Best Urban Mooring Award and nominations for village moorings

Yes, the phone lines are closed although you may still be charged.  The people have spoke and they have largely agreed with me and Kath (there’s a first!). So the Herbie Award for Best Urban Mooring 2012 goes to . . .

Cambrian Wharf Birmingham

A well deserved and popular win.
And so we forge onwards with the nominations for the next Award. Best Rural or Village Mooring
Bear in mind that like our other awards, this can only go to somewhere we have been on Herbie this year.  That in effect means somewhere on the Warwickshire ring, the Stratford canal or the South Oxford.  And of course our home patch between Foxton and Braunston.
Let’s see.  We’ve moored at or very near Norton Junction, Foxton, Welford, Braunston, Long Itchington, Napton, Cropredy, Aynho (wharf), Enslow, Thrupp, Preston Bagot,  Curdworth, Alvecote, Hawkesbury, Ansty and probably a couple more I can’t recall, plus a few “out in the sticks”.  There are some lovely remote moorings on the South Oxford summit, and on the Coventry canal like this one

but I think I’ll stick to the villages this time.
I’m ruling out a favourite place. Hawkesbury.  You have to stop at Hawkesbury, you’d be mad not to. Nice grassy moorings on the N Oxford canal side, an attractive canalscape, and the rather wonderful Greyhound pub. So wonderful in fact that I didn’t find time to take a photo of the moorings. Anyway, I’m not sure it’s rural or a village, just the outskirts of Coventry. 
So let’s examine our criteria for judging.
A good village mooring would ideally be well maintained, close to the shop and/or pub, and perhaps handy for public transport.  As with all moorings, some nice bank to sit out on and proper mooring rings are a real bonus.
We had a great time at Long Itchington moored next to Jim and Sarah on Chertsey, but to be fair, it’s a long trek into the village.  At Aynho we moored next to Bones and shared a good evening at the pub, but the village is miles away and the moorings are only OK.  I think for the top three we’’ll go for:
1. Braunston,
- also nominated in 2011.  Braunston has a lot of visitor moorings, although often not as many as there are visiting boats.  This year at the Rally, we had to moor quite a long way out.

Even then, as Grace demonstrates here, there is a good footpath up to the village from “round the back”

Braunston has plenty to offer the boater, not least the numerous chandleries, and a good butcher, cheap meals at the Boathouse pub and now a “reborn” Admiral Nelson.
2. Thrupp
A little gem this one.  Thrupp is for many the last stop before Oxford if heading South. The visitor moorings are overseen and beautifully maintained by the Thrupp Canal Cruising Club and they let you stay for a decent while.  A week I think.  A nice grassy bank, mooring rings, a good pub and Annie’s Tea Room.  BW, sorry, CRT services too.

The little road you see here is only a service road, and very quiet.  The only disturbance we had was a certain Mr Maffi thrusting himself upon us and then dragging us down to the pub, and a certain Mortimer Bones peering into the engine bay while I was hard at work changing the oil.
3. Curdworth
Curdworth is often reckoned to be the first safe overnight stop heading out of Birmingham on the Birmingham and Fazeley canal.  After all the locks you have to do from the Centre of Brum, you’re glad to see it. That’s why it gets a nomination.  It’s in the right place when you need it. Looking on the map in the Nicholson’s guide it looks although the whole area is very built up and urban, but Curdworth is actually a sleepy commuter village and I imagine fairly up  market.  Twice now we have moored in the cutting  near the short tunnel. 

Very quiet, and handy for the village where the Beehive pub does remarkably good value grub and cheap beer.
I have a feeling that this list might be contentious, because I have left out some good places.  The winner will have to be very good won’t it.  Which do you fancy?
As well as a result, tomorrow well have  nominations for Best Cruise on Someone Else’s Boat – we have some absolute crackers.

Herbie Award for Best Gadget and nominations for Best Urban Mooring

So we come to the first of this years Herbie Awards –albeit a minor category, Best Boaters Gadget.

