfield in the early 90s and Hebden Bridge has been a favourite haunt since those days.

It’s also true that living afloat as a continuous cruiser, as it is now called, is much harder now than it was a quarter of a century ago. The exponential growth in liveaboards has had many effects. From my point of view it means it is more difficult to get that spot you always loved, or where the car and boat can be next to each other so that things can be loaded or unload. There has also been a massive increase in selfish, antisocial or criminal behaviour. I can think of lots of places that I would have been happy to leave the boat even 10 years ago, that I wouldn’t contemplate now. Finally there is the increase in the number of places that houseowners will be rude and occasionally threatening when you contemplate mooring, or perish the thought, running an engine within earshot of their own personal duck pond. I almost always use a small (relatively quiet) generator for batter charging these days, if I’m not on the move, even though the alternator on my engine can do the job in half the time.

I have come close to leaving the water a couple of times. In 2007 I very nearly moved into the cottage at Deptmore Lock, south of Stafford. That project fell apart a matter of days before exchanging contracts because I’d not been able to get insurance. A culvert for the lock ran under the house and my solicitor discovered that the deeds of the property, sold by British Waterways in 1960, said that if this were to collapse the owners of the canal were not liable for any damage to the property. With improbable timing literally as I’m drafting this post, some 17 years later, a sinkhole has just appeared in said culvert! Thankfully for the people who did buy the property, CRT are fixing it at the moment.

It is a bit of a digression, but interesting to look back at the photos I took of this place in 2007, as it’s changed almost beyond recognition since then. At the time it was completely off-grid with no road access and no utilities. Lighting was a mixture of battery/generator powered lights and gas mantles (the only ones I’ve ever seen outside a museum.) Everything consumed in the house, including water, was brought in (and out again) using a small boat.

Deptmore Lock House

I’ve seen a number of properties renovated by friends and the idea of doing that certainly holds some appeal, though I don’t have the skills to do much of the work myself, even if I have been an extra pair of hands on many an occasion.

I did at one point look at this place in Bettisfield, on the Welsh side of the border near to Whitchurch, a short walk from the Llangollen Canal. As with the above property, the legal situation with this one was complicated, and I note that it was subsequently taken off the market and I believe is still standing empty.

Many readers will be aware that I’ve spent a fair bit of the last 15 years involved with a couple of canal restorations. I briefly explored whether it would be feasible to personally acquire the then-derelict cottage at Crumpwood on the Uttoxeter Canal, when I’d failed to convince the owners to lease it to our Canal Trust to use as a volunteer base.

Crumpwood Cottage before restoration

Instead they decided to auction it, and the family who did buy it recently put it back on the market for an eye-watering amount, following a huge renovation.

I recently saw what in some ways would be my dream property up for sale, overlooking the Clyde estuary on the Isle of Bute, directly opposite a beautiful little harbour. However there are several reasons why living in that part of Scotland would not work for me at the moment, not least the need to earn a living to pay for the work that needed to be done to it after I’d cleaned out my nest egg! Helpfully it was taken off the market again, so no difficult decisions were needed. This video from the agents may work for a little while yet.

Then there were boats. In Bream, I can safely say that I have already lived on the most beautiful type of narrow boat going so any other boat would need to win me over in a different way. Broadly speaking that meant something with more space and that did not take up all my free time to look after it. I was also open to the idea of a fixed mooring if it helped achieve these objectives.

I’ve continuously cruised since 1999, but the fall I had whilst single-handing at Cape Locks in 2022 put me out of action for over 3 months, and to be honest freaked me out more than a bit. I am (in)famously independent, so the realisation that I was one unexpected event from not being able to sustain my current way of living was quite scary, as lovely as it was to know that people rallied around to support me when I needed it.

There are some lovely marinas about. as well as the one I used while recovering from my accident, I’ve used several of them as a stable for Bream when I’ve been out of the country, but they aren’t somewhere I’d want to live indefinitely. I did look closely at two locations where land could be acquired on the offside of a canal and a new mooring could be created for Bream, but they didn’t work out for various reasons.

The bigger boat idea has been a bit of a voyage of discovery. Last June I found myself looking at a former Leeds & Liverpool “Burscough boat” in West London. The boat felt somewhat unloved, having been empty for some time, and the DIY fit out wasn’t great. It also had the strangest gas bottle installation I’ve ever seen on any boat but more importantly there was no way to get in and out of the cabin it in bad weather without filling part of the boat with rainwater, snow, etc. That said, the feeling of space was lovely and I definitely bit on the concept.

