Yesterday I was working at Knowl St along with Dave, Kim and Stewart. I was mostly tidying up after the gales. Dave was welding various items for "Hazel" and "Forget me Not". Kim was renovating "Southam"s big ex army range and Stewart was making replacement sections for "Forget me Not"s temporary deck. There was a bitter cold East wind but we enjoyed our work in spite of this.
Today we ran a couple of trips along the Ashton Canal between Portland Basin and Lumb Lane (Audenshaw) for the charity Refugee Action. Here's a few pictures.
Sounds painful, but that's been the main task today. I'm not sure what they're really called. They are the pieces of wood that go under the metal guard irons at the bow and stern of the boat. What pleasure boaters would call rubbing strakes.
There were four eyebrows to steam all together, so we did them in two batches of two, bow and stern. They all bent nicely, though there's always a bit of stress when it comes to steaming wood. The steaming equipment only just completed the job. When the second batch were nearly ready the pipe from the boiler to the steambox started to disintegrate. It's done 28 planks altogether, but for some reason todays steaming was the last straw for it. It was a bit much to expect a plastic pipe to take all that heat, but it did it, only failing at the very end.
"Hazel" sponsors are wonderful people. They sponsor "Hazel" for a day a year, at a rate of £28 a day. Some have raised considerably more additionally. Every year we arrange a day for them to gather. This usually involves a boat trip. Some have stuck with "Hazel" through the difficult years when it seemed like the boat would never get restored. Between them they raised most of the £31,000 now in the "Hazel" fund, which we'll soon be digging into as the grant funding is nearly spent.
This Sunday they're all invited to have a look at the boat, there will be food in the nearby pub, then a trip up the Huddersfield Narrow Canal to Mossley and back. It's only a fairly short trip, but trips on this canal tend to be rather adventurous. "Southam" has never been up there, so I hope she doesn't get stuck.
Tomorrow I have to arrange getting the boats up to Stalybridge and ready for the trip. We're probably taking 3 boats, "Southam" "Forget me Not" and "Lilith". Getting them up the 7 locks to Stalybridge is going to be a challenge. Those locks are always difficult.
It's going to be a busy weekend for me!
Why not sponsor "Hazel". Get involved with this amazing project. http://wcbs.org.uk/
Despite having to scrape a thick coating of ice off the van windscreen I was surprised to find that the cut had frozen overnight yet again. Fian had spent the night boatsitting and I was a little concerned as she tends to feel the cold. Smoke was drifting from "Forget me Not"s chimney, so she was obviously awake, but I followed proper boating etiquette and avoided her cabin until she emerged. She said she had had a wonderful night and actually enjoyed being woken by squabbling geese at 3 AM!
After checking the bilges and feeding Captain Kit I carefully climbed across the ice sugared boats and started "Southam"s big engine to back her over to the towpath side for easy access by volunteers. "Forget me Not" and "Lilith" made a fine sight breasted up at the wharf. Soon people began to arrive and I had a busy time allocating people jobs, giving out safe boating information to first timers, of whom there were many and generally checking that everything was ready, dealing with a closed damper on a range that was causing people to be kippered etc.
As 10 AM approached I asked everyone to climb aboard and began shafting "Forget me Not" and "Lilith" round to face towards Droylsden. This was easier said than done as the ice, though thin, was a great impediment.
With the two currently unpowered boats a little way past 90 degrees of their 180 degree turn I noticed that the person I had asked to steer "Forget me Not" had taken it upon himself to go and start "Southam". Despite my waving he untied the boat and set off, but stopped again when my dancing, waving and shouting was relayed to him.
I had a dilemma that often occurs when working with volunteers. It's important for smooth running and safety that everyone follows the skippers instructions, but if you're too severe in imposing your authority you soon find yourself working alone.
