A soaking on the South Oxford Canal

My South Oxford canal Ometer is now available if anyone wants it. I've included 40 places on the canal as calculation points. Just follow the Herbie Files link to the right of this screen.



The South Oxford is one of the most popular canals for holiday cruising. We did it once some years ago on a boat hired from Weltonfield. Of all the hire trips we ever did, this was the wettest. I don't think it stopped raining from start to finish. Jaz, our dog (now sadly departed) fell in the canal before we even cast off and proceeded to do so at regular intervals. I think this was the first boat we hired that had fitted carpets throughout. A daft idea if you ask me. It was also the holiday on which we invented the Jim MacBeam, a whisky mac made with Jim Beam and still a great favourite as a warmer after a good soaking or freezing.



Perhaps this year we might get to see the canal in the sunshine. I imagine it might be nice.

More on Gold licence economics

In my piece the other day I was way out in my Gold licence cost. Here are the real facts whcih make quite interesting reading.

For our 50ft boat:

Annual BW licence (before April 09) £555 inc prompt payment reduction
Annual Gold licence £852. This covers virtually everywhere for the year.

Giving a difference of £297

If we only had the BW licence then for our planned summer cruise we would also have to buy
31 day EA licence for East Anglian rivers for our fens trip £179 (after April 09)
extra 7 day licence if we stay on a bit longer £71 (a possibility)
15 day Thames licence if we head up that way en route (which would be nice) £90

So £269 if we don't hang about in the fens or £340 we stay there a while. Given the fact that our home mooring is only a day from the Thames, we could well get a bit more use out of the gold licence at other times, which would mean it was worth it.

£852 sounds a hell of a lot of money though, and if our plans fell through for whatever reason we'd be severely out of pocket.

To gamble or not to gamble - going for gold?

To gamble or not to gamble, that is the question
Whether 'tis wiser in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous short term licences
Or to take arms against a sea of navigation authorities
And buy a Gold licence

Its time to renew Herbie's BW licence. This year we hope to do our fenland cruise which means travelling a lot on Environment Agency waters for which we would have to buy short term licences for the rivers. Alternatively, we could buy a Gold licence, costing an extra £190 and go almost anywhere without further charge.

It all depends how long we stay on the rivers. If the weather is good we might easily hang around on the Ouse or Nene then perhaps head back south via the Oxford canal and make a leisurely return down the Thames. Then we'd get our money's worth, especially if we added a short cruise back up the Thames later in the year. If we get a wet summer though, our extra money will go down the drain along with all the extra water because we'll stick to the canals.

I didn't get where I am today by being a gambler, which is why, I tell myself, I'm so desperately dull. Our financial adviser classifies me as risk averse. However a little voice in my head of me says "Bugger it. Get the gold licence and then you won't be inhibited in making route choices." The pot of money we laughingly call Herbie's sinking fund can stand it. Maybe I will.

Winter cruising

It's just three years this week since we took ownership of Herbie and I well recall it was brass monkeys weather then too. Trapped for several weeks above a stoppage at Stanstead Abbots up the Lee navigation we contented ourselves with short trips up to Ware and Hertford and it had left us with a soft spot for those places. It also gave us a liking for winter cruising. As the old saying goes - there's no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.

Here we are are our inaugural cruises all wrapped up but in my case not afraid of a celebratory cold drink!

Very soon we'll be braving the cold to test out some of my canalometer timings. It looks like I've had about 90 visits to my canalometer pages this week, although I can't tell from my software how many people have downloaded PDFs. Frustrating. Some more canalometers will appear very soon. South Oxford canal for a start. I did one for the Thames, but its very hard to know what speed to base the sums on. It depends so much on the speed of the current, which on the Thames is very variable.

Which should I do next - any requests?

A stroke of luck - two Buckby cans - a bargain??

Today we took a stroll along the Thames at Reading and then down the Kennet, past the two final pubs on the K&A canal, the Jolly Anglers-now To Let- , and the Fishermans Cottage, once a favourite summer evening haunt of ours. As we passed the latter Kath noticed some old Buckby cans (yes I know they're not really Buckby cans unless they were made in Buckby) in the window and looking a bit forlorn. There were some rubbishy old oil paintings piled around them too. " I wonder if they're selling them" said Kath, so we went in for a closer look.

