Staying put in the wet

It’s being one of those days today when not having a deadline is very handy. The weather has been torrential, and as we had a bit of a broken night, we decided to stay put for another day, rather than tackle Braunston Locks.

I’m not sure why it was such a bad night, but the bilge pump running in the wee sma’ hours didn’t help. On investigation this morning, the stern gland was dripping merrily; unusually, in my experience, from the back of the gland rather than the front where the adjustment is. Nonetheless, tightening up the gland and then greasing it stopped the drip, so I’ll just have to keep an eye on it.

As I recall, Sanity needed the same treatment in her early days; I guess the packing has to bed in for the first few months. The new mini sucky thing, aka a one litre oil extractor, did a good job of removing most of the water the pump had left, and I’ve popped that great stand-by, a budget disposable nappy, down there to soak up the rest.

It turned into a bit of a pottering morning, having started in on minor maintenance. I hung the calendar in the study, and checked the pressure in the cold water system accumulator. Sheila has been exploring the possibilities of Zopa as an investment system. This is a scheme of peer to peer lending, a way for people to access credit without going through one of the banks.

We’re making a cautious start, and will see how it goes.

I promised a while back to give a mature view about the performance of ABNB, and this seems a good time to do it. First off, they undoubtedly delivered what they promised, in that they sold Sanity, to a buyer with the credit to pay for her, at a price within the range predicted.

Other positives were the effective advertising and the glossy brochure, and flexibility about our location as we first showed round her at Poynton, and then moved her towards Crick. Having put her on the market in January, we had a slow two months (hardly surprising) but then plenty of interest in March and a sale in April.

What they weren’t so good at was communication. Silly mistakes were made in confirmatory emails to prospective purchasers, and we weren’t warned about the paperwork which would accompany the final sale.

For example, as well as signing (and having witnessed) a bill of sale (as we expected), they also use an exchange of contracts, like a house sale, and those have to be witnessed as well. In addition, they sent an enquiry form to Braidbar.

All of this has the effect of giving confidence to the buyer, and I can understand why they do it, but giving the client an information sheet explaining it all would be a good idea. I also found one of their staff distinctly patronising in manner, but that may just be my sensitivity!

The charge is 6% of the first £60,000, then 2% of the balance, plus VAT. As a proportion of the sale price, this is a lot more than an estate agent would expect for essentially the same service, but in absolute terms, it comes out much the same. 1.5% of £200,000 is £3,000, as is 6% of £50,000.

Would we use them again? I think so, assuming no change in comparative rates or reputation, of course.

Not that we plan to sell Sanity Again in the foreseeable future.

Back down Watford

Thanks to everyone who has offered their experience of mobile broadband. I’ve found that Vodafone no longer offer their unlimited PAYG deal, but instead you have to use the allowance within 30 days, much less use. On the other hand, T-mobile now offer a pay per day deal, where you pay £3 per month for the line, and then £2 for a day’s usage, which might be more valuable as the back-up connection.

I haven’t found anything to beat the 3 offer on MiFi yet for our main supplier, assuming that the later reports of coverage are accurate. There’s no point in buying a separate router; the Mac Mini functions as a WiFi hub all on its own, so can just function with an added modem.

More as we go on!

Today, as I tweeted earlier, we had an early start, Sheila doing her boating-while-I-breakfasted bit, and filled up with water at Yelvertoft. Then on to Crick to get bread and pasties. The towpath looks much quieter, but is still littered with signs about mooring for the Show. Trust BW to be slow clearing up; all it needs is one guy to go along and pull out the lamp irons and shove the signs into a bag, and it would all look so much less unloved.

Hey ho, never mind, on we went to Watford top, where the luck of the Napiers came into play once more. (Or maybe it’s the luck of Sanity Again, which would be good.) As at Foxton, no sooner had we arrived than we were into the first lock, and on our way down. We cleared the flight by ten past twelve, and ate the pasties (good forward planning by Sheila) as we boated on looking for a mooring.

The bit of Armco by Welton haven was free, so here we are.

It was fine enough this afternoon to try cleaning the Houdinis. Sheila got the two done, almost, and I got two coats of Incralac onto the first before the rain arrived. The rule for Incralac is to apply each subsequent coat between 15 minutes and an hour after the last, aiming to get four coats on. I had done two coats before it started raining, so popped a brolly over the open Houdini and left it to dry.

I mustn't put any more on for 24 hours, but that seems unlikely; next session I’ll put another two coats on, and try and do the other Houdini as well. That will be the worst bit done; the portholes and mushrooms are much easier both to clean and to lacquer, so we’ll do those as opportunity presents.

The brolly, by the way, is a rather nice spring loaded job someone left behind at the show. If it belongs to anyone reading this, just get in touch and tell me what the logo is on it, and I’ll get it back to you; I imagine that whoever lost it is regretting it.

Idle and idyllic boating

23rd May

Yesterday, I had to put a long sleeved shirt on in the afternoon, so warm was the weather. We had a good day, nonetheless, loafing around, basically, watching the traffic through Braunston and nattering to all and sundry.

Today has been one of those days that you dream about in the winter. We both woke early, and after a leisurely breakfast, set off at around seven to boat up to the foot of the flight.

We’d not been there more than 20 minutes, chatting to one of the guys from Wharf House boatbuilders, when Phoenix III turned up, and we shared up the flight.

There was a moderate amount of traffic coming down, so we had a quick trip, and arrived at the top an hour later.

Straight into the tunnel and out the other side, having crossed with just one boat, amazingly not in the dogleg. Then we were boating in idyllic conditions, along the summit pound to Norton Junction, running a washload as we went. I managed the turn onto the Leicester section despite boats coming at me from all directions, and we pottered along in bright sun under dappled shade from the towpath trees, looking for somewhere to tie.