A few months later, I looked at a former Humber Keel, moored on the Broads near to Beccles. Again, there were some really interesting ideas in a VERY non-traditional conversion and fit-out. I very much liked the glazed panels let into the roof in a couple of places, though they leaked like crazy, which was something to be aware of. Getting light into a barge is always more of a challenge than a narrow boat as you are living inside the hull, not above it.

The lack of an engine room, or of any the off-grid services a boat normally has, gave even more space (it was entirely mains powered, with drinking water coming from a fixed hose and sewage pumped to a tank on the bank.)

It was being kept on a semi-tidal river and hadn’t been docked or painted externally in years. It also hadn’t been lived on in months, and the closer you looked the more maintenance issues came to light. I wished him luck, but wouldn’t be making an offer.

I’d only ever been interested in the idea of owning an historic narrow boat and with larger craft the same held true. Wide beam new builds are pretty much without exception a fairly grim species of boat, to my eyes. I also quickly established that as much as I like continental craft (Dutch barges being the best known example) I don’t want to live on one.

A chance conversation at a summer garden party, more or less recounting the above, led to a discussion at the Acton Bridge Steam Party. Friends Rebekah and Matt had moved off the barge Iris Abbott after 7 years afloat, in late 2022, and used her very little since then. She wasn’t on the market as such but they were thinking they might let her go. We took a short run out and I went for a proper look around a couple of weekends later, back at her base in Northwich.

Iris Abbott and Bream at Acton Bridge, 1st October 2023

For various reasons, mostly related to me not having the time to chase up conversations due to work commitments, it’s taken a few months for it all to come together, but last week she was given a pretty clean bill of health by the surveyor and the deal has been done. Later this week I’m going to move her downriver, onto a mooring near to Acton Bridge, and see how that goes.

She very much ticks the historic boat box, but as the photos show has a quite unconventional conversion, having been used for some time as a party/hotel boat based in Liverpool. Internally she is better equipped than Bream, and has room for visitors to sit down and even stay over, should they be so inclined.

Iris (with Bream behind) at Acton Bridge, 1st October, 2023

Like Bream she was the first of her type, also built Northwich, but in 1948. She primarily carried grain from Liverpool Docks to the Kellogg’s factory on Trafford Park, near to Manchester. Unlike Bream, her history is quite well documented and photographed, and I intend to tell that story on this site, over time.

She has the original engine room – with the Gardner 4L3 still having the compressed air start – and a traditional bow cabin but everything in between has been added more recently. Most of her private owners have lived on board and, of course, each has changed things. Having initially contemplated going straight in there and changing lots (my needs as solo liveaboard are quite different to those of a family of four) I’ve been well advised, particularly in conversations with friends in Ireland, a month before Christmas. The plan now is to move onto her, find out at my leisure what I do and don’t like, then potentially move back to Bream whilst changes are made, at a later date.

Meanwhile, not being on Bream gives me the opportunity for some jobs that have been put off there to be tackled. As things stand there are no plans to let Bream go. I can use her in different ways if I’m not living on her, so let’s see how it all evolves.

For now thanks to a few people – Teresa, who got the conversation started; Jo and Nigel who were on that first trip out and helped me organise my initial thoughts; Mike whose experience of the boat, the river and any amount of technical detail has been invaluable; Kayt and Chris who persuaded me that I didn’t need to rush into changes; Steve who valued the boat, Tony who surveyed her and of course Rebekah and Matt, who have entrusted her to me.

Here we go…

A year of boating in a single post

Steve — Tue, 26 Dec 2023 20:20:45 +0000

The previous article I added on here was written on the 29th January, at the end of my first day of boating this year. I’m typing this on 26th December, at the end of (probably) the last day of boating this year.

For all this year has had plenty of adventures, not many of them have been by boat. The January post mentioned my upcoming Interrail trip. That had turned into 6 Interrail trips by mid September, truly the adventure of a lifetime. My travels diary tells the story so I won’t repeat it here, but one significant consequence was that very little boating was done.

With assorted stoppage changes messing around my plans in January and February, I ended up leaving the boat in Aston Marina for a couple of months, beginning in the first week or March. It’s a lovely place, the neighbours and staff are all super. Between the trips, which were roughly a fortnight each, I worked from the boat in the marina – and realised how much cheaper plug-in mains is that generating it yourself. I spent about half as much on electric cards as I would normally do in the same period of time on fuel for the generator.

