p, Forget me Not, Hazel, chris Leah, ashton Boatman
Spiking Up.
We now begin the long slow task of spiking up the bottoms to the garboard strakes. About 400 holes to be drilled from the top of the garboard through the 9" width of that plank and through the 3" thickness of the bottom boards. A big 10mm square spike then has to be driven up from underneath (an excellent job for anyone wanting to increase their arm muscles) to pop out at the top edge of the plank where it will be bent over. That bottom is not going to fall off!
Comment from: ashtonboatman [Member]
Just a note on boat jargon. Sorry, I forget that not all readers speak boat. The garboard strake is the first plank of the sides of the boat. This is attached to the flat bottom of a narrow boat by big iron nails or spikes driven up through pre-drilled holes through the bottom boards and through the width of the plank. It's hard work.
Martin Cox, Clamps and Crooks
Martin Cox was an excellent boatbuilder and excellent person. It
must have been about 1978 that I first met him. He was working as an
HGV driver and about once a month drove a tankerload of wine to
somewhere near Ellesmere Port where Gill Wright and I were living
aboard Lilith. Martin would park up for the night near the museum and
come to talk about boats and all things boat related.
I don’t
recall if Martin actually had a boat at that time, but he had already
done some boatbuilding. For many years he owned the small Ricky motor
Grus, which was also known as Almighty, a name given to it when owned
by the Salvation Army. The number one motor Benevolence was largely
rebuilt by Martin, as was the BCN tug Christopher James. For about
the last 15 years he followed an alternative career as an Alexander
Technique teacher. When the funding for Hazel looked like it might be
on the cards I tracked down Martin via the internet to see if he
might be interested in working on her rebuild. He was very interested
in the whole project, but with a partner and child living in Bristol
wasn’t able to move away to work on it. He asked me to keep him
informed and he might come and give us a hand some time.
I put
Martin on the newsletter list to keep him up to date but heard
nothing until this August when I got a ‘phone call from Colin
Bowles who has owned Sweden for many years. He told me that Martin
was in hospital with a terminal illness and had some big boatyard
clamps rusting away in his back garden that he would like to give to
the WCBS.
Martin actually passed away just a few weeks later. It
was in November that I got a call from Hattie, his partner, to say
that I could collect the clamps and possibly some other tools. We
eventually arranged this for November 18th.
In the same part of
the world I had arranged to collect some crooks. You may imagine that
I would have no problem finding crooks in Greater Manchester, but
these are special ones. They are slabs of oak that has grown to just
the right curve to make knees for Hazel. I was buying them from a
little sawmill called Boatbuilding Timber Supplies near Usk in South
Wales.
Having arranged to have the van for a couple of days, I hired a
car transporter trailer from Fletchers Trailers in Ashton and headed
South on a Thursday afternoon. My first port of call was Ed
Sveikutis’ old farmhouse at Knypersley, Staffordshire. Ed is a
first class blacksmith. When I first met him he had a forge in the
Etruria Industrial Museum beside the Trent & Mersey Canal. Over
the years he’s made a few bits and pieces for our boats. He later
moved to little industrial unit in Biddulph. When I tried to contact
him about making spikes for Hazel I found his ‘phone number dead. A
search on tinternet brought up only reports about him losing his
little forge to a huge new Sainsburys store. Nevertheless, I managed
to find him, retreated to a shed at the back of his hobbitland house,
and he made the spikes for Hazel. Most of these were delivered in
August, but he had a few more for me to collect. Along with the
spikes, Ed gave me a copy of Inland Waterways of Britain by L. A.
Edwards. We discussed the sad decline of craftsmanship, always a
pre-occupation of Eds, and I climbed into the van, carefully
manoeuvred the wide trailer through narrow gateways, then made for
the M6.
By the time I reached Bristol it was dark and it was rush
hour. I needed to find somewhere nice to park up for the night, but
had no idea where. It was not really possible to stop and consult a
map without causing traffic mayhem. Seeing a sign pointing to Clifton
I decided to follow it. I surmised that there could be a car park for
visitors wishing to view Brunel’s famous suspension bridge. There
was not, and I soon found myself driving up to the toll booth to
cross that fine structure. With 50p in the slot, the barrier lifted
and I carefully drew the trailer along the narrow wooden road across
the Avon Gorge. On the far side I found a quiet little road heading
downhill towards the river through broadleaved woodland. I parked the
van here and, making sure everything was locked, set off on foot to
look for food.