Until I wrote up the nomination list yesterday I was going to give it to my handy little head torch, but then I remembered how much I have come to value the real winner.  And the winner is, annoying pause while the director counts slowly to ten,

The Smartphone. 

Loud applause.  Alright it’s not a gadget specifically for boating, but it something which is so handy when you are travelling to new places, giving as it does, information on all sorts of local amenities and keeping you in touch with friends and loved ones.  Not forgetting letting you update your blog easily.  You’d need a spanner to wrench it out of my hand now.

And now, on to the first of the more senior awards.  Best Urban Mooring 2012.

This year we have stayed in Banbury, Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford, Stratford upon Avon and Warwick and all have their merits.

What makes a good urban mooring?  - I hear you ask.

Well I reckon it should be a safe and handy place for visiting the town, preferably close to the amenities you want, and most important, it should make you feel welcome.  t I’m going to short list down to four by eliminating Coventry basin – pretty good in itself but the immediate surroundings are not so hot, and Warwick where we stayed in the private Saltisford Arm.  While the Saltisford Arm is very pleasant and a good place to stop, I’m not sure it qualifies as it is a fair way out of town and the town does nothing itself to welcome boaters.

So the nominees are (in alphabetical order)

1. Banbury town centre

Slap bang in the town centre, the moorings are clean and tidy and there are plenty of them.  You couldn’t be handier for the shops and for eating and drinking. Should the town centre moorings be full, there are more adjacent to the park not far away. Banbury seems to embrace it’s canal front and is all the better for it.

2. Birmingham – Cambrian Wharf

Brum city centre has a lot of mooring, and much of it is pretty good, but we reckon we got the plum spot this year adjacent to the top of the Farmers Bridge locks at Cambrian Wharf.

 

Our own private lawn just far enough off the towpath not to be bothered by passers by, and only a couple of minutes walk from the main tourist spots.  What’s not to like?  O.K. the bar opposite had its doors and windows open so we could hear the music, but hey, it’s a city and they were quiet after closing time.  Round the corner near the more well known Gas Street basin one hears of oiks untying boats late at night, but we were undisturbed.  Like Banbury, Brum uses it’s canals as a feature and you just know that people like to see you there.

3. Oxford – Jericho

I was not optimistic about coming to Oxford to moor, having heard tales of it being a bit rough around Jericho. Well it just goes to show you should take no notice of the gloom and doom merchants.  Although a bit of a walk from the city centre, our spot was clean, pleasant and quiet, with only strollers and the occasional jogger to keep us company.

Jericho itself is a place we may not have explored otherwise, but it has some fine pubs and eateries. If you don’t fancy the ten or fifteen minute walk down the canal into town, there are plenty of buses.  If I had a complaint it would be that they could do with a dozen more places to tie up.

4. Stratford Upon Avon – Bancroft basin

Just a stone’s throw (as long as you are Jessica Ennis) from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and adjacent to the River Avon, Bancroft basin is where it’s at in Stratford. The parks and riverside are handy, and the shops are just over the road. If you can get a place there, you will be well and truly gongoozled by the throngs of tourists strolling round the area. On Sunday mornings there is a good street market /craft fair on the plaza or whatever it is next to the basin, and you may well be woken in the morning as we were by live music from buskers. In our case it was a very good steel pan player. Should the basin be full, and I think it often is in summer, there are perfectly adequate bankside moorings just before the basin, or you can drop down on to the river.

There you are then.  Four towns that make boaters feel welcome and give you a nice spot to tie up.  They all deserve praise, but only one can win the award.  Which will it be?  I honestly don’t know but I’ll decide in tomorrow’s blog.  As of now, the golden envelope lies empty and unsealed.  If you are quick with a comment you might just persuade me one way or another.

For tomorrows nominations we’ll take a look at Best Rural or Village moorings.