Leaving Aston Marina on the morning of my first Interrail trip

The stay in Aston was uneventful – right up to the point that I almost sank the boat! I mentioned in the January post that I’d had problems with the water system, specifically the pressure relieve valve was firing the moment that any pressure was applied to the system. I’d not had the time to fix it (it’s in a really nasty location under the bed and behind the hot water tank) so I was leaving the water pump turned off whenever I didn’t need to use it. On this particular day, I was working from the boat and at the same time was filling up the water tanks from a stand pipe nearby. I set it running and didn’t give it a second thought until I heard a strange noise that I’d never heard before, at the front of the boat.

I stepped outside to find that water was running into the boat through the scuppers, which normally sit an inch or two above the waterline, and there were several inches of water on the deck! I VERY quickly realised the gravity of the situation. I initially tried bunging up the scuppers with a couple of sponges that were in a bucket on the deck, but that didn’t work. I ran inside, started the water pump and opened all the taps. Returning outside, carrying a couple of tea towels, I had another go at bunging up the scuppers. That was more successful, not perfect but I could now get water out faster than it was coming in.

Catching my breath, I now realised what had happened. While I’d been distracted on a work call, the water tanks under the front deck had overfilled – the water had been running for maybe 45 minutes. When the tanks fill they overflow into the locker around them (long story but they can’t overflow via a hose over the side in the normal way.) What would then normally happen is that an automatic bilge pump would kick in and pump the water over the side, I would see/hear this and turn the fill tap off. However the bilge pump is on the same electrical circuit as the water pump so because I’d switched that circuit off, the bilge pump didn’t fire, I didn’t get my reminder and the whole locker and then the locker next to it, which has all my spares and tools in it, both completely filled, adding lots of weight to the bow, to the point where the scuppers dipped into the water and water had flooded in rapidly.

I bailed the tools/spares locker with a bucket while the other tank was draining with the bilge and water pumps. I must mention a few neighbours who realised something was wrong and ran to see if they could assist, from the opposite side of the marina. By the time they arrived I’d stabilised things, but it was good to have the extra pairs of eyes and a few calm heads around to confirm that things were getting better rather than worse.

It took about 2 hours to get rid of all the excess water. Thankfully none got into the cabin, but most of my tools and spares were a write off. Canal water had also got into the domestic water tanks so that all had to be sanitised. Not the best of days.

I left Aston in the third week of May, just after my first Interrail pass had expired. I decided to head north to the Weaver, always a favourite place to be, especially in June. Passing through home territory, I got a good look at the “new”Goods Yard” development next to Stoke Station. I’m still not convinced this is going to work well from the water, but it’s certainly going to be a lot better than the metal shed was here before.

The “Goods Yard” development in Stoke-on-Trent

I spent a couple of weeks on the Weaver. Frustratingly, Vale Royal Lock has been closed for a good part of the year but I enjoyed pottering around on the rest of the river, and had friends on board on a lovely early summer day; my only visitors of the whole year!

On a whim I decided to join friends who I’d seen on their way to the Lymm Transport Festival, on the Bridgewater Canal. I’ve not been to this event before, by boat or car. I was a really lovely event and I quickly decided that I’d come back and do it properly another time, not just stopping by for a single afternoon/evening as I had this time.

Bream moored in the middle of the action at Lymm Historic Transport Festival, 24th June, 2023

From Lymm, I made my way over a couple of weekends to Swanley Bridge Marina, just onto the Llangollen Canal. I’d been looking for a place to leave the boat in the Nantwich area whilst I took another Interrail trip, and this relatively short diversion was by some distance the cheapest. Again it was a lovely and well-run place, but it really is in the middle of nowhere. The nearest bus stop is a good half hour walk from the marina, but on the other hand that did make it a very safe place to leave the boat, and in Wrenbury Station gave an interesting new start point for the trip.

Other than the pressure relief valve, which I fixed by myself, the job I really needed to get sorted this year was to replace the alternator. After leaving Swanley, I headed back to the Shroppie, and south to Dave & Louise’s place near to Cheswardine. Dave designed and installed pretty much all the electrical systems on Bream, and knows that side of her better than I do! The previous alternator had died after giving about 14 years service. It was a huge beast, designed to fit into a US Army tank, apparently. The replacement was quite a bit smaller but still big enough to load the engine seriously when running flat out. A feature that Dave came up with 14 years ago had been a multi-position switch that allowed me to have the alternator off, charging at a low rate, or running flat out. This had served me well, especially on rivers when you might need more (or all) of the engine power, so I was keen for this to be retained. Dave didn’t let me down and despite the new alternator being a different make and differently wired, he was able to keep this unusual (unique?) feature for me.