My route took me back over the suspension bridge.
On foot I could appreciate its slender grandeur, soaring high above
the deep gorge, its high towers like something that the Romans might
have been proud of, but its wrought iron chains speaking of the fiery
industry of Victorian times. On the approaches are notices about the
Samaritans, for sadly it’s a favourite spot for suicides. There is
a tale that, when it was first built, ladies in crinolines would
sometimes survive a leap from the bridge as their skirts acted as
parachutes.
I was looking for a
chip shop, but Clifton turned out to be far too upmarket for such an
establishment. There were bistros galore, but my funds would not run
to that. I bought a couple of pork pies from a posh co-op foodstore
and picked my way downhill between grand old terraces, munching my
pies as I went.
From the bridge I had seen that it was low tide.
The river was virtually dry, with expanses of mud glinting in the
streetlights. A little way upstream I had seen a lock, entrance to
the floating harbour ( so named not because it floats but because
ships can float in it at any state of the tide) and I thought I would
go and have a look.
My meandering route through alleyways and down
steeply sloping back roads brought me to a busy traffic island at
Hotwells. Once upon a time this was the terminus of a railway that
ran through the Gorge alongside the river from the Avonmouth
direction. Long ago its route was converted into the A4 road, but
still some blocked up single track tunnels through rocky outcrops can
be seen.
I crossed the bridge over the harbour entrance. I was
looking for a place where I could park for the night as I liked the
idea of being near water. I crossed another small bridge to get to
the lock, and even thought about parking on the lockside. I then
thought about what a nuisance it would be to be woken by a bored
policeman in the early hours and discounted the idea. I wondered if
it might be possible to park facing the sea in nearby Portishead, and
decided to return to the van to drive over there and have a
look.
Portishead was a disappointment. As I entered the town I
came to a roundabout. To the left was the town centre, to the right
the industrial park, and straight ahead “The Haven”. Straight
ahead seemed most promising, so I headed for “The Haven”, only to
discover that it was the name for a posh housing estate with red
brick roads. With some difficulty, and to the consternation of other
road users, I turned round my little rig in one of the side turnings
and headed back towards Bristol, parking up a little further down the
little road next to a viewing point and interpretation board. I spent
an hour or two enjoying planning an itinerary for Hazel, using the
book that Ed had given me as a guide.
The front seat of the van is
remarkably comfortable, so I slept well and awoke to a bright morning
in a jumble of coats and sleeping bags. The flask that I had made
before leaving home was still hot enough to drink, then I got up and
enjoyed my breakfast standing by the interpretation board looking
across the gorge.
I had told Hattie that I would arrive between 9
and 10 AM, so I set out about 8.30 with only a vague idea of the
location of her house. My route took me alongside the Floating
Harbour, with a fine view of the Great Britain across the water. This
time I found myself in the milling traffic of the morning peak and
had to keep my wits about me to haul the wide trailer along the
maddeningly crowded urban tarmac without incident. I found myself in
St Pauls, of which I knew only its reputation for riots connected
with local dissent over the siting of a new supermarket. There were
indeed very prominent No Tesco Here signs plastered on buildings, but
rather than a dangerous concrete jungle, it appeared to be a very
friendly place. Much more welcoming than the conspicuous affluence of
Clifton, it had a post revolutionary utopian air, rather like
Clifford Harper’s early drawings.
Navigating with the aid of
friendly pedestrians I entered an area of tall terraced houses
separated by narrow streets of parked cars. I became very aware of
the fact that the trailer was somewhat wider than the van. In places
The gaps were so narrow that I had to inch through with an anxious
eye on each mirror. I began to wonder if I would find myself stuck at
an impossible gap at the end of a long road with nowhere to turn.
I found myself on
Hattie’s street almost by chance, then accidentally turned off it,
only to realise that I was actually passing her back garden. A car
was coming the other way and there was absolutely nowhere to pass. A
rare parking space became apparent and I drove the van into it,
stopping centimetres from the bumper of the next car with the trailer
still blocking the road. As I started to fumble with the trailer lock
the car began to hoot. Before I had fully released the trailer from
the van, its smartly dressed lady driver came over to politely inform
me that I was blocking the road. It did occur to me that she was also
blocking the road (and could have pulled over with far less
difficulty), but instead I explained the manoevre that I was
attempting to clear her way. I released the trailer, swung it round
and backed it in by hand to sit behind the van and clear the way for
the polite lady. There was just enough room for the trailer, but it
was blocking some lines painted on the road with a notice saying
“Keep Clear”.
