When we first publicised our project for care and NHS workers last Autumn we got an enquiry from a couple in South Wales who wanted to book the boat for several nights holiday. This was slightly beyond the scope of what was on offer, but we agreed a reduced price rather than a totally free trip and booked them in for Easter.
The repaired gearbox for "Forget me Not" arrived a couple of days before the trip and I fitted it on Thursday. The Albin gearbox shares its oil with the engine. The problem had been that the oil feed from the engine had got blocked, causing excessive wear to various components. Our friends pulled out all the stops to get it repaired and back to us as soon as possible. The main delay was getting the parts from Sweden.
I tried turning the gearbox by hand and it worked fine. Once fitted I started the engine. It ran happily in forward gear but when I put it into reverse the engine started to labour. I thought it just needed adjusting, so I took the lid off and screwed the clutch adjustment back a bit, re-tightened the locking bolt and started the engine with the gearbox lid off.
Once again, it ran fine in forward but as soon as I changed to reverse the clutch adjuster started to turn, in spite of the locking bolt being in. This tightened the clutch, causing it to try to run in forward and reverse at the same time, thus stalling the engine. Drat!!!
I'm not blaming our friendly gearbox menders, who did a fine job. Like I said, if turned by hand the problem didn't show up.
After studying the difficulty I came up with a possible solution to fix it temporarily. On Good Friday morning I got up early to work on it. After several hours of effort I realised that my bodge wasn't going to work. There was nothing for it but to jam it into forward gear and do the trip with no neutral or reverse. I wasn't going to disappoint our guests. it would just mean that I would have to steer the motor boat all the way and not do any training.
Getting volunteer crew at Easter is difficult. I can usually rely on the amazing Aaron Booth but he had a positive covid test. He claimed that this was a false positive caused by drinking milk shakes (!?!!) and would have been happy to come along. There's no way I was going to allow this. Luckily I'd just met a couple of new volunteers, Jason and his partner Claire. Jason was working Friday and Saturday but Claire was free so she agreed to come along for a crash course in butty steering. The faithful Nessie came as butty steering coach and Daniel Stocks joined us to work the lift bridge and generally help out.
The original plan had been for a trip to Bugsworth and back but this was stymied by the closure of Marple locks on Easter Saturday. Instead I had suggested a return trip to Marple followed by a foray up the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Our guests were happy with this.
I was filthy, covered in oil, with just a couple of hours to go before our guests arrived. I headed home for a shower and to change into my boatman garb. Nessie fetched "Hazel" back from her battery charging point and got her ready.
With guests on board and crew assembled we set out. The lack of manoeuvring ability meant that we had to shaft "Forget me Not" on to the Tame Aqueduct then bring "Hazel" round behind her and connect the towline before starting the engine. Almost immediately she picked up something on the blade. With no reverse I could not perform a 'chuck back', a brief engagement of stern gear to reverse the propeller and throw the rubbish off it.
We stopped to clean some rope and plastic bags off the blade whilst Daniel waited at the lift bridge wondering what had become of us. In the narrows of the lift bridge we picked up another load of crap and had to stop once again. Black smoke and slow progress became a theme of the trip.
Claire turned out to be a natural at butty steering. At Manchester Road bridge in Hyde we stopped for yet another blade cleaning operation. "Forget me Not"s cabin shaft wasn't in its proper place. I expressed my concern that I may have left it on the towpath at the last blade cleaning location. Nessie offered to go and look and unthinkingly I said OK. If I'd thought about it I would have said no as I knew he was suffering with blistered feet. He'd not been gone long when I realised that I'd put the shaft inside the cabin. I rang him and listened to his 'phone chirruping in his coat in the cabin.
With the blade clean we set off again, concerned about how far Nessie might have to walk to catch us up. It seemed an age before he did so.