It was also lovely to have some time to catch up with them both, as we’d not seen each other in ages. I left the boat with them while I did one more trip out to Italy, around my birthday, and I finally headed away on 22nd September.

Sterling and Bream, 22nd September, 2023

Most of the boating this year has been quite relaxed. Not travelling outside Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire all year has meant that most trips have been quite short. However, on this occasion I really needed to go for it, leaving before 8am, doing 27 locks single-handed and finally stopping near to Hurleston Junction some 14 hours later. I quite enjoy an epic boating day, and that one was very enjoyable, if tiring as an out-of-practice single-hander.

Back on the river, Acton Bridge Steam Party is a lovely weekend, which I try to get to when I can. Boats and traction engines gather near to the Leigh Arms pub. The weather was like midsummer, absolutely stunning, and a super time was had.

The week after this event the heavens opened and there was a quite dramatic flood on the river, followed by an even bigger one a week later. Thankfully I’d seen the forecast and went back up the Boat Lift before the first one arrived.

Flooding below Hunt’s Lock, Northwich, 21st October, 2023

I hung around in the Northwich area for a while, the went south to Wheelock in early December. Tonight I am back up on the Trent & Mersey at Acton Bridge, waiting for my Boat Lift passage back onto the river on 3rd January.

It’s been a funny year from a boating perspective. Last year’s London trip and particularly the injury I suffered at Warwick really took it out of me. I still have pain with my shoulder and other issues with my fingers and some other joints (which may be connected but are more likely just age-related) have meant that at times boating was the last thing I wanted to be doing. Interrailing had, at least in part, been planned before any of that happened, so was a helpful excuse to not do more than I needed to, this year. That said there were a few lovely days, as can be seen above.

Next year promises to be an interesting one, more of which in the next post, in a couple of week time…

Off we go again – I wonder where to…

Steve — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 20:15:41 +0000

After assorted challenges, I’ve finally been back on the move this weekend, but with no firm plan beyond where I wanted to end up today. The Caldon has a stoppage beginning tomorrow and I wanted to get past that, back onto the Trent & Mersey.

I’m writing this on the 29th January and my boating plans have already changed multiple times, for multiple reasons. When I came onto the Caldon before Christmas, I was expecting it to close the weekend after New Year, so I’d only be on it for a little over a week. That was then cancelled at the last moment, so I decided that I wasn’t going to rush and would spend an extra few weeks in the area.

After a fortnight at Endon, I had planned to move to the edge of Leek. Unfortunately I couldn’t start the engine. I’d been battery charging with a small generator while I was moored, so I initially thought the engine starter battery had gone flat though a combination of cold and lack of use. I soon ruled that out along with all the other things that I know can stop the engine from firing. After I had run out of ideas, I called my good friend Dave, who kindly came to visit on the following Sunday afternoon.

Disassembled engine, 15th January

The answer was something I’d certainly never seen before, water had got inside the engine via the air intake. I still don’t know how, but it was everywhere we looked. We cleaned and dried it all out and Dave very gently ran her to be sure it was working. Perhaps still a little early to say that there is no longer term damage, but I think I’ve got away with it – rust inside the engine would be VERY bad news.

By the following weekend (and an oil and filter change) she was running normally and I was finally ready to move. I’d been emailed by CRT about overstaying in Endon (I’d been there 3 weeks by this point) so replied, explaining the problem. I never heard back so I presume that they were OK with this. That’s the second time in a year I’ve written to CRT and not had the courtesy of a reply.

Unfortunately another winter hazard – bad weather – intervened. I was iced in for over a week, and even by the time I finally moved yesterday, there was a thin layer on the surface.

Ice near to Stockton Brook locks, 28th January

The move this weekend was primarily to get the boat past a stoppage that starts tomorrow. That one is due to run well into March, but I need the boat to be somewhere else well before that so getting away was important.

An occupational hazard in the “stoppage season” (November to March) is waterway closures that change at very short notice. The cancellation on the Caldon was beneficial to me personally, but I’ve just read that another stoppage, on the Shropshire Union, is being extended, which now has me scratching my head. This one is a real pain as there is no new reopening date and I really needed to go through the stoppage on the day it reopened, in order to get the boat to where I hoped to leave it while I go Interrailing 3 days later.

fully in 2 months time everything will be open and I will be free to go wherever I want to (apart from the far end of the Caldon, but that’s another story.)