It was bang on 9 AM, so I rang Hattie to explain
where I was. I was a little apprehensive about meeting Hattie. I had
known Martin for over 30 years and had a high regard for him, both as
a boatbuilder and as a person, but we had only met a handful of
times. This often happens with friendships on the cut. I had totally
lost touch for a long time and knew nothing of Hattie, or Rueben,
their son. I am very aware of the phenomenon of circling vultures
after the death of someone with items of value, and had no wish to be
seen in this light.
Hattie emerged from the rickety back garden
gate and greeted me with a smile, which put me at ease. She knew the
man who had painted “Keep Clear” on the road to make space for
his electric wheelchair and knocked on his door. There was no reply
so, with no alternative parking places, we decided to simply keep an
eye on the situation. She led me up some steps into the little back
garden. A huge beech tree had recently been felled, letting light
into what must previously have been a rather shady patch. She showed
me the huge old clamps, seized with rust, lying in a corner of the
lawn, and asked if I would also be interested in the various bags of
nails and spikes that were with them. Having just spent thousands on
spikes for Hazel and still not sure if we had enough of some
categories, I answered in the affirmative. She went to make coffee as
I started to carry the clamps and bags of spikes out to the van.
Over
coffee we talked boats. Hattie asked if I knew anything of the wooden
boats that she used to live aboard. Irritatingly, as I recount this,
I can’t remember the name of one of them. It was a wooden butty
which, unusually, had been shortened by taking a section out of the
middle and fitting the two ends back together. No mean feat! The
other was the small ricky motor Isis, also known as Jimmy. I remember
this boat being on the Bridgewater briefly in the 1990s but have
heard nothing since. Another past owner contacted us about it a few
years ago but we could find no trace, so the chances are that she has
become firewood.
Hattie led me up two stories to a spare bedroom
that was piled high with old fashioned toolboxes. She started opening
them one by one and asking about which tools would be most useful. We
selected a range of useful items, but it was obviously a little
difficult for Hattie as she juggled between wanting to send the tools
to a place where they would be useful and wanting to keep things that
connected her to Martin. After a while she went downstairs to make
more coffee and left me sorting through a box of augers. It felt very
odd to be rooting through Martins tools.
I remembered that I
hadn't checked the van for a while. I went down to have a look and
found the old man who had marked the road standing in his doorway
looking confused. “I can't get out” he kept repeating in a high
hoarse whisper that was barely audible. Luckily another parking space
was now available and I manhandled the trailer out into the road and
back a carslength to slot it into this new vacancy before another
vehicle filled it.
After another cup of coffee, Hattie and I
carried the boxes of tools that we had selected down to the van. I
hooked up the trailer again and carefully negotiated the narrow
streets of Montpelier.
I decided to head out of Bristol down he
old A4 through the Avon gorge rather than by the motorway. As I drove
along I noted the remains of the old Hotwells branch, then followed
the still active commuter line out to Avonmouth and Severn Beach.
Feeling hungry, I turned off the main road at the beckoning of a sign
that said “Fish & Chips 80 yards”. The distance quoted was
inaccurate, and, after at least 200 yards I parked up and paid £1.50
for the worst bag of chips I have ever tasted. Vowing never to go
there again ( I probably wouldn't anyway) I returned to the main
road. Passing Avonmouth Docks I remembered a conversation with John
Gould. He told me that, as part of his campaign to keep the Kennet
and Avon open he once loaded a pair of boats (presumably Colin &
Iris) with grain at Avonmouth and had the unnerving experience of
waves coming over the butty's stern and flooding the cabin as he
headed upriver towards Bristol.
Following the meandering road
across low lying ground, part agricultural, part industrial, I
eventually came to Severn Beach, then reached the roundabout that
marked the way on to the Severn Bridge. After driving across a vast
expanse of tarmac I reached the toll booth, paid my dues, and set off
across the great bridge. Big sister of Brunels pioneering structure
that I had crossed the previous day, it spans not only the Severn
Estuary but also the mouth of the Wye. On the Welsh side of the river
I left the motorway and, after skirting Chepstow, set off along a B
road through arcadian countryside. This brought me to the town of
Usk, but I had a problem. I remembered that Boatbuilding Timber
Supplies was on a road out of the other side of Usk, but I wasn’t
sure which road. I plumped for another B road which meanders towards
Abergavenny.
