Ashton Boatman

"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!

"Queen" is, as far as we know, the oldest surviving wooden motor narrow boat. She dates from 1917 and seems to be mostly still original wood. Needless to say, she is pretty poorly.

It was about 3 weeks ago that she suddenly decided to play submarines. She went down so fast, with all her pumps still running, that I had unpleasant visions of one of her rather weak bottom boards having split open.

Today we raised her. Imagining the worst we hired in a couple of extra pumps and I was resigned to the possibility that we may get her up, examine the damage, then let her sink again whilst working out a strategy for repair.

Nessie and me set up the pumps then, as he started them, I went over to Stalybridge to fetch Cheryl who was coming to take photos. I was amazed when we returned to find that the boat was already floating.

Job done, you might think. Not so! A leak in her swim (where the planks curve inwards to guide water to the propeller) seemed to be what sank her, though it was no-where near what I had imagined. That one was easily fixed with rags and expanding foam. There was still water flowing from all over the place though. Nessie had to restart one of the petrol powered pumps (getting thoroughly soaked as he was in the wrong place as it started to pump) as the battery powered ones that we had set up were fighting a losing battle. All afternoon I was moving stuff about so that I could trace trickles of water back to their source. I quickly ran out of expanding foam and had to go and get more.

Surprisingly, the technique is to drill into the wood near to the leak until you hit a cavity. The foam is then injected into the hole and it often starts coming out in surprising places. Sometimes a mixture of water and foam comes jetting out of an unexpected place. Bits of rag or torn up carrier bags can be shoved into such eruptions with a screwdriver. If the flow can be stopped temporarily it allows the foam to expand and solidify. There were a lot of small bottom leaks. For these I drilled right through the bottom and fired foam into the water underneath. The buoyant foam spreads out and finds its way into leaks from under the boat.

While I was doing this Cheryl was busy cleaning and tidying inside "Hazel"

At last, soon after darkness fell, I had the leaks under control and was able to set up pumps on float switches, turning on and off intermittently as required. Lets hope she's still floating in the morning.