Around October I’d started to think about what I might want to do this year. An interesting idea had come up a couple of months earlier, which would have involved moving the boat by road to a disconnected waterway, but it has fallen though for this year (and probably next) so I started making couple of lists, of things I need to do, and of things I’d like to do in ’23:

Sort out the water system problems. This became more important when a new fault cropped up a few weeks ago, but there are jobs I’ve wanted to have done for a few years.
Fit the new alternator. This is one of the reasons I want to head up the Shroppie, there are assorted electrical jobs wrapped around this, so mooring at Dave’s makes sense.
Replace the pigeon box above the engine room. It is slowly disintegrating, but after over 30 years use I probably shouldn’t complain.
Fix the leaking windows in the main cabin. The decorative slot windows are a real feature of the boat but are a nightmare to maintain. Steel, wood and glass next to each other are not a good combination for maintaining water-tightness.
Repaint the cabin, roof and hatches. It’s not been done for nearly 7 years and is looking very tired.
Repaint inside the cabins. This hasn’t been done for even longer than when I last did the outside, I’m not even sure what year it was. Painting inside a both that you live on is something of a logistical challenge. you can’t exactly clear the furniture out to another room!
Survey the hull. This was primarily about making sure there would be no nasty surprises if I put the boat onto a lorry and took her somewhere that there was literally no support if anything went wrong. Not essential this year but I would like to do it.

That all sounds like a couple of months in a boatyard might be the right move, but there is also a boating fun list. I have some travel plans that don’t involve boating in March and April, but am still thinking about places I’d like to go boating after that. These are initial ideas. How many of them I achieve remains to be seen.

The River Weaver. Always high on my list, but I didn’t get there last autumn and it is likely that the Boat Lift will be closed all through 2024 so a visit in June and/or September would be good (they’re the best months on the river.)
Huddersfield. I’ve been saying I’d like to do a less rushed return visit ever since I first went there in the Pennine Explorer convoy.
Liverpool. I got as far as Burscough a couple of years ago and very much enjoyed it. A trip along the Link into the docks would be a first for me.
The Erewash. I’ve never done this canal on any boat and everyone tells me I should. While I’m that way I would also go through Nottingham and down the Trent, which I’ve also never done beyond the first river lock (and that was in 1974.)
The Thames and Wey. These were planned for 2022, until my accident. I’m not sure going south 2 years in a row is the right move though. I might save them and go back through London and on to the Stort, which I also missed out on doing, in another year or two instead.

So lots of thinking to do over the coming weeks, some of it before I next move the boat.

The run from Endon was eased by a surprising number of boats heading the other way, evidently keen to be locked in by the stoppage for a couple of months.

I made it as far as Milton yesterday, then Andy and Nicola joined me today for a very pleasant run though the city, where we even had some sunshine. The Caldon was only open in full for about six weeks last year, due to stoppages and water shortages, and the lack of use really shows. We dragged the bottom most of the way, to the extent that I thought there was still an engine problem, but the moment we hit the Trent & Mersey, she was back to normal.

Andy steering down Stoke Locks, 29th January

I’m now moored by the Wedgwood factory at Barlaston. I will probably not now move until the back end of next week, by which time I’ll need water. Hopefully by then I’ll have a better feel for how the next month or so is going to look, so can decide whether to continue to Stone or go back to Etruria, which are the nearest tap locations.

My boating year – dodging the stoppages

Steve — Sat, 28 Jan 2023 20:08:31 +0000

This final part of my review of 2022 boating, I explore a bit of canal I’ve never seen before, fail to get to my favourite waterway and end up on very familiar territory

Having made it to Atherstone, the pressure was off in terms of getting stuck on the “wrong” side of drought-related closures. It was now late August and my thoughts were turning to the beautiful Weaver Navigation as they so often do at this time of year. The direct route through Stoke was unavailable as there was no water in the reservoirs to feed the summit, so I turned left at Great Haywood and headed along the Staffs & Worcester Canal towards the Shropshire Union.

Great Haywood Junction – note the unnecessary and badly positioned signpost, or maybe we are meant to use it to strap boats around the corner?!

I’m not a fan of the Shroppie. As a later built canal it does exactly what it was designed to, taking the most direct route from Wolverhampton to Nantwich, through miles of countryside, rarely near a town. The route requires deep cuttings and high embankments which were simply not an option for the navvies of the previous century.

The spectacular Woodseaves Cutting

Naturally, I tend to look at it as a liveaboard; where can I moor against the bank, leave the car, shop, and of course get good Internet connectivity so that I can work? Broadly speaking the places with good internet are terrible moorings, and vice versa. Unless I’m stopping to see my friends who live near Cheswardine I aim to do the whole thing in a day or two.