I ran over to "Southam", which was now drifting in the middle of the cut and could only be accessed by climbing down off the footbridge. I found that the stern end mooring line was still tied to the T stud, it had been simply lifted off the mooring pin and thrown aboard instead of being untied and coiled ready for use as it should be. Even worse, the mooring pins had been left in the towpath. I climbed back on to the footbridge, retrieved the pins and re-gained the boat, explaining, I hope tactfully, that I had good reasons for my steering allocations and pointing out the shortcomings re lines and pins.
Moving the boat forward I nudged her past the bows of the other two boats and quickly explained that as I towed "Forget me Not" forward the line from "Lilith"s stem should be taken back and tied on to "Forget me Not"s stern. I took the strain of "Forget me Not"s line on "Southam"s T stud and pulled her forward, though she bounced off the knuckle of the Peak Forest turn because "Southam"s premature move had resulted in the turn being incomplete. My instructions must have been misunderstood because "Lilith"s line had not been carried to "Forget me Not"s stern and, as the two boats had separated, had to be thrown some distance. At the third attempt the line made its target, but almost too late. Boats do not have brakes so, once "Forget me Not" was moving her 15 tons or so was not going to stop. Seeing "Lilith" lurch into line I engaged forward gear again, but a few minutes later waving and shouts of Stop caused me to pull the lever back to nuetral again. "Lilith"s line had not been properly secured and was slipping off. There was no way I could actually stop the train of boats so had to let them drift while the line was re-secured. "Southam" stemmed up un the outside of the turn by the old Junction Mill chimney, now an icon of Ashton. "Forget me Not" wedged in alongside and, once more, the ice made things difficult as we tried to shaft the boats off the rubbish. As I tried to back her out "Southam" picked up a sturdy canvas bag on her blades, which had to be cut off, hanging over the side with a knife while young Daniel Cocker held on to my feet.
Eventually we got going again. Julie Edwards had rung up earlier to say that she would be late and would catch us up. She was waiting at Margaret St Bridge and hopped on to "Southam"s sterndeck as we passed, sharing with me the noise and smoke for the rest of the journey.
Despite my efforts with the knife, there was clearly stil some rubbish on the blades. The engine was struggling and making black smoke, the rudder was juddering and the water was boiling round the stern rather than going back in a clear stream. I kept giving bursts of sterngear to try to throw it off. This had some effect, but never got the blade completely clean and it would always pick up some more. As we passed the site of Robertsons Jam factory, now nearly demolished, a grunt from the engine indicated more rubbish collected. I tried reverse again and the engine stalled. Restarting it, I tried forward again. This unravelled the rubbish, but, looking down into the water, I could see something trailing behind that would obviously go back on to the blade if sterngear was engaged.
We tied up "Forget me Not" and "Lilith" breasted at Fairfield Junction quite neatly and winded "Southam", a manoeuvre slightly impeded by the crap on the blade, then everyone unloaded themselves and started digging out barrows from "Forget me Not"s hold. There were lots of new people and setting off on the collection round was a little chaotic. Most people got the hang of it quite quickly though and soon the two teams were busying themselves collecting from the Moravian Fields estate.
With so many people the speed of collection made up for time lost at the beginning of the trip. I became a little disappointed by the quantities and began to wonder where half the volunteers were, beginning to grumble that they were probably back at the boats having a brew, only to find that they were actually all busy emptying a garage full of stuff that had been donated.
When we had knocked on the last front door and barrowed the last load back to the boats, Fiona started handing out dishes of the excellent food that she had brought, with alternative options for carnivores and herbivores. Time to relax and eat and chat.
After two plates of excellent grub, I picked up the cabin shaft and started poking at the tangle of garbage on the propeller. This turned out to be mainly carpet, which was wound tightly on and bound with all manner of fibrous plasticky stuff. After much prodding and pulling I managed to get it all off, building a great mound on the sterndeck.
The next task was to wind "Forget me Not" and "Lilith". This is carried out by pulling them forward alongside "Southam" then, as their bows approach the tug's stern, pulling back on their front lines whilst shafting the stern ends sideways. This usually swings them round quite neatly and puts them in a good position for setting off, which was achieved quite neatly this time.