There were four cans, one very small, one probably two gallons, one probably three gallons and one looking about four. The larger three had inscriptions where a boat name would normally go . 1. London Pride 2. Fisherman's Cottage and 3. Fuller Smith Turner (the brewers). No for sale signs so we wandered out towards the door. Kath told the barmaid we were just looking at the cans in case they were for sale and she replied that they might be.



They wanted £20 each but to cut a long story short we bought the 2 and 3 gallon cans for £30 the pair. The smaller of the two needs a bit of TLC in the paintwork, and the larger one just a touch, but they are sound galvanised cans. I know new galvanised cans of this type and size can cost about £60 unpainted in a chandlery. The painter's signature on the bottom of each can says Terry Remp 1985.


I now have to decide how much to attempt to restore the paint chips. New paint probably won't blend in too well.


Anyway we're quite pleased with them and you can look out for them sitting on top of Herbie in future photos :-)

Those hit hardest by the snow.

Most weeks I try to spend a day fishing which is wonderful for fresh air and contemplation. This week, as you might have guessed, I left my rod and reel at home. I did however go for a stroll in the snow around one of my local fishing haunts - three lakes and a stretch of the little river Blackwater. It seems I was the first human visitor since the snow as there were no human footprints, but I was amazed to see the huge number of tracks left by the wildlife. At one piont where the path narrows round the lake, they all came together.

Most I think were fox tracks, but I could also see where a heron had been pacing around looking for food. I must be terrible for wild animals in this weather. They have a maximum need for calories to keep warm, and minimum chance of finding food. Rounding a bend in the river, I disturbed a couple of large deer who of course ran off before I could ready my camera. The deer were rummaging around in what is left of the weed cover on the river bank under some trees. I guess they can get enough to eat. I suspect the predators and the birds are the ones who have a tough time.

Next time you feel sorry for yourself stuck in the snow or ice, spare a thought for these creatures. Better still, put some food out for them.

PS A couple of people have spotted that pictures on the blog lately don't enlarge as they should when you click on them. I don't know why this is. Any ideas?

CanalOmeters go live

Remember my CanalOmeters? Well now they're available to download thanks to permissions from Nick at Canalplan and feedback and helpful tips from blog readers. Here's how they now look.



I've managed to generate them entirely in XL and word, so there is no hand drawing involved and I can publish them as PDFs.

At present I have four available covering the GU from Brentford to Braunston (that's two), through London from Bulls Bridge to Limehouse and the Lee Navigation from Limehouse to Hertford.

If you'd like to download one (or more) just click on the The HerbieFiles link on the right of the screen. This will take you to a new web site where I'll keep them and any other useful info such as a pub/ restaurant list I've just started. I aim to generate a lot moreCanalOmeters for my own use, but also for others to try. If you have any particular lengths of water you'd like me to do, let me know and I'll put it on my to do list. CanaOlmeters don't / can't list every place along the canal for space reasons so I'm especialy interested to know what places or features I should include.

now

Tales of heroics in the snow

I would have loved to get out to see Herbie in the snow today to take some pictures but by all accounts it would have been a two and a half hour drive instead of the usual 35 minutes.

So I consoled myself by taking some snow pictures around home. How about this panorama stitched together from 3 photos taken in the churchyard behind our house. Could be our next year's Christmas card!

The grave in the right foregound ( and a few feet from our garden fence) is that of Major Frederick Jackson who commanded a celebrated polar expedition in 1894-97 and rescued the Norwegion explorer Nansen. A contemporay report for National Geographic in 1896 begins:

On the 17th day of June, 1896, as some of the men of the English Jackson and Harmsworth expedition, in Franz Josef land, were looking out over the ice they discovered a weird figure advancing towards them, with long straggling hair and beard and garments covered with grease and blood stains, who proved to be none other than Dr Fridtjof Nansen, who fifteen months previous had left his ship, the Fram, at 83° 59′ north latitude and 102° 27′ east longitude in order to push on with sleds, boats, and dogs towards the Pole.

So we have a hero buried at the end of our garden. It's a cracking tale and you can read the rest of the report here courtesy of Encarta.

