Towing a shell to Poynton

12th & 13th December

In view of the changed arrangements for the tow (i.e. not now happening until tomorrow) we were able to have a lie in, and then the prospect of a day to potter about.

I wanted to do some minor jobs around the boat, so I put the drill battery on charge whilst we made the long walk from Gurnett Aqueduct to Tesco. We’d normally access Tesco from the water point mooring (aka dog poo mooring) but didn’t want to boat up there on this day, as it’s quite noisy at night. Anyway there’s only the one decently deep length of mooring there and it had a boat on it when we passed the day before.

So we made a good walk of it, along the towpath back to aforesaid water point and then down Buxton Road, right into Fence Road and then across the park towards Tesco. Shopping done (two wine boxes in anticipation of the festive season, mainly) we trekked back in time for lunch.

In the afternoon I made a modification to the gas locker lid. When we first had the boat, there was a little wooden block on the foredeck which stopped the lid closing completely, so as to ensure good ventilation through the locker. Over time this broke up and disappeared, and Mike Carter had been unhappy that the lid now closed down tight when he did our boat safety examination.

He’d suggested drilling a hole through the deck and fixing a bolt through it such that it kept the lid a little open as before. I didn’t fancy the effect of the bolt head on the underside of the lid without some sort of padding, so I got a small piece of half inch reinforced water hose, drilled a hole through one side of it, and fixed the bolt through that, the other side of the hose thus protecting the bolt head.

The main effort involved was drilling through the deck, but by using my sharpest bits, and working up in 5 mm stages I did it at last. It’s good to know that the steel of which Sanity is constructed is so tough!

The other jobs were to fix the new smoke alarm to the ceiling of the study bedroom, and to mount, finally, the plaque we got for attending the Huddlesford Boat Gathering on the bulkhead we use for our collection of such things.

Yesterday dawned bright and cold, with just a thin skin of ice on the water here and there. The shell we were to tow was not expected to be put into the water until one o’clock, so we had another lazy start, and pottered about in the boat until half eleven, then made and ate an early lunch and boated round to the marina for one.

The shell was already there, with Iain and Peter working on the main job that must be done before launch, namely fixing the prop shaft and prop through the stern post. Peter announced that if we were planning to take the tow all the way to Poynton that day, he could come with us to help with the fending off and take his turn at steering. This was welcome news, as a third hand does make a difference to the job. Since the boat is a spec boat, there was no eager pair of future owners there to help.

Just as we were beginning to wonder about it, the crane turned up, and without too much further ado, the shell was lifted off the lorry and placed in the water. Iain and Peter shafted her out of the marina moorings as I reversed Sanity towards her. Iain then fixed the tow with cross straps.

This is the traditional way of close coupling an unpowered boat (normally the butty in the carrying days) to the motor boat. The line goes from the T-stud on the bow of the tow, round one side of its stem and fastens to the opposite dolly on the motor’s stern. It’s then taken back to the T-stud and round the other side of the stem to cross over to the other dolly.

This makes a sort of articulated tow, the towed boat’s bow tending to follow the stern of the motor very closely, so that the steerer of the tow only has to worry about keeping its stern following on. An empty shell makes a tricky sort of beast – unballasted, it floats high in the water, with not a lot of its rudder submerged. A rudder intended for a powered boat isn’t as effective without a prop wash passing it anyway, so it can be hard work making the tow go where you want it.

Fortunately, there was very little wind yesterday – we’ve done some tows for Braidbar in wet and windy conditions that made it very hard work indeed for the person on the back of the tow. As it was, it was a glorious day for boating, and we set of in fine style, only stopping briefly after the first, immediate bridge 'ole for Peter to nip back and get the tiller for the tow. (Ooops)

The Macc bridge 'oles are quite tight for a normal boat, so it's an interesting test of the motor steerer’s skill to get the whole thing through without too much bashing of the shell on the sides, or, heaven forfend, the arch of the 'ole. The trick is to slow down for the bridge in good time, and then wind her up as you get close to the 'ole. That way you have lots of steerage without going too fast.

By the time we reached Poynton it was getting quite dark, and I had the tunnel light on on Sanity to see my way through the bridges. This didn’t help Sheila on the tow, of course, and Peter earned his keep hopping off at each bridge and applying firm guidance to the shell as it passed though the 'ole. (He’s good at firm guidance, Peter is).

Arriving at the yard, we moored Sanity on the shop mooring, and put the shell outside her for the night. It was now gone five, and quite cold, so we were glad to go into the house for a cup of tea.

Then it was back to the boat for Sheila to take a shower, me to do a holding post on here, and then we treated ourselves to a meal at the Boar’s Head just down the road, not to mention some well earned pints of Black Sheep and Kronenbourg.