With the train travelling quite nicely along the canal and Kevin enjoying having a go at tug steering, I decided to walk alongside, stopping at Lumb Lane bridge (one of the lowest on the canal system) to try out the video function on my new camera The early morning frost had given way to a really nice sunny day, with refreshingly cold air. I enjoyed my walk, but kept my eye on the boats to make sure that everything was OK. I jumped back on board before the tricky turns through Guide Bridge, which were negotiated neatly by the steerers. I took over at Margaret St bridge to deal with the tricky arrival at Portland Basin. The procedure here is for "Southam" to head straight for the wharf then swing round to run parallel to it. "Forget me Not" follows and, if you judge it right, she will run neatly alongside the wharf to be stopped with her back end line (which is on the front of the engine room) while "Lilith" neatly slides alongside her. "Southam", once the towline is thrown off, then goes over to the towpath side of the canal to make it easy for volunteers to get off. She is then shafted back across to tie alongside "Lilith" (trying to do this by engine power is a nightmare because of the impossiblity of manouvering this boat in reverse gear).
Very quickly all the volunteers melted away in the afternoon sun and I made my way home.
2010-03-07
@ 18:53:58 by ashtonboatman
It was my birthday on Friday. Emuna and I have a tradition that we have a day off on our birthdays but I decided to postpone mine to Saturday so that I could have a steam train ride. Though Emuna is a lot better than she was, her M E restricted the choice to local lines, which really means the East Lancashire Railway. I checked the timetable on Friday evening, only to find that it was a special diesel weekend! Never mind, I thought, it will still be a day out.
It's only a short walk from our house to Ashton station where we caught the 11.26 train into Manchester Victoria. Under the shattered remnants of a once grand glass roof we caught the tram to Bury and rattled through the North Manchester suburbs, through wooded cuttings and across the bleak country alongside the Bolton & Bury canal beyond Radcliffe to arrive at the buffer stops at Bury interchange. Emuna was dismayed to find that the escalators weren't working.
We walked through the busy centre of Bury to the old Bolton St station where we bought tickets from a very clerkish little man with round spectacles. The next train to Rawtenstall wasn't for a while so Emuna went to purchase coffee while I mooched around society stalls (The class 15 society etc) on one of the platforms. Rejoining Emuna, I realised that the bubble car (a nickname for the single railcars built in the early 1960s to replace steam trains on branch lines) standing nearby was about to depart for Ramsbottom. As we intended to stop for lunch in Ramsbottom we carried our coffees aboard and enjoyed them as we shaked rattled and rolled up the single track.
It was on this train (can a single vehicle be a train?) that I realised what an extraordinary band of passengers we had joined. Usually on a preserved railway one shares the train with a wide cross section of people enjoying a day out in a historic and slightly romantic environment. Diesel weekends, however, are strictly for hardcore anoraks! No-one was actually wearing one of these fabled garments, I don't know if you can still buy them, but they were all wearing clothing of uniform mundanity. Emuna suggested that they were all lads who couldn't get girl friends, but the presence of older members of the tribe with children, and sometimes spouses, suggests that reproductive success is not entirely unknown.
Along the lineside stood more diesel devotees armed with cameras to record for posterity the progress of our humble railcar.
Ramsbottom station is pretty much in the town centre. Years ago we enjoyed a pleasant meal in a cafe in sight of the station and had decided to pay it a repeat visit. It turned out to have been transformed into an upmarket coffee bar, so we walked up the main street, lined with charity shops, looking for another cafe. Nothing appealed so we decided to investigate the imposing "Grant Arms". This proved to provide very enjoyable meals. Outside it is a bizarre sculpture of a vase lying on its side.
Revived by a rest, a meal and a small amount of alcohol we walked back towards the station. Emuna insisted that I take a picture of a sandwich shop called "Big Butts" content which I suppose is some sort of joke on the towns name.