I was pretty sure to begin with that I was on the
right road, but after a couple of miles my confidence dwindled. I
decided to turn round, but had to find a suitable place. Eventually I
diverged up a tiny lane, then turned round by backing into a
farmyard. When I had nearly got back to Usk I pulled into a gateway
and rang Gavin who runs the sawmill. He said he had seen me drive
past, just before I went up the side road. I had been so busy looking
for somewhere to turn round that I missed the sawmill. I turned again
and soon I was carefully backing the trailer between stacks of timber
towards Gavin’s crane.
The log that I was interested in was sawn
into 4” thick slabs. One by one Gavin lifted them with his crane, a
hiab mounted on a bare lorry chassis, so that I could examine them
and select the ones that I wanted. The three that I wanted were then
swung forward, with the crane at its full reach, and placed carefully
on the trailer. With the load tightened down with ratchet straps and
a wad of cash handed over, I carefully drew the heavy trailer out of
the yard. Gavin took photos for his website as I left
http://www.btswales.co.uk/
but they don't seem to have appeared yet.
I thought I would head
home the pretty way, and check out another sawmill on the way. I had
been told of a sawmill at Whitney on Wye, so I turned left on to the
road towards Abergavenny, then carried on into Brecknock, driving
between high dark mountains, then into the gentle Wye Valley which
goes in a great loop via Hereford before it reaches Chepstow. Going
via the book town of Hay on Wye I carried on along a winding road,
then crossed the river on a timber decked toll bridge, the piers of
the old railway bridge standing parallel to my left. I had been
racing the lowering sun as it was now past 4 PM, and soon it would be
finishing time at the sawmill. Whitney on Wye seemed to be off to the
left somewhere according to the map, so I looked for left turns. I
didn’t have to look far, as a tarmacced lane running uphill
announced itself as the entrance to Whitney sawmills.
I parked up
and walked towards a forklift truck that was loading some sticked
timber into a drying shed. The driver got out and greeted me. We
discussed different kinds of timber, prices, availability etc and
gave me permission to go and look at the logs that they had in stock.
It was certainly an impressive place, though the prices are slightly
higher than sawmills that I’ve dealt with before.
Curiosity
satisfied, I set out again into the fading light, driving North
across country. Leominster, Ludlow, Craven Arms and Church Stretton,
then on to the Shrewsbury ring road and sheared off to cross the
Shroppie at Market Drayton. Via Newcastle under Lyne and Congleton
then a little bit of the M60 I got back to Ashton and, after checking
the boats at Portland Basin, arrived home, where Emuna had a meal
ready for me.
Next day I took the trailerload of wood to Knowl St
where Ryan , Stuart and I unloaded and stacked it before I returned
the trailer to its owners.
Getting everything in place.
Over the last couple of weeks Stuart has been busy cutting and planing planks whilst I've been working on the sternpost. The stempost is now up and I could get the sternpost fitted today, but I've noticed that Janet, our neighbour, has just hung a line full of washing out in the sun. As I will have to heat some chalico on the stove to fit the post and the wind is blowing in her direction I think I'll put it off until tomorrow.
We've a new volunteer, a retired sheet metal worker called John. He's been grinding the knobbles off the knees, which are now back from being shotblasted.
For several weeks "Hazel" has been looking very bare. Her new bottom is in place and the moulds are up to give a skeletal trace of her shape, but she has no sides and only the apparition of a cabin propped up on sticks to remind us of the boat that she was, and shall be again.
Soon we'll be putting the knees back in place, then steaming the bottom strakes or garboards to shape, and so a new boat will rise from the crumbly rottenness of the old, new wood, but the same shape and the same spirit.
Talking of wood, we don't have quite enough of it. To make up for the shortfall I've found some oak trees that are to be felled in Cumbria. I will be able to plank them with the chainmill, but transporting them is proving to be a problem. They never completed the famous Taunton & Carlisle Canal. In fact, the nearest the canal system ever got to Appleby where the trees are was Kendal. Now that waterway is truncated by the M6 at Tewitfield, and anyway, our boats are all 10' too long to access it. There'es really no choice but to use lorries, and they're expensive. So, if you happen to have a lorry long enough to carry 30' lengths of timber, give me a ring on 07931 952 037.