This trip was wholly unremarkable barring one moment I’ve never experienced before. As I dropped down the second lock at Audlem a swan decided to jump into the lock ahead of the boat. I had more than half emptied the lock, and it was dropping slowly on a single paddle, so it seemed sensible to let it continue so that I could open the gates and let it out ahead of the boat. The swan however had other ideas. Just as we were making a level it decided to try and escape down the side of the boat and immediately became wedged. I was very concerned that it would be crushed by the boat, so tried to coax it backwards with the boat pole, but it wasn’t having it. By now I was standing on the roof holding the boat away from the bird as best I could. I asked some passers-by for help and soon a crowd had gathered. We tried a couple of different things, opening the gates so it could see an escape route, moving the boat slightly didn’t help dislodge it and eventually one of our rescue team – grabbed it by the neck and hauled it back down the side of the boat to the bow, where it promptly swam away, seemingly unhurt.

Swan in the lock at Audlem

By the time I was in Middlewich I’d had confirmation that the Anderton Boat lift, linking the Trent & Mersey to the River Weaver was not going to reopen any time soon. A fault had been identified in a safety mechanism a few weeks earlier, and it had been closed while they assessed it. The alternative route was via Ellesmere Port and the Manchester Ship Canal, and CRT were arranging convoys for those needing to go to/from the Weaver. I did consider this route, but I’ve been on the Weaver when it has gone into flood during autumn and it isn’t my idea of fun.

I reflected on this during a trip to Italy in early September. I’d left the boat with friends Gill and John at the end of their garden in Middlewich. Being away from the boat is always something that needs a bit of thought so the offer of a secure spot is always very welcome. Sadly over the years I’ve had too many experiences of mischief or worse when I’m not on board, and indeed a couple of times when I have been inside. I’ve been fortunate that no-one has actually broken in to the cabin, but stuff has gone from the roof and decks, and I’ve even had my mooring lines stolen on two occasions.

With autumn approaching and a number of trips away from the boat planned it felt like the wrong time to take the Ship Canal option. However having had the idea put into my head, a trip to Ellesmere Port did sound like a good idea. Oddly it’s somewhere I’ve never been by boat. One of those dead ends that I never get around to.

The section through Bunbury and Beeston is beautiful, but has literally no mobile phone signal so I pressed on to the outskirts of Chester, where I paused for a few days.

The “Bunbury Shuffle” at the staircase locks, 14th September 2022. Two up and one down.

I had heard many stories of problems with Northgate Staircase locks over the years, indeed they were the specific reason that I’d not been this way before on Bream. They have a reputation for very leaky gates that pour water over boats and with a large open front deck that was potentially a really serious concern, for the return journey in particular. However after a recce of the site, and conversation with a few people, I had a plan. If you keep the water level in the locks above you low enough then it can’t pour through the gates. It means making sure no-one comes down immediately behind you when descending, and dribbling it down from the top as you ascend, but it is doable, so it was nice to be on water I’d never seen before.

Taylor’s Boatyard, Chester, 17th September 2022

Taylor’s Yard is really something else. A proper old boatyard of the type that has mostly gone now. My first two boat trips in 1969 were on wooden craft made here, and it was lovely to see a few of the same family in the water and hiding on the bank. This is also the furthest point in this direction I’d even been by boat, when I helped Rupert on Skylark a few years ago. Before that the southern edge of Chester was as far as I had ever been in this direction, on our family boat in, I think, 1978.

The run to Ellesmere Port has very little to commend it. The views are limited and uninspiring, there are sections with huge amounts of weed growth; the floating islands reminded me of the Caldon in 70s, though this was Floating Pennywort, not reeds. It still tangled in the prop very easily, so with the constant stop-reverse-start, progress was slow. As I approached the Port I met a group of young men having a huge bonfire on the towpath. I did wonder if they knew that the fire was more or less on top of a large diameter gas main that runs down the towpath in that area – and is well marked – but they didn’t look in the mood for conversation so I carried on.

Bream in the bottom basin at Ellesmere Port. Note the even larger craft on the next mooring.

The Boat Museum was deserted when I arrived. I dropped down the locks and moored up. There were signs about needing to book a mooring via the CRT website but when I tried it rejected my attempts. It seems that not for the first time, Bream is too long to be accepted by the badly configured software. She’s correctly on the system at 70’9″ but many CRT assets are logged as suitable for boats of maximum 70′ length. I was on a previous occasion told she was too long to go through a tunnel, so no real surprise. No-one disturbed me and the museum was still deserted when I left the next morning.

