Hi Folks, I had a very enjoyable day yesterday on the narrowboat trust's boats Nuneaton and Brighton. Sorry it's a bit long, but here is my "log":
Nick Wolfe had rang the day before letting me know he was leaving Rickmansworth at 6am. At 6:20am I left Northolt on my push bike, and diced with the traffic on the A40 - thankfully only for a short while as after the next junction there is a pavement. I called at 7am to check how they were getting on, but they had only reached Stockers. I didn't know how fast they were travelling, but thought they might do reasonably well, so decided to bike to Denham Deep Lock. To get to the canal from the A40 was currently impassable thanks to road works, and so decided to use some public footpaths across the meadow. These soon disappeared into a mass of nettles amd thorns, and I had to back track. After wasting nearly 20 minutes I finally found my way to Uxbridge Lock, and continued up the canal. I reached Denham, which was full and so I opened the gates ready for the boats. I biked up the canal to try and see them down the straight, but the vegetation put pay to that, so continued up to Widewater Lock. On the way up passing a upbound boat - I checked that they hadn't been by yet, and continued up. The lock was nearly empty when I reached it, but since I didn't have a windless I could not get the lock ready for the upcoming boat. While the lock was filling I started talking to a couple of men sat on the top balance beam eating pre-packed sandwiches. I mentioned the boats, and one of them who had already mentioned working for BW in the past said he had worked on Nuneaton. Small world, mind you he said he didn't have anything better to do and would wait for the boats, but they were nowhere to been seen when they reached the lock. I called Nick again, and now they were at Copper Mill, and so I biked up to Black Jacks. There was a single boat going up when I arrived, and a single hander to go down. I helped as much as possible, and even when the boat from the other lock arrived the Trust boats hadn't arrived. While the lock was filling the boats came around the corner, and had to breast up while waiting for the lock. I met Nick, and his 2 crew (sorry not very good with names, but one was called Barry). He asked me to lock-wheel, so once through the lock I biked back down the way I had come. I helped the single hander through Widewater, and after asking if I wanted a drink, I asked for a little water to keep me going until the boats arrived. He dissapeared inside and promptly got a bottle of water, and a can of fanta for me! Thank you. The canal was quite busy, and a boat was coming up at Denham, and then our single handed friend went down. Thankfully it was quiet after I turned the lock around, but had quite a wait for the boats to arrive. I got a bacon roll and a cup of tea when they did, and then continued down to Uxbridge and got that ready. Our single handed friend had already got through when I arrived, so I turned the lock ready for the boats. I finally got to ride on the boats here, so put my bike aboard, and jumped on the butty. Since nobody was at the tiller, I took control and steered the boat down to Cowley Lock. The boats were loaded with a fair amount of coal (not sure of the exact tonnage, around 25 tons for the two boats I think) and this made steering a little heavy, but the butty went where I put it. The wash from the motor did shuffle the bow around a little, and it was very easy to end up one side or the other. This is probably a good thing so that the boat doesn't get in the way of the prop wash. We were on a Snubber (a longish line for towing), and so the butty steered like a normal boat, just being towed. Just before Cowley the Denham gravel barges were maneuvering about in the middle of the canal. It wasn't clear where they were going, so we started to breast up - the usual tatic for unknown events as the pair is much more controllable tied together, even if you get other problems. The barge stuck in the middle of the canal shuffled in a bit, and we managed to squeeze around them before we actually tied together. I asked if they were starting the traffic again, and got a yes answer. I then noticed the gravel in one of the barges, though I guess they aren't up to full speed yet as they would be moving the stuff up and down the canal. A couple of other people in a car arrived at Cowley to help the boats through, they then drove to Hanwell to help us through them aswell. As we left Cowley only Barry was on the motor, so I joined him just in case he needed any help along the next long stretch to the next locks. First, the water intake for the engine was blocked so I had to use the mop to clear it. Later someone shouted we had some wood stuck on the bow, only once I walked along the boards to the bow with mop in hand did I realise it was a titchy little board which compared with the 20-30 tons of boat didn't really make much difference! After about an hour of running, I offered to give Barry a break from steering. Since they had 15 hour days the previous two days, he accepted my help and I was steering the pair! It wasn't long before the shallower less used section after Bulls Bridge started to cause problems, and we got all sorts of rubbish around the prop. I tried throwing it off, but the reverse gear wasn't working well and kept jumping out of gear. I had another go, but left it in reverse to long, and started picking rubbish up in reverse! Because the boats are so deep when loaded, and most other boats are so shallow you really do notice a huge difference even when you would be flying along in a shallow drafted boat without care. The Lister JP2 takes some time to get up to speed, and takes even longer when there is stuff on the prop, so really gives you some problems get it off - and that from an owner of a SR3! As we reached the locks Nick jumped off at a bridge, and then after running up to the next bridge asked for the bike that was on the motor. He then raced ahead to get the lock ready. I was still steering when we reached the locks, and Barry was happy in letting me take the boats in. That was my first mistake, as normally only a few people in the trust are of trainer status. I brought the motor in slowly, and Barry brought in the tow rope. I kept the motor to the right side, and eventually the butty arrived. We worked through the lock, and Nick then stayed on the motor to teach me how to do it properly. We were now using a slightly shorter