At the old Joseph Adamson works in Hyde there used to be a man called Bryn who lived on the canal side in a caravan. He had a menagerie of animals and birds in cages on the bank. Bryn used to live on a boat but when he had it craned out for repairs it broke in half. On recent trips I'd noticed that the menagerie was diminishing but saw a flicker of TV from the caravan. Clearly age was creeping up on him. This time the caravan was all shut up, half the cages had gone and a younger bearded man, with a look of DH Lawrence, was working there, apparently clearing the site. I said hello then, when it was too late, kicked myself for not asking about Bryn. Presumably he's either gone into a home or died.
After Captain Clarkes bridge the canal follows a lovely wooded winding course along the edge of Haughton Dale. Bladefuls of rubbish became less frequent but I began to worry about excessive noise from under the cabin floor. I got Daniel to steer while I investigated.
About 10 years ago we replaced the thrust bearing that supports the prop shaft and transfers the push from the propeller to the structure of the boat. I was surprised that all that secured it to the shaft was two tiny grub screws. Nevertheless, it had given no trouble, until now. For some reason the grub screws had loosened, allowing the shaft to move forward until one of the couplings started rubbing on a floor bearer. Reluctant to get my clothes dirty I decided to carry on regardless.
Daniel had to leave us but Jason, Claire's partner, turned up on his bike, having finished his work shift.
By the time we reached Romiley the abrasion between shaft coupling and floor bearer was producing smoke and sparks. I had cooled it a few times with a handbowl full of water, but it was obvious that I would have to stop and crawl into the oily black void under the counter, clean clothes notwithstanding. Soon I had hammered the shaft back to its proper position and re-tightened the grub screws. Nessie headed for home and we carried on our way, with the engine labouring a lot less.
We tied for the night at Chadkirk, one of my favourite spots, in the concrete trough that was installed about 30 years ago when the canal started to slip down the hillside. Opposite are very nice gardens and on the towpath side the ground drops away into a wooded valley. A short walk away is a holy well, a mediaeval chapel and lovely gardens. In the other direction are the shops, pubs and restaurants of Romiley.
Claire and Jason got on their bikes to ride home. Our guests went food shopping and, after tidying "Forget me Not"s cabin I rode my bike into Romiley and purchased a veggie burger as I was tired and didn't feel like cooking.
Every year we plant a few trees to make up for the ones we use restoring boats. Mostly they are oaks. I collect acorns in the Autumn, plant them in a container, then keep repotting them until they're big enough for planting out. Last Autumn there weren't many acorns, but I did collect a few conkers and planted them. Here's a picture of the first one showing its head above the soil.
Some people may have read that I've been struggling with what Winston Churchill called The Black Dog recently. Nevertheless, I've been getting things done, though, perhaps, at less speed than usual. Last Saturday Aaron helped me to load scrap metal out of "Lilith" into our trailer for delivery on Monday to Mullaney's scrapyard up by Hartshead Pike. The metal has been in "Lilith" for a long time as we did our last recycling trip in February 2020. Prices have now recovered and we got £115 for this load.
After we'd loaded the trailer Aaron winded the 3 boats to put "Hazel on the inside to make things easier for Ryalwyn Garner, our gasman, to gain access for "Hazel"s annual gas safety check.
It's getting hard to find a Gas Safe registered engineer who is certified for LPG on boats with cookers and water heaters. A lot say that it's not worth all the extra training and fees for the amount of work available. Ryalwyn's main work nowadays is trading in parts for Messerschmitt bubble cars, which is far more lucrative. When he first told me he had a Messerschmitt I asked him if it could fly! He says he likes to keep his hand in with boat gas work as trading online he doesn't get to meet people.
Since I found I had prostate cancer in 2018, Nessie has taken over a lot of my day to day tasks. One of these was looking after the bilge pumps and their attendant batteries in our leakier vessels. These each have a float switch so that the pump switches on when the water reaches a certain level. For most of my adult life bilge pumps have been a major preoccupation. Almost every holiday has been marred by returning to a sunken boat as most people don't seem to be able to understand the simple physics of leaks, batteries, float switches and pumps.
Nessie has been improving things by installing lots of solar panels to keep the batteries charged. This saves a lot of lugging about of batteries. The latest panels are on the foredeck of "Elton".