Grace had never seen proper snow before so we took her out to play in it.

Which (as they say) was nice.

Help design a better CanalOmeter

If you can give me a bit of help now, you can have some free cruisng calculators later.

In October I showed you my first attempts at making my CanalOmeter crusing time calculator, and I had some positive comments and requests to make them available. See here to re read the post and see how it works. Field trials this autumn showed that the disc work quite well.

Here is the version I made then. Let's call it version A

Now I'm trying to produce a version which doesn't need any handwriting or protractor work.

Nick Atty whose CanalPlan data I have used has graciously given me permission to publish the finished discs so other people can copy them for free. I intend to publish them as pdfs. First however, I want to arrive at the best layout.

The big problem is I can't find a way to print the place names along the radial lines. (Please don't suggest using WordArt, that would take forever!). So I've come up with two alternative designs, both generated using Excel's graphing capabilities. Version B below is easy to generate and I reckon I could knock them out really quickly.

Version C needs a fair bit of fiddling about the draw the lines from the names to the graph.

Sorry the images aren't all that good. As PDFs they'll look fine.

Any comments on which version you like best would be welcome as would any ideas for other ways to set them out.

I could also publish a manual on how I extract the data and process it so that you could do your own, but it's fairly fiddly until you get used to it. What do you think?

Fort High Line

Our boatyard (High Line Yachting) is run like a business, not a charity. Sometimes it can seem a bit officious but at least they stick to the rules and things get done. We all get licence renewal reminders, and safety inspection reminders . Visiting tradesmen, where allowed, have to fill in a risk form, and so on



Today I got a letter saying that following a couple of break-ins to boats, they are ramping up security. Already we are well fenced in with electronically operated gates at either end of the moorings, but now they are looking at improved fencing, CCTV and and another gate between the yard and the moorings and they are introducing a visitor badge scheme. We're supposed to challenge any unknown characters who may be hanging about near the boats. It all sounds a bit draconian but those of us with precious property stored on site will have less to worry about I suppose.



Actually on Herbie we are lucky to have Saltysplash alongside and Lydia on Serendipity next door, who are often around and I'm sure keep an eye open for us. Thanks to Lydia we're also amply supplied with guard cats!

Oddyssey 2009 plans

I have to be careful not to get too excited in case our ideas for a great cruise this year don't come off. We plan to be out on Herbie a long time, but with breaks to come home from time to time.

The objective is to visit our two sons, one in Huntingdon and one in Cambridge, by boat. While we're out that way we'd also like to explore the fen rivers that flow into the Great Ouse. That means the rivers, Lark, Little Ouse and Wissey. This map gives you an idea.
The Wissey in particular is supposed to be very attractive and is a favourite of Sue on No Problem. Here's a link to her last trip there

On the way there of course we'll have to journey up the Grand Union to near Northampton, then down the river Nene and across the middle levels. Lovely jubbly.

The whole trip should take a couple of months or more as we don't want to hurry and we'll have time off for good behaviour when we can leave the boat somewhere safe. We'll also get some jobs done as we'll get Herbie's hull blacked somewhere on the way.

No doubt we'll also play host to good friends on various parts of the journey and that'll only add to the enjoyment. I can hardly wait, but as I said, I mustn't get too excited, there are any number of things that could spoil the plan - especially prolonged rain, which c an make the Nen in particular impassable.

Games on board

Boating is arguably good for the mind. When we're on board Herbie we watch a lot less telly than when we're at home. Quite often we play cards or scrabble in the evening and now we've discovered another good game -Tantrix. It's been around for several years but we've only just latched on and we like it a lot. We bought Peter a set for Christmas and enjoyed it so much that we now have our own set for Herbie.

You can play Tantrix solo like patience, or there is a good set of rules for two to four players. I won't describe it here but they have a good web site where you can see it and even play on-line. Apparently there is even a UK championship and this year they will hold the first world championship in Edinburgh. I don't think I'll enter, I've only just mastered the rules and it looks like you would have to be smart to beat a good player.

Come to think of it, we needn't stay on board to play Tantrix. It's a very compact game and we could easily play it in the pub. Now I've warmed to it even more!

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