The next Rawtenstall bound train was headed by a rather boring locomotive, nicknamed a Hoover, but I insisted that we walk to the back of the train as there was a diesel of distinction, a Deltic, bringing up the rear. It turned out to be switched off, so I could not enjoy the highbrow tones of its engines as we traversed the stoneclad valley of the Irwell. Emuna took to gurning at lineside photographers.
We left the train at the Rawtenstall terminus and went to explore the town. Sadly, a lot of the shops are now closed, including an entire 1960s shopping arcade.
We came upon an establishment that claimed to be Britain's last temperance bar. Curious, we entered, and found ourselves in a dark wooden bar with a single plain table and spindly wooden chairs. The proprietor stood behind the bar and asked for our orders. I explained that we didn't know the options, so a pale young man with an oddly peaked grey woolen hat stepped forward with a menu. Emuna chose dandelion and burdock while I went for lemon and ginger. This was much nicer than the oversweetened pop bought from a supermarket, with a pleasant tingle from the ginger. All around were shelves of healthy teas and old fashioned advertisments for various concoctions.
A young woman floated in who would easily win the prize for best dressed person of the day. She wore a vivid electric blue dress with a huge silver cross that hung in the space where many women nowadays seem to prefer to display eye popping amounts of cleavage. From each ear hung another cross, smaller, but still a greater weight than I would like to dangle from my lobes. She eyed me with suspicion and conversed inaudibly with the lad in the peaked wooly hat.
More regulars arrived, including the girl's mother, who was surprisingly elderly. They all ordered drinks and Emuna and I gave up our chairs for our elders and betters. Two little ladies, whose husbands probably worked in a mine, in a mine, where a thousand diamonds shine, sat down and stared at us. We began to feel like we had strayed into some strange private cult. Perhaps the girl in the blue dress is the new Joanna Southcott
Joanna Southcott (or Southcote) (April 1750 – 27 December 1814), was a self-described religious prophetess. She was born at Taleford, and raised in the village of Gittisham in Devon, England.
who is destined to give birth as a virgin to the new Messiah and Rawtenstall will be the new Jerusalem. Perhaps, deep in the vaults of the adjacent Methodist church is a box containing arcane truths revealed unto her.We finished our drinks and walked towards the station, surprised not to have been asked if we were local in the Royston Vaseyish atmosphere of the pub with no beer. Reading some of the advertisements for the diesel weekend in the booking office I realised that the trains were actually going to run all night, and for a mere £27.50 one could have unlimited overnight travel between Rawtenstall and Heywood!
The train arrived, topped and tailed by class 37 diesels. We went to the leading carriage in order to be close to the engine. It was an open coach of the kind with sets of 4 seats facing inward to a table. Opposite sat two middle aged men and a boy of about 8, presumably the son of one of the men, who were encouraging him in the irritating displacement activity of repeatedly spinning a coin on the formica topped table.
In the next bay were a group of gricers http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gricer who, judging by their estuarine vowels, hailed from the South Eastern corner of the land. Though almost certainly into their third decades of life, their humour was consistently teenage. It became clear that all of our fellow travellers at this end of the carriage were planning to avail themselves of the opportunity to travel all night.
The engine had been steadily beating like a giant heart, but, in response to the guard's whistle, it started to haul the train out of the station, demonstrating why this class are dubbed "growlers". Though they spent most of their 40+ years in service on relatively humble trains some of the class had a brief fling in the spotlight when Gerard Fiennes, then General Manager of the Western Region, had them re-geared to run in pairs up to 100 MPH for pulling the top expresses from Paddington to the West. Later Mr Fiennes published a book called "I tried to Run a Railway" which upset the transport minister and he was promptly sacked.
OK, so I'm a bit of a secret gricer myself!
Between Ramsbottom and Summerseat there are two tunnels close together. The driver braked through the first of these, then gunned the engine through the second, longer bore, to the delight of all as the prolonged growl of the engine was magnified by the tunnel lining.
