Hi Folks, I've been busy over the Christmas period buying another boat. I am now the very proud owner of a Royalty Class motor called Victoria. She was built in 1931, and in powered by a 1953 Lister JP2 which sounds fantastic. My Dad and I brought her down from Buckby to London so I could do some work on her over the next couple of months and here is a log of our journey:
Thursday 1/1/09 - I had arranged to collect the keys, and other papers with the previous owner at Northolt. I drove down from Hull where I'd spent the Xmas, but managed to get the time wrong and was late. Thankfully the previous owner wasn't too bad about it, and we did the change over later that day. To save Dad having to drive down to London I caught the train back to Rugby, and Dad then picked me up and we drove down to the boat. It was 5pm by this time, dark, and getting colder by the minute. We nearly suffocated ourselves getting the stove running as there are some holes in it and it blows until there is enough heat in the chimney to create a draw. There was a lot of stuff secreted around the cabin - some useful, some not so - so we cleared a few cupboards out, and then started to load up. While doing this, a previous owner of the boat who lived nearby, popped by and we had a little chat. He had given the previous owner some brass bed knobs which belonged on the boat in it's carrying days and was happy to see them back in place. We later went into the New Inn and had another nice meal there (we've been a few times recently). I can recommend the Hickory Chicken - very good. It was getting quite late before we had sorted the cabin out for the night, and many cold drafts and unfamiliar surroundings caused a restless night. Friday 2/1/09 - I couldn't get back to sleep at 6am, so tried to get the fire going again with not very good results. About 1 hour later it was running a little better, but then we tried to start the JP2. The engine only has a hand start, and the boat had been laying at Buckby for 2 weeks during some really cold weather. I had a go at starting it warm when I first saw the boat which was easy, but now the oil had thickened up it made the engine hard to turn and took quite a few times just to get it over compression. Eventually we got it over the compression point several times but still no action - time to get serious! I was told that if the engine doesn't start you could try a lighted rag on the air intake so with some white spirit on a duster draped over the metal air intake and lit it. This promptly caused flames reaching a good foot in the air, but no time to worry about that, and started cranking. Dad dropped the valve lifter and the engine coughed as it reached compression, and promptly blow the lighted rag into the hand-start chain. I stopped turning so it didn't drop into the bilges, and we managed to blow out the flames leaving us enveloped in white smelly smoke as the rag smoldered away. After clearing the air I went to turn the engine again and finally it chugged into life about 1 hour after we had first started! There was thin ice on the cut, and after turning at the junction, headed down the locks. I tried thumblining a couple of times, but it was a bit dangerous walking down the planks in the cold weather so gave up on it. Once down the locks there was no sign of ice, but the late start meant we only reached Stoke Bruerne before it started getting dark (and cold). We had a nice meal in The Navigation, and had an early night. Saturday 3/1/09 - The night was cold, and there was a good layer of ice on the canal. It was enough to make steering difficult, but Victoria sliced through it without problems. The lock gates were free enough to get through without problems, and we were soon breaking more ice on the long pound to Cosgrove with the bow bouncing left and right as the ice cracked in different ways. A couple of small narrowboats followed us along the canal, and we shared with them through the lock. They were heading back to their mooring in Milton Keynes after being out for just a couple of days. They followed us along the canal just nicely keeping up while we were breaking ice, but once we passed another boat going the other way we lost them further behind. Dad tried my little car inverter but it was complaining of low voltage. Later we found out the alternator wasn't charging but we didn't have any tools or meters to check things properly. We surprised David King who wasn't expecting us on a working boat as we passed Tinkers Bridge, and reached Soulbury just as it was getting dark. We finally gave up at about 8pm at Grove Lock, and enjoyed a nice, if little expensive, meal in the pub there. Sunday 4/1/09 - It was even colder over night, but the JP2 started easily after only a short rest as we were off at 6am. I don't really like travelling so early, even more so in ice, but we had to reach Copper Mill Lock before the stoppage and hadn't done very well so far with ice. That was to change for the worse however as the ice was much thicker today, and after about 1/2 mile we came to a grinding halt - to ice was to thick to just motor through. I reversed off, which took a bit of doing as the ice held the boat at first, and after another go only get a few feet was ready to call it a day as we were still quite close to the railway station at Lindslade. I picked up a bit of ice from the canal, we didn't have a tape measure but it was over an inch think. We tried again and actually started moving again, and apart from a couple of odd times the ice never actually managed to stop us again for the rest of the day. Some people were a little un-happy about the noise we were making, and we had to keep our speed up to maintain safe steering which upset some people - even though their boats were so trapped in the ice their ropes didn't even move. One person even walked nearly 1/2 mile back to the lock to complain, but after a calm chat about the problems we were both facing we left amicially. Elizabeth, an old day boat conversion I think, which normally moors at Watford followed us up the canal as their boat didn't break ice very well, but they weren't ready to leave straight away so they followed later, we saw them a couple of times approaching the lock we had just been through but they must have stopped at Marsworth as I waited in the bottom lock of the flight for them and they didn't turn up. A helicopter was landing on a narrow strip of land as my Dad walked up the canal to get the next locks ready, and by the time I had arrived it was taking off. A single boat had made their way down from Cowroast, so what little ice was about up here was broken. I called BW to try and find some more information about the stoppage at Copper Mill, but by the time the message got to someone who could help he though were wanted to know if there was ice on the canal! Another attempt later we found out that he looked after the wrong region, and finally the London region engineering manager called up. He didn't know what time there were starting work on Monday morning, but later found out that they had to bring stop planks up from the Paddington arm, so it was going to be at least lunch time on Monday. We plugged on back down the hills towards London, but by the time we reached Hunton Bridge it was too late to even get in the pub so we had some beans and sausages from a tin - since I'm really up to eating a lot at that time of day. Monday 5/1/09 - We got off at 7am, and by the time the area engineer called up we had managed to get through Copper Mill at around lunch time. There was no sign of activity, though a BW man was waiting in a work boat, and came up to chat to us letting us know the lock was going to be closed soon. The stoppage was now going to start on Tuesday. We met the barge with the gates, and stop planks at Uxbridge Lock, and we locked through between barge and tug. We finally tied up at Northolt just as it was getting dark at about 4:30pm. It was then a case of getting Dad back to Buckby for his car, but thankfully the traffic was light. Tuesday, and beyond... I finally managed to get the alternator off it's mountings after checking it was definitely not working. Took it to a local car place which looked at it and promptly said it was just a standard alternator which would normally be found on a Fiesta? and would be cheaper to buy a new one, which I now have at £70 IIRC. There are bound to be some silly questions from me in the future about working boats and the like as I get to know what is quite a hell of a boat. The bow stands nearly 6 foot from the water when she's empty, and she's a deep b*gger, but actually only hit bottom about 4 times in the channel (though Dad nearly managed to run her aground on the inside of a corner, and I managed to get in a mess at Hemel though the ice was causing steering difficulties!) Cheers, Mike -- Michael Askin http://shoestring_DOT_zapto_DOT_org/