Since the photo was taken he's angled them more to catch the midday sun, particularly important in winter.
it's nearly a fortnight now since we had a clearout of "Elton"s hold. It got to be a mess as it was used as a 'deal with that later' place for metal collected on recycling trips. It built up while we were busy restoring "Hazel", after which the society went into a decline that we're now recovering from.
Anyway, this is the second session of clearing, and we actually found the bottom of the boat. Daniel Stocks and Liz Stanford worked in the hold while I was on the bank identifying different metals and bagging them up.
The metal was weighed in and netted the charity nearly £70.
When we got our big trailer I knew it would need some work, like a new floor. Sorting it out has been delayed by key people having health problems. Luckily, Nessie keeps soldiering on in spite of everything that life throws at him. While the floor was missing I asked him to have a look at the brakes as they didn't seem to be very good. That's not surprising! They turned out to have almost no linings. A search for replacement shoes was fruitless so I took them to this company in Rochdale for relining.
https://www.questmead.co.uk/Categories/Reconditioning-Services/Brake-Shoe-Reline
I have to pick them up in the next day or two.
It's going to be a bit lonely at the Heritage Boatyard for the next couple of weeks as Dave is having an eye operation and Kim is going on his holidays.
Here's Dave working on further security measures for the boatyard.
Here's Kim making new deck boards for "Forget me Not".
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ashtac, the Inland Waterways Association organised a working party to clean up part of the Ashton Canal on 21st/22nd March 2022. Ashtac was the codename for the huge 'big dig' on the Ashton canal in 1972, when over 1000 volunteers from around the country came to clear rubbish from the derelict waterway. They even laid an industrial monorail in the bed of the drained canal to transport the rubbish.
I think it's a great omission in Portland Basin Museum that there's nothing about this on display. It was a major event in getting the waterway restoration movement started.
The 2022 effort was rather less ambitious. It mostly consisted of litter picking and scrub bashing at Eli Whalley's, or Donkey Stone Wharf as it seems to be known nowadays.
In fact it's proper name is Ashton Old Wharf. It's the original terminus of the Ashton Canal. It ceased to be a terminus when the Huddersfield Narrow canal was built. It's role as Ashton's main wharf was later lost to Portland Basin.
The final industrial use of the wharf was as Eli Whalley's donkey stone works. Donkey stones were blocks of reconstituted stone that , were used for polishing the stone steps of houses. They were often distributed by rag and bone men in exchange for, well, rags and bones.
https://www.tameside.gov.uk/blueplaque/eliwhalley
Some years ago British Waterways did some landscaping work on the wharf, including erecting three sculptures of flying geese. More recently I understand it has been let on a long lease to somebody and has become derelict. Latterly its been haunt for fly tippers, anglers, drinkers and the occasional homeless person's tent.
Our original plan was to take "Forget me Not" along but her gearbox problem prevented this. Instead we took "Lilith",towed on the outward trip by the Ashton Packet Boat Co's "Joel", another wooden boat. Our depleted volunteer reserves meant that there were only four participants from our group, me, Kim Tranter, Daniel Stocks and Nessie.
We laid "Lilith" alongside the foliage that was aggressively invading the canal from the wharf then, using implements provided by CRT, we proceeded to remove that foliage.
There were lots of young workers there from a scheme that was something to do with the Princes Trust and the Fire Service.
A good day was had by all. I still bear the bramble scars to prove it. Many people were involved in litter picking and I did my best to get the aluminium cans and bits of scrap iron loaded on to "Lilith" so that they could be recycled.
"Forget me Not"s gearbox developed a problem, so, we took it out and conveyed it to the wonderful Richard Powell in Kenilworth. Parts are on order from Sweden. Meanwhile, we had a wellbeing trip booked. I went in search of a willing tug. Luckily, I bumped into Kim Tranter who offered to do the towing with his boat "Aimee Lou".
"Aimee Lou" was originally a British Waterways work flat, rebuilt as a pleasure boat and fitted with a powerful engine. Though not short of horsepower, the relative lightness of the tug, combined with towing from an off centre dolly, made it hard for Kim to keep in the channel.