Back at Bury, time was pressing and we hurried through the town centre to catch a tram. A stray gricer stood on the platform to photograph the tram. Back at Victoria we had a short wait for the Ashton train. As the train sped across the remnants of Ashton Moss my 'phone rang. It was Fian, our shop training co-ordinator. She was going to boatsit for the first time but had been unable to contact the boatsitting organiser to obtain a key. I arranged to meet her, walked home with Emuna and met Dave the driver who had just finished his days voluntary work. He handed the van over to me and I drove to the basin to meet Fian and show her the basics of staying in a back cabin. I drove home just in time to eat a lovely meal prepared by Emuna.
Hunger abated, we set out in the van to collect our friend Sandie from Stalybridge, then hurried to Rusholme for the Saturday night Latihan. http://www.web.net/latihan/more.html The latihan left me with a stiff neck,lately I seem to be leaving the latihan with various pains that wear off in an hour or two. It's very odd, but that applies to everything about the latihan. (Who am I to talk about strange cults. Subud members are always pointing out that it's not a cult, Sometimes methinks they protest too much). After tea and biscuits and a long chat with a lady who is using Facebook for the first time, we returned to the van, now a little heavier with some donations for the charity shop from a Subud lady who is on a mission to declutter her home. Sandie and Emuna nattered about spiritual things, particularly the incompatibility between Subud and Gurdjieff work http://www.gurdjieff.org/.
We dropped Sandie off and went to visit a friend who has lung cancer. He's just had radiotherapy which burned his oesophagus and made it difficult to eat. Hearing that my birthday cake was chocolate he developed a craving for chocolate cake (made by Emuna to my mother's secret recipe), so we took him some. He enjoyed it in spite of swallowing still being painful. The conversation was of things on which I had no strong views and so, though I enjoyed the company, did not join in, drinking lemongrass tea and watching something forgettable on the TV instead. Tiredness was creeping over me, so soon we headed for home to draw the curtains on a grand day.
2009-10-18
@ 18:21:38 by ashtonboatman
A good day today. It was a working party at Knowl St. Ike and Stan were re-organising boat ironwork etc, Gordon, returned after a long sojourn in Bacup, was building the wood store. Bex was busy denailing timber for Gordon to use. A new volunteer, Anthony, was working with me on digging out clay. About half a mile away there's a project to build straw houses which have to be sealed with clay. We have lots of clay that we don't want, so we're digging it out and taking it to them.
Sadly the straw houses were destroyed by vandals but here's some more projects by the same architect, Deramore Hutchcroft.
2009-10-11 @ 20:32:11 by ashtonboatman
We do two recycling trips each month, normally on the first Sunday and the first Monday of each month. The Sunday one currently involves "Southam" towing "Forget me Not" and "Lilith" in an impressive 210 foot train along the canal. This is because "Forget me Not" is currently unpowered pending fitting of her 80 year old Bolinder engine. There are usually a fair number of volunteers and we collect from about 350 homes near Fairfield Junction, Droylsden.
The Monday trip is usually a more relaxed affair. A few volunteers meet at Portland Basin at 6 PM and take a single boat for a trip to collect from one street, Gorseyfields. In the winter the trip is entirely in the dark.
For a picture of "Southam" see
-
She's
the blue and red one in the bottom right hand corner.
This month the trips took place on 4th and 5th October. The Sunday one was straightforward and very enjoyable. The Monday one was a bit difficult.
We met as usual at 6 PM. Only 3 turned up, myself, Mike Greenwood and Bex (Rebecca Morgan). That's Ok, We've done the trip with only two. We set off on "Southam" and all was going fine until the engine stalled at Guide Bridge. As it's a 3.8 Litre BMC Commodore it takes some stalling. A little poking around with the cabin shaft revealed an enormous tangle of wire on the blades. It turned out to be telephone wire, but tangled up in it were sticks, clothes, wire mesh fencing and part of a motorbike engine ( there used to be a motorbike workshop in the adjacent mill and they tended to throw unwanted components in the cut).