We found it just beyond Welton Haven marina, where we’re going to stay for the night.

This afternoon will be taken up with making a gentle start to getting Sanity Again clean for the show; no point in doing too much until nearer the time, as it would only have to be done over again.

A couple of photos showing the Leicester section at its best:

Sanity Again tied in the peace of a summer's afternoon

... and this is what's just round the corner

It always reminds me of the end of Bill and Ben in the days of Watch with Mother: "and they all dozed quietly in the summer sun." Weeeeed!

Away we go again

28th & 29th May

The weather continued dramatic for our last night at Crick, with a massive thunder storm in the small hours. Sheila, nonetheless, slept through it. Despite this, we made a decent start, getting away by 8.30, to wind in the marina entrance (not the easiest one to use) and then stopping on the water point to refill a seriously depleted tank.

By 9.15 we were into the tunnel. Our passage through it was a bit slower than in the other direction, not because Sheila was steering, but because a Canaltime was in front, steering erratically and banging from side to side. Presumably, it was their first experience of tunnel navigation, but the lack of any kind of rear facing light did give She a problem. We always leave the stern doors open and a light in the engine 'ole, so that following boats can see where we are.

They moored just on the other side, to allow ourselves and a GRP cruiser to pass, which was decent of them. We, in turn, let the cruiser by, as they were clearly able to maintain a better speed over the shallows of the Leicester Section. It all adds interest to the tranquil canal scene, as the guide books are wont to say.

Arriving at the top of Watford we found a few boats waiting to go down. Andy the lockie said that we'd have to wait until a small queue at the bottom had come up, so we settled to make a cup of coffee and generally mooch about. Sheila started a washload, now that we've got water again.

Andy has a mini shop in the lockkeeper's hut, selling basic provisions, secondhand books and videos and the like. It's on an honesty box, as he's usually up and down the flight somewhere.

We started down the flight just before 12, and were out by 12.35. We'd planned to go on to the visitor moorings before Norton Junction, but decided to stop on the towpath just beyond Welton Marine, as we couldn't be sure of finding a space further on, and we were getting hungry.

This proved to be a very good mooring, with little noise from the M1 or the West Coast Mainline. During the afternoon, I read Andrew Denny's latest post on Granny Buttons – thanks for the kind words Andrew, and for the link to Fernwood's site and the account of the design of Whitefield, the avant garde boat they were showing at Crick.

Noteworthy are the facts that the owners decided to build it after becoming enthused about canals from watching the telly series Waterworld, and after one weekend actually boating. On that basis, they spent a quarter of a million pounds building this dramatically different boat.

No harm in their returning excess money to circulation, of course, but we'd heard whilst waiting at Watford that they'd had trouble navigating Crick Tunnel (the boat is joystick controlled), and indeed when they passed our mooring later in the day, the top of the fancy cratch cover was ripped where it had grazed the tunnel arch.

Could be that's why boring old traditional designs have solid steel in that location?

I also discovered via the Waterways World feed that BW has started the consultation on the moorings tender trial. Sheila and I are still pondering the issues raised, so I won't say anymore here, but I'll undoubtedly be back to the topic.

Today we got away at eight, as I wanted to get through Braunston Tunnel before it got too busy. It was a very pleasant day, and we had an uneventful passage. We waited a while at the top of the Braunston flight for a boat to come up, and that meant that a Willow Wren hire boat caught us up to share down.

Things then went a bit pear shaped, through no one's fault whatsoever. The second lock down was against us, there being two boats ahead of us. We could see a single boat coming up the lock below, so waited for them. Meanwhile, Grumpy Git could be seen turning the top lock for himself.

As the ascending boat came out of the lock below, its engine died, and they had to stop on the towpath to investigate. We therefore turned the lock, and went down, with Grumpy Git meanwhile scratching his head, as it appeared to him that we'd hung about above the lock he now wanted before suddenly starting down it.

As we came out of this lock, the Willow Wren also got into difficulties and had to stop, so that there were now two broken down boats in the one short pound. We therefore waited in the lock below for Grumpy Git, and worked down two with him before he announced he was stopping just below the Admiral Nelson pub.

At this stage we gave up on being responsible lock sharing boaters and went down the last two locks on our own. We found a mooring just by Butcher's Bridge, having taken from 9.15 to 11.15 to get there from the top of the flight.

Here we found that there's almost no Vodafone signal, but a fast internet connection via T-mobile. I texted Elanor and Graeme to let them know not to bother trying to ring us.

After lunch, we went to Tradline Rope and Fenders and bought some of their nice "Victory Black" synthetic rope for making some new fenders – the ones we've got at the moment are really on their last legs. Austin Siviter had shown us this stuff – it looks really good, like tarred sisal, but of course will be rot resistant. It costs £70 for a roll of 220 metres, but we should get at least 10 normal sized fenders out of that, or a smaller number of my mega side fenders, half hitched around a rolled up rubber mat, so compared to what you'd pay for ready mades, it's well worth it.

Diesel here is 90 pence per litre. I dipped the tank, and we've got about a third of it left, so we're not desperate. I've left a voicemail for Mike Partridge, whose boat Jubilee is the local coal boat, to see if he's likely to cross with us soon. If not, we'll diesel either at Clifton Cruisers or Willow Wren as we go through Rugby.

Apart from that, the afternoon has been spent quietly, tidying the engine 'ole, dozing, and (for Sheila) getting on with the knitting she put to one side to finish the porthole doilies for Kala.