Having retraced my steps to Middlewich, I spent a little time at Acton Bridge. Part of the fun of the Weaver in autumn is the Steam Party where boats and traction engines gather for a very sociable weekend in and around the Leigh Arms. My mooring on the Trent & Mersey was close enough for me to walk down and see the fun.

Engines and boats at Acton Bridge Steam Party, 1st & 2nd October, 2022

By now the autumn rain had arrived and the middle section of the Trent & Mersey had reopened so after a few weeks pottering around at Acton, Preston Brook and Anderton I headed south. I try to spend Christmas near to Stoke as I still have family and friends in the area, and it’s a time when I’m most likely to see them. This year I’d decided to go onto the Caldon. I wrote a little of this trip on the very first posts on this site so won’t repeat it here.

New Year was spent moored at Park Lane, Endon, though personally I was standing on Westminster Bridge, watching the fireworks.

My boating year – back on the move

Steve — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 22:26:37 +0000

In this fourth section of my review of 2022 boating adventures, I am finally ready to head north from my temporary marina mooring. Shortages of water over the summer had led to unprecedented closures of several canals, with talk of more to follow.

I’d initially booked a month on the marina mooring. I used the time well. I was working from the boat during the week, as normal, but living on the western edge of London, all sorts of places accessible that are normally well out of weekend or day trip range became possible. The Isle of Wight was visited as a day trip. Folkestone, Hastings and the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway were all explored over a rather glorious weekend. Then of course there was London itself, and endless explorations of places I’d never quite got around to before, Alexandra Palace, the Postal Museum, the Thames Estuary, and more. My newly acquired Tate membership got very well used, and not just for the excellent member lounges.

Meanwhile somewhere in the back of my mind, I was becoming increasingly concerned that I wasn’t ready to head away. I’d already extended my marina stay by three weeks. The slightest movement of the right wrist was still painful, and it was around three months since my fall. I started to contemplate one seemingly possible outcome, that the injury would never properly heal and my single-handed boating days might be behind me.

An appointment was booked with a physio, who told me the exact opposite of what I’d been told before, and was also exactly what I needed to hear: using it was good, the tendons will have healed as much as they can within 6-8 weeks (this was week 11.) A bit of pain would not now make the original injury worse.

I didn’t need to be told twice. A couple of conversations with work and some hastily juggled diary appointments and I had a week or so free to go boating.

Cowley Lock

Around lunchtime on 7th August I said my goodbyes and edged out of Packet Boat Marina. I worked my way through Cowley gently and slowly, just getting a feel for it all again. The canal was very quiet, even though it was a Sunday afternoon. By the time I tied up opposite Tesco in Rickmasworth it all felt fairly normal again. I was tired and aching – and not just my hand – but it felt like I would be able to do this.

There was – of course – a bit of a target. There was talk that the Tring summit of the Grand Union was about to close due to the drought conditions, and that the Coventry Canal might follow it. Both were on my route, and the alterative via the Thames and Oxford Canals was reputedly even more likely to close within days. The Trent & Mersey was already closed in Cheshire, as were various waterways in the North West. If I could at least get past Atherstone then I’d be a reasonably flat and long section of water, and back within striking distance of mum in Stoke, wherever I ended up.

7:30am at Lock 58, near Berkhamsted

My sister once more joined me for a few days as I headed through bits of Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, and I managed to keep to my fairly vague schedule without boating into the night at all. I did however do a couple of very early mornings, as it was cooler and meant that I could pause for breath in the middle of the day, which was welcome relief for the muscles, and from the heat.

I encountered a few very low pounds, one in Berkhamsted was barely passible, but Tring was less challenging than I had expected. I only really came unstuck following a very early start at Stoke Bruerne. I’d moored two locks down from the summit and when I got up at 6am the pound between the top two locks was well down. I went to the top and ran what looked like enough water down, even though it was still low. I then worked up lock 2 and gently headed out into the pound. Perhaps inevitably I stuck fast in the middle. I couldn’t move back or forwards, water was clearly leaking out more quickly than it was coming in.

Stuck in the middle of a falling pound at Stoke Bruerne

Thankfully, it was now nearly 7am and I was soon happy to see a familiar face wander towards me. Mike was out for an early morning walk before his trip boat duties. I threw him a windlass and he was able to run water down from the top. It was lovely to see him, and have a bit of a chat, as he joined me as far as the tunnel mouth.

Thankfully that was as dramatic as it got. The Coventry Canal was horribly low – it was strange to see Sutton Stop Lock with a 1′ fall instead of the usual couple of inches, and I dragged along all the way to Atherstone at tickover, losing maybe half a day on my schedule.