A quiet Day
After the hectic activity yesterday it was quite a quiet day on "Hazel", just me Reg and Ryan. Reg left at dinner time to go and visit his daughter in Leeds. To be honest, there's not much of "Hazel" left now. The new bottom forms a base to build the boat up on, but we've now removed most of the sideplanking after carefully spiling it and recording the plank edge bevels. Highlights of the day have been offering up the new stempost, it looks like it will fit, and removing the old sternpost to make a copy. As usual there was a bit of forensic archaeology involved, working out which bits of the boat have ben replaced in her 97 year history, and which bits (not many) are original. As I removed the bottom strake at the stern end I was surprised to find that it was made of oak and about 60mm thick.I was expecting 2" pitch pine. I decided that it had been replaced at the same time as the bottoms as there was only one set of ironwork in the wood, indicating that it had never had replacement bottoms fitted to it. The question is, when was this done? It looks likely that the sternpost was renewed at the same time. Was it 1951 at Rathbones dry dock in Stretfored or 1970s at Ken Keays in Walsall.
Knees Up!
Hazel now has all her knees in place. Stuart is now starting to bolt them down. We'll be ready for steaming soon.
Why not help this project. Text wcbs01 followed by an amount of money you'd like to donate (eg £5) to 70070.
25 days
I was surprised to see, when I logged in, that it has been 25 days since I last wrote anything. How remiss of me! The fact is that I don't seem to have had the time to sit down and write. I did have a bit of time off. Emuna and I went to Llandudno for a couple of days for her birthday. Stuart has been away too. He had a weeks work in Belgium.
When I returned from Llandudno on 13th October I found that Stuart and Ryan had spread the oak boards out on the ground as a sort of flat pack boat. Stuart started laying out the spiling boards and selecting the timber for the new planks. It turned out that the logs that I had bought were rather too straight and this restricted the amount of planks that we could get out of them. "Hazel"s planks are curvier than I thought.
Meanwhile, the sides of the boat were steadily being removed until there was virtually nothing left of them. Just the new bottom with the 1951 conversion propped up on sticks. We decided to get the knees shotblasted, so they went off to a shotblasters, then to another as the first one nearly tripled the quoted price after they had done one knee. The idiots also removed the identifying marker that Stuart had put on the knee, despite being firmly told not to. It's a good job they only did the one, or we would have been totally unable to work out which knee went where.
Stuart thinks we need timber for 5 more planks. I heard of some trees being felled in Cumbria and so had a day out looking at them. They're mostly too thin, but there are a couple of useful ones. I just have to arrange transport now.
With the stempost in place I started work on the sternpost. Now that is nearly ready.
We have a few new volunteers. Jake is travelling regularly from Lincoln to help. Bernard has started taking care of the tools. Nick is coming for a day each week and Rita joins us when she has a day off from social working. At the moment Reg is up from Rugby, carefully planing bevels on the edges of the bottom strakes. What we need now are some fundraising volunteers to magic up the rest of the money that we need. Any offers?
A winter's night on “Hazel”.
It's the time of year when we don't get much sunlight and so “Hazel”s batteries need to be topped up from the mains every now and then. She has a huge bank of batteries that need a special charger and can't all be charged at once. Someone, normally me, has to stay to switch from one set of batteries to the other sometime in the night. I don't mind as I get to stay in “Hazel”s wonderful back cabin.
To charge up I have to shaft the boat the short distance across the aqueduct to Dukinfield and tie up beside the premises of Dixon & Smith, Motor Engineers. Pat and John are kind enough to let us plug in whenever we need power. Tying up is easier said than done because of all the rubbish in the canal. To get the bow close enough to get on and off the boat, the stern has to be pretty much in the middle of the cut as there is something big that catches the middle of the boat and causes her to pivot. There was nothing to tie the stern end to as the boat lies along the end wall of a factory. Between the factory and the water there is a small bank of rubble so, some time ago, I drove a pin into this and attached an old ratchet strap to it. In order to tie up I have to hook the ratchet strap with the cabin shaft and pull it to me. I then pass the stern line of the boat through the ratchet strap and tie the line to the timberhead. At the fore end there is a chain with a hook on the end secured to a post on the bank. All I have to do is put the fore end line into the hook and tie back to the T stud.
When tied like this, the back cabin is facing the railway bridge and I enjoy hearing Trans Pennine Expresses growling by, interspersed with the occasional freight. If I open the doors I can watch them and wonder if the passengers notice my cabin light below them on the canal.
