A Pleasant day at the Basin.

On Friday I collected some redundant advertising panels donated by Tameside Council. These had been round the market area while it was being revamped, a process that was delayed by the collapse of Carillion and then by the pandemic. They're made of tough plastic sandwiched between thin layers of aluminium. They'll be very useful for re-roofing "Southam" and are an environmental positive by being re-used rather than sent to landfill and then new materials having to be ripped from the Earth.

I tried to unload them and get them stacked on "Southam"s roof on my own, but discomfort from my catheter suggested I'd better stop. I later discovered that I'd taped it a bit too tightly to my leg, so certain movements were pulling it.

On Saturday morning Nessie and Aaron helped me to stack the panels. Aaron then helped to shift some bags of engineered wood flooring that have been donated. I'm not sure what we'll do with these but I'm fairly sure they'll come in useful.

Nessie started the pumps to raise "Queen" again. Her ups and downs are getting to be a bit tedious.



She came up fairly easily and we found the problem where I'd anticipated. In her fore end there's an area of bottom that is very weak and has been bodged over and over again. I doubt if there's anything left of the original elm bottom just there. The latest bodge, a layer of concrete, was well stuck to the layer underneath it. Unfortunately, this layer had come adrift from the one below it, allowing water to flood in.

With the help of an acrow prop and copious amounts of expanding foam, Nessie was able to stabilise the situation. I just hope she's still afloat this morning.


"Queen" again!

"Queen", the oldest surviving wooden motor narrow boat  afloat (sometimes) is being unhelpful. She's up and down like a yoyo. She went down about a week ago and Nessie raised her again yesterday. I checked her at about 7pm and, though she was leaking, it was well within the capacity of the pumps.

In the evening I took part in a very positive committee meeting. We have a really good committee now. The biggest problem is that they're all so busy with their day jobs. We could do with some retired people joining (preferably ones without too many grandchildren, boats or camper vans so that they have some spare time)

Anyway!  I confidently reported to the meeting that "Queen" was afloat, only to find this morning that she'd gone down in the night. This time 3 pumps were still running strongly despite their batteries being under water. Obviously there's been a big influx somewhere. Mind you, I thought that before when she went down.

I wonder if we have a quantum leak, ie, one that doesn't leak when you're looking for it but pours in when you're not.

Nessie is not happy, especially as his car engine has blown up so he has to walk everywhere.

Here's a picture of "Queen"s bow when she was afloat yesterday. Isn't it a lovely shape!