Sutton Stop, Hawkesbury

After the weeks of hot dry weather that had given us drought conditions everywhere, the rain arrived around 8pm on the 16th, as I was half way down Atherstone Locks. I was soaked to the skin, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling! More importantly, I had made it back to the midlands, and would not encounter water shortages again for the rest of the year.

To be concluded…

My boating year – finally in London

Steve — Sun, 22 Jan 2023 20:02:17 +0000

“Such fun this boating lark. Turns out I have tendon damage after what I thought was a trivial slip in Warwick a fortnight ago, but was getting more painful by the day/lock (and there has been 89 of them since it happened.) Will take a few days off then hopefully resume slow and steady progress towards London at the end of the week. 36 locks still to do.”

This was my post on Facebook on the evening of 16th May. At the end of the previous section of my review of 2022 I had just been told that I needed to wear this support, which contains a metal strip to stop you flexing the joint, for at least the next 6 weeks. The idea of getting Bream from Apsley to Limehouse for the Historic Narrow Boat Club gathering in 11 days time, suddenly seemed all but impossible, but having come this far I was at least going to try and get into London.

However, I’d reckoned without a super group of people from the Club, several of whom were making their way south behind me. We had already had a group WhatsApp for those of us heading south and several of us are also friends on social media and it wasn’t long before a plan was made for Bream to hitch a series of lifts to the gathering.

The first section was with Ray and John on NB Owl, from Apsley to Rickmasworth. They were stopping there for a rally at the weekend, but I would press on, as I knew that there would be boats coming north from London, so there was a decent chance of a few lock swaps.

First lock with John (by the gate) and Ray (on NB Owl)

It took a few locks to get a system where I was able to contribute anything more than hanging onto Bream, but we made very good progress down a steady series of locks and I waved them goodbye at about 4pm. From there I was on my own, but I was lucky enough to find a swap at every lock bar one, all the way down to West Drayton. For that one I took it very steadily and was able to get through in about 25 minutes, though I would have been stuck if any of the paddles had needed me to use both hands.

Over the new few days, I worked in the day and moved in the evenings. I stopped on the eco-moorings at King’s Cross for a few days, having been generously worked down the Camden locks by a local. The area continues to change almost beyond recognition, though it was 8 or 9 years since I’d last been this way by boat.

The relocated gasometers at King’s Cross

The eco-moorings gave me my first experience of double-breasted mooring, with a lovely young couple who were students and new to boating, but rapidly becoming very keen. The highlight was definitely the moment when I looked up from my desk to say hello as they were stepping over, to see a double bass being carried to the towpath! Also an honourable mention for possibly the worst implementation of software I have ever seen in my life, controlling the electrical hookup on these moorings. Simply dreadful 🙄

For the final run into Limehouse I paired up with Eric and Janet on Tug No. 2. We overnighted in Limehouse Basin and then moved onto the event moorings, arriving the day before the event began – I’d made it!

I won’t write at length about the gathering, there is plenty elsewhere, but it was a lovely weekend and great to see everyone after so long. The trip to the Tide Mill was super and I also very much enjoyed taking Bream around Bow Back Rivers, though I’m not sure CRT enjoyed it quite as much as Tim and I did, as the locks were proving quite temperamental with a couple of dozen narrow boats wanting to work through over the two days.

In no time people were heading away in various directions, many of them up the Lee and onto the Stort. That had been my original plan too; it’s a lovely waterway, but I decided to stay put. I moved a little closer to Limehouse and for a few days was breasted up with NB Squire while Richard nipped home.

I grabbed a lift with Owl again, back up to Camden, with Sarah, who had been staying on NB Purton, also offering a very welcome extra pair of hands. I’d booked a week in Paddington Basin, always one of my favourite moorings.

On the visitor moorings in Paddington Basin

The plan was to take it easy for a few weeks, move as little as possible and see if my wrist would recover enough to let me start to work north. I moved a short way out of the centre after a week, and then back into Paddington as I’d secured a second spell on the paid moorings. Not cheap but incredibly helpful as it was clear that the wrist wasn’t going to improve any time soon.

With the assistance of Amy and James I secured a mooring near to their spot at Packet Boat Marina for a couple of months, something I’d never before done in 23 years afloat, barring when I’ve needed to leave the boat somewhere secure while I was abroad. The people there were lovely and welcoming, and it was nice to have friends as neighbours, though if I’m completely honest it confirmed what I’d always known, that marina life was not for me. I needed to be back out on the cut, just as soon as I could.

To be continued…