By the time this lot was stacked under the sterndeck it was dark and we were running late. Luckily "Southam" swims like a fish so we wound some power out of her huge engine and were soon at Fairfield. We winded and tied up at Fairfield Road bridge. Just as we were preparing to start collecting, a posse of hooded youths crossed the bridge and started pelting us with stones from the cover of a stone wall. This was not the first time that this has happened. I chased them off and we rang the police.
It was necessary to leave Mike and Bex guarding the boat. As expected, the miscreants made another attack up the towpath before retreating to cause mayhem elsewhere. I went collecting as I was the only one who knew the route.
Eventually I got the collection done, there wasn't too much, I think partly because it was getting too late for some people to answer their doors. The police still hadn't showed up so we started the engine and headed back towards Ashton. We'd only gone two bridges lengths when the engine stalled again. This time the problem was a huge cluster of stainless steel swarf jammed on the blade. The cabin shaft turned out to be insufficient to remove this, so I had to put some thick gloves on ( it's vicious stuff) support myself with one hand on the cavitation plate while I reached down to the propeller and pulled off handfuls of curly metal with the other.
While I was head down and soaking wet my 'phone rang. It was the police, wondering where we were. They had been delayed by a call to another incident which they thought was probably caused by the same group of toe rags.
With the blade clean (ish) again we got moving. At Guide Bridge the engine grunted and coughed as we passed the site of the telephone wire. An appeal to the gods of the cut and a quick blast of sterngear cleared the blade again and we carried on, chuntering into Portland Basin some time after 11 PM.
It was Mike's first recycling trip. Despite the problems he says he'll come again. Well, it would be boring if it all went smoothly every time wouldn't it?
On the Sunday trip we generally take a train of 3 boats with
"Southam" towing "Forget me Not" and "Lilith"
2009-09-27
@ 20:56:54 by ashtonboatman
On Saturday afternoon we took "Southam", "Forget me Not" and "Lilith" for a trip to the bottom of the Marple flight to be in position for today's trip for "Hazel" sponsors. We took all 3 functioning boats partly because we didn't know how many guests might turn up on Sunday, partly to provide extra cabin space for volunteers staying overnight and partly because I like towing trains of boats. On the trip out we had a lot of trouble with rubbish on the blades and this contributed to the overheating problems that we've been having with "Southam"s engine.
Bex, whose birthday it happened to be, brought a big pan of chicken stew, and a smaller pan of veggie stew for any veggies- much appreciated by Ike who eschews the eating of flesh. We stopped near Hyde to eat this. It was followed by birthday cake made by Emuna, who was too ill to come ( she has M E )
"Southam" only just fits through Woodley tunnel (she was once stuck in it for 7 hours) so we went through very gingerly. All was well and we reached Marple about 7 PM. The winding hole was full of BW boats and Ike had to shaft some of them out of the way so that we could wind the 3 boats. As we were doing this Neil Goodier's hireboat "Border Rose" arrived. We tied "Southam" and "Forget me Not" breasted, stem to stem with "Border Rose", with "Lilith" behind under the railway viaduct.
With the boats secure we walked up the locks to Marple in the dark and found a pub called, I think, The Bulls Head. I'm sure it was some part of a bull. I very rarely drink and had more than is good for me. Some very good discussions took place and Bex did much networking around the bar. I expect everyone there to turn up for the recycling trip next Sunday.
The return walk to the boats became a little tiresome, not least because of the amount of flavoured petrol, or something very like it, that some people had consumed! In an outbreak of religious fervour Bex tried full immersion baptism in the canal. Fiona bent my ear about formulating an alcohol policy for the society, probably a good idea, though I'm not sure how you get people to adhere to it when reason fails and it's too late or too far to send them home.
Sunday morning I awoke in "Lilith"s wonderful little forecabin, built last year by Tony Forward, and drank coffee to ease the dull ache in my brain. I dressed in my boatman costume and gave Bex my work clothes as hers were still drying over "Forget me Not"s range. Ike had been involved in discussions with nocturnal ramblers interested in the boats and had not slept for a second successive night. I don't know how he does it. Jim and Daniel Cocker made bacon butties and we busied ourselves cleaning and tidying the boats ready for our guests.