rope called a snatcher, but the procedure was similar: First, leaving the lock, usually needed a little reverse to let the gates open. Because there is no holding back pin on the top gates which would normally be used by the butty to hold it away from the bottom gates we were using the motor to pull the butty backwards. After this we could remove the (holding back?) rope, and move the motor forwards and out. The tow rope eye was hooked on the tiller pin, and the rope set behind the left and right dollies so that it's free to move, and the rest in the cabin. You can then stand on the side of the boat, moving forwards to get the most amount of time while the two boats are together with your hand still on the tiller. The idea of putting the tow rope on the front T-stud is to keep one foot (the right one if the butty is to the left) on the motor, hook the eye over from the front first towards the back so that you can check its attached. Then to return to the tiller. The first time I managed to get the rope on fine, but actually left the motor completely to do it. I had no problems getting back on board, but the second time it took to long to get the rope on the T-stud, and the motor ended up going off without me! Thankfully Nick was aboard, and also thankfully he had the same problems with the reverse gear as I was having, so there is definitely a fault. Back to technique, once the rope is on the butty, and you are actually aboard the right boat :-) then a couple of turns around each dolly is used to add a bit of friction, and then using your foot, the rope is let out slowly steadily taking up the tow. I watched Nick carefully as he handled the boat, and while travelling down the canal tried to remember the way that way he showed me the canal mans hitch - which is slightly different to the way I do it (I put in a twist when putting the loop back over). When we entered the next lock I jumped back on board with the tow rope, and then proceeded to bring the boat to a stop. The trick to getting the boats in are as follows: When you are about 100 yards or so from the lock let the butty steerer know which side you want him on. When about 70 feet from the lock take the motor out of gear, and start to take in the tow rope as the slack drops. The rope is put back in the cabin as it pulled in ready for playing out later. While doing this, you have to make sure the motor remains in line with the correct side of the lock - if not you could easily get the boats jammed up, and with the weight aboard could easily become wedged harder than we could pull them apart! When the first 10 odd feet of the motor has reached the top gates the boat is put into reverse (with varying amounts of success on the day). As the bow arrives at the motor take the rope off (you can jump completely on to the butty if you want, as the boats will remain together for some time and you can walk back along the gunnel). After taking the rope off, the loop hangs back on the tiller pin. By this point the motor is mostly in the lock, and the boat brought to a stop well before reaching the bottom gates, and actually left in reverse. The checking/holding back strap on the butty is put around the dolly a couple of turns and the butty brought to a stop (in relation to the motor) and then tied off with a boat mans hitch. The act of stopping the butty means the motor is pulled into the lock, and then the two boats brought to a stop near the bottom gates. The tunnel hook rope is also attached by the butty steerer in case the motor needs to pull the butty forwards. We continued down the locks like this, although at the second to last lock we gave a family and two kids a ride to the next lock where we remained breasted up. I think normally the boats would be driven like this through the thick of the locks, especially since they would be a lot lighter crewed than we were. The long rope was brought out again for the next runs, and after the last lock in the flight we were off again. One thing you notice with the boats loaded is just how slow they are, even in deeper water, and we didn't get much over 3.5 mph even flatout - mind you I'm not sure there wasn't still something around the prop! We hit a problem at the next lock, our lock wheelers didn't have a BW key on them, so we had to breast up - this time I was driving the motor, and the sequence was exactly the same as entering a lock. Once Nick had passed them a key, and the lock was full we then took the pair into the lock. It was from a bit of a funny angle, but the boats came around without a problem. It was the same problem at the next lock, so I'm not sure what happened there, but we were soon through, and on to the last pound of the day. The boats got stuck along this stretch last year, and were in the middle of the canal all night. We didn't have any problems, but did bring up some nasty stuff from the bottom. When we entered the pool I was going to breast up the boats in the wide open water. The wind was blowing mostly along the dock, and the boats were more than heavy enough in the water not to be effected badly, but Nick wanted to leave it until we were closer to the bank. This off footed me a little, but apart from a bit of rope pulling that was needed I managed, with the help of the butty steerer, to get the butty near the bank somewhere were we wanted it. The only problem, the depth was severely lacking, even though once it must have been over 5 foot in depth. The butty didn't quite reach the bank before stopping, and still hadn't quite come alongside the motor, but after reversing up and breasting up, and lots of smelly mud stirring later we just managed to get the boats about a foot from the wall. Nick then gave me a familiarisation lesson where I had to name all the things on the boat. I knew somethings, but my memory is really rubbish, and can't usually remember what I had for breakfast earlier in the day! The idea behind the training regime is that as you pass various tests you become qualified as a captain, where you become in charge of the boats, and help train others up. They give you a training book, and I've now got a few parts started, but there is still a lot to get through! Well, it was cirtainly fun, and interesting, and even discounting all the bike riding I did, it was much harder work handling a pair than I thought. Still, I would recommend it to anyone - have a look at: http://www.narrowboattrust.org.uk/ Cheers, Mike -- Michael Askin http://shoestring_DOT_zapto_DOT_org/