For ages the weather has been rainy. I've been fed up of the rain, especially as I'm trying to work on “Forget me Not” on dock. Now, all of a sudden the wind has turned to the North and we're getting those cold clear winters nights that I love. Tonight the mopstick was frozen to crunchiness by 8PM.
I've been writing all evening, or rather talking to my computer, my friend Jackie will type up what I've recorded. Now it's bed time. The cabin is so warm I keep falling asleep. I tried opening the doors to let the heat out, with the range roaring away it gets extremely toasty in here.
Whilst writing the above paragraph I fell asleep. I woke again in a cooling cabin a couple of hours later, so I turned out the light and snuggled into my sleeping bag. In the morning it was cold. I had a flask to make coffee so I decided not to light the range. All I had to do was to shaft the boat back over the aqueduct to Portland Basin. I quickly dressed and put on all the gloves I could find, then climbed out into the crisp cold still dark morning. After disconnecting the charging cables I untied the lines, stiff with frost, and threw the ratchet strap back on to the bank. I then grasped the icy shaft with my gloved hands and, taking care not to slip on the frosty roof, pushed the fore end out into the channel, cat ice chinkling as the boat pushed it aside.
The stern end was stuck on something and, as I couldn't exert as much effort as usual because I was standing on a slippery surface, it took a while to get it free. By this time my hands were becoming very painful in spite of the 3 pairs of gloves that I was wearing. I decided that I would have to go inside to warm up. I went into the main cabin and lit a fire, enjoying its heat while I drank a cup of coffee.
When I had thawed sufficiently I climbed back on to the roof in the now bright and shiny but still cold morning, and started to move the boat towards the aqueduct, jumping down on to the towpath to give her a good tug with the fore end line before climbing back aboard to swing her round with the shaft and tie up abreast of “Lilith”. With everything secure I headed for home to get ready for another day working on “Forget me Not”.
2010-07-12
@ 20:15:00 by ashtonboatman
A sign of the times.
It was a hot sunny day and I was busy working on the boats at Portland Basin when I noticed a wheelbarrow parked on the towpath across the canal. As we have wheelbarrows on the boats for collecting on recycling trips, I went over to see if someone had borrowed on of ours. When I got there I could hear banging and slushing noises from the other side of the stone wall. The ground drops steeply down about 20 feet of wooded rocky bank to the River Tame. I looked over and saw three men sploshing about in the river and dragging out rusty bikes, scaffold poles etc. One of them saw me looking and explained that they had decided to clean up the river.
This public spirited explanation was slightly marred by the fact that they only seemed to be removing metal objects, leaving behind much, equally unsightly, but valueless, plastic.
They dragged their ochre encrusted booty up the bank, over the wall and managed to load it into the sagging barrow ( which wasn't one of ours). I imagine they must have had a van nearby because it's over 2 miles to the nearest scrapyard that takes iron.
I think it's a good thing that people clear up and weigh in the clutter that others have carelessly discarded, but I also see desperation in the men's actions. I haven't seen this sort of activity since the 1980s when long years of unemployment spurred the picking up of beer cans, dragging ditches for scrap metal and other forms of scavenging. Anything to make a few bob to try to make ends meet. Are we now going to have another no hope generation like that of the Thatcher years? Growing up with no understanding of the concept of working for a living.
2010-05-02
@ 16:30:07 by ashtonboatman
Stranded at Scarisbrick
"Southam" and "Lilith" are still stuck at Scarisbrick. It could have been worse, they could have been stuck in Bootle! The man at Red Lion Caravans opposite is being very helpful, charging batteries to keep the bilge pumps going and keeping an eye on the boats for me. Frank the engineer has stripped down the gearbox. We thought that it was going to need new clutch plates. I managed to contact the remains of the old Parsons company that made the gearbox, now run by one man in his spare time. He can supply new clutch plates, but we would have to wait 12 weeks and they would cost £600. Luckily, after discussing the problem with the man, I don't think we need them. The difficulty lies elsewhere and should be relatively easy to fix. With a bit of luck the boats will be on the move again soon. I've learned a lot about old marine gearboxes, especially how much it costs to get bits for them.
Meanwhile I've arranged a tow for "Forget me Not" so that we can do the monthly recycling trip on Sunday 9th May. It's a week late from the usual first Sunday because of the Bank Holiday weekend. If you would like to come on this trip just turn up at Portland Basin, Ashton under Lyne, at 9.30 AM on the 9th.