Lester and Janet Mayo arrived with Alan Crompton, the Lancashire coracle man. It was good to see him as he's been unwell for a while and unable to come on recycling trips. Pans of food were loaded on and "Southam"s range stoked up. Soon the Marple Lions arrived en-mass, a total of 19 "Hazel" sponsors in all.
With everyone arranged on the boats and numbers carefully checked, we set off, trying, and failing, to avoid nudging "Border Rose". Soon the convoy was snaking around the bends on the wooded approach to Hyde Bank Tunnel. Of course, someone fuelled up the range as we approached the tunnel and my eyes were stinging by the time we emerged from the low Northern portal.
We tied up for lunch at Gee Cross, oposite a luxurious house built with reclaimed bricks on the site of an old mill. Lester and Janet served up an excellent meal of meat and pasta. The sun had come out so we were able to dine al fresco on "Forget me Not"s temporary deck.
We had some difficulty getting going again as "Forget me Not" was well and truly stemmed. I pushed her off from the bank and had to walk to Captain Clarkes bridge while Lester steered "Southam" I enjoyed the sound of her chuntering engine and the sight of the train swinging round the tortuous curves of the canal. From Captain Clarkes I concentrated on washing up, boiling water in the big old copper kettle on "Southam"s huge ex army range. Chores done, I enjoyed chatting with our guests in the fore end.
At Portland Basin we stopped on the Tame Aqueduct to unload everyone. We couldn't hang about as a boat wanted to turn into the Peak Forest and we were blocking their way. Lester took "Southam round the turn and I used a long line from the T stud to strap her off the junction strapping post. I then started shafting "Forget me Not" and "Lilith" across to the wharf, only to find that I was in the way of the Huddersfield Canal Society trip boat which wanted to back out of the Warehouse arm. Soon the boats were in place and the trip boat away, pans loaded into vehicles and everyone on theirways home, except Chris and Kath who were boatsitting.
If you would like to become a "Hazel" Sponsor please click this link http://wcbs.org.uk/?p=393
Sunday October 2nd was scheduled as the recycling trip day, and was to be one of the rare days when no work would get done on rejuvenating "Hazel". I would be running the recycling trip and Stuart had arranged to go rock climbing with a friend. Normally at least one of us is working on the boat each day.
The recycling trip was excellent. Plenty of people turned up, including Eddy with a big pan of stew, and the residents of Droylsden were generous with their excess clothes and bric a brac. The weather, though threatening rain at times, stayed mostly dry and things went fairly smoothly.
Back at Stalybridge on Monday morning I did a double take when saw "Hazel". When I left on Saturday there was at least the top strake and knees still in place. Now, for most of the length of the boat there was simply the new bottom, with the 1951 conversion cabin propped up above it on sticks. All the bits in between were missing. Stuart explained that his climbing companion had been unable to come, so he thought he might as well go to work instead. Hows that for flexible working!
During the day Stuart and Ryan got on with cutting free the wrought iron knees from the old top strakes and lining planks, then carefully tagging them so that we will be able to put them back in the right order. I mostly worked on the new sternpost. When the van returned from it's shop duties I took one of the knees to a local shotblasting company to see if I could get a quote. The first person I spoke to was quite young but had an air of being in charge. He said they would only cost a couple of quid each to clean up. Pleased at this I said I'd bring the rest. An older man with his face apparently powder coated red approached. I suspect he was the young fellow's father. He sucked his teeth, shook his head and declared that there would be nothing left if they shot blasted the knee. I disagreed as I knew the old iron to be good under the rust. He then went off on a different tack, saying that rust like that was hard to shift. After much discussion of the qualities of ancient rust, he offered to give it a try. I left him the knee and returned to plane a little more off my stempost before leaving to prepare for the Monday evening recycling trip.