2012 Herbie Awards - here we go with a weird introduction..

I’ll never be a rich TV producer.  “Oh why ever not?” I hear you ask in surprise.  Because, dear reader, if someone came into my office proposing to make a cartoon series about a sponge wearing a tie and square lederhosen living in a pineapple under the sea, I would have told them they were barking mad and sent them packing.  Now Squarebob Spongepants, or Spongebob Squarepants  or whatever his name is has become a multimillion dollar franchise. 

Out of the kindness of my heart I bought a Spongebob /Squarebob/whatever chocolate advent calendar for about a pound from Aldi (only the best for my grand daughter) for Grace and secreted it in our conservatory waiting for December 1st. So yesterday I told her I had a nice surprise for her and went out to retrieve the said gift only to find that it might have been secreted from Grace, but not from a mouse.  The little blighter had eaten all the chocolates.  Now I have to go out and buy a new advent calendar  to keep Grace happy and a humane mousetrap to catch the rodent and release him somewhere well away from future chocolate stashes.

Which brings me to the subject of useful gadgets, of which the mousetrap is a famous example.

So welcome to the Nominations for the first of the 2012 Herbie Awards – Best Gadget on a Boat 2012. 

What gubbins has made a difference to our boating pleasure this year?

I can think of four things this year.

1. My home made water tank gauge

It started like this got tested like this  

and is currently like this at one end  and this at the other

It works well , but is not permanently installed yet pending a better arrangement for fixing the dipstick into the tank.  So it’s a useful gadget, but not yet.  I include it to show that my 2012 new years resolution to learn a bit about electronics was not entirely wasted.

2.  A  Head Torch

In my usual extravagant fashion I acquired mine from Poundland.

It has already proved extraordinarily useful, for digging about in Herbie’s  the coal locker in the cratch at night, for finding the light switch inside the boat when we return from the pub in the dark, and for seeing what I am doing when DiYing in dark confined spaces. Not bad for a quid.

3. A wide angle camera lens.

I had a camera in this category in a previous year, nominated for its use in seeing where your eyes can’t reach.  This time a lens.  Taking pictures of the inside of a boat is not easy because you can’t back off far enough to get a good view.  My new lens goes out to 15mm which makes quite a difference and makes it possible to show more of what Herbie is like inside.  Good for those lovely sunsets and landscapes too.  I’ve hardly used it yet but have high hopes.

I should have tidied up first shouldn’t I?

4. A Smartphone

Yes I have finally joined the 21st century and got a modest Android phone, and I must say, it’s brilliant.  Mine only costs a tenner a month.  Last week I was able to post three blog entries using it including some fairly reasonable photos.  On longer trips we buy a 30 day dongle voucher and use the laptop, but on a short trip, the phone suffices extremely well.  Mine also has an app which uses the phone GPS to show the nearest bus stops and the appropriate timetable.  That has come in handy more than once.  I also use it to get BBC and Newspaper feeds so I can browse news articles when we can’t get a paper.  Oh, it also makes phone calls  - usually something like “I’m standing by the smoked mackerel, do you want it plain or peppered?”

Which one will win the coveted award?  I’ll sleep on it and tell you tomorrow along with nominations for the next award – Best Urban Mooring

The final piece of the jigsaw

Frozen ropes, ice on the puddles, but I was nice and warm working the locks.  In fact we have all had a bit of glow today as Herbie has been purring along better than we can ever remember.

Our new drive plate has been the final piece of the jigsaw of getting Herbie's engine to run smoothly. First the engine brackets and mounts, then the new camshaft and finally the drive plate.  It has been a bit stressful at times, not to say expensive, but so far, we are delighted with the results.  Rick joined us for our cruise back to Crick and agrees that the boat has never been so smooth and quiet.

So now we are back in the marina burning the last of our coal before we go home tomorrow a lot more relaxed than a week ago when we set off towards Calcutt in the pouring rain.

Just the blacking to get done in ten days time and we'll be all set for 2013.

Sent from my HTC

Testing testing

I'm hoping this will post a photo from my phone to the blog. It shows the view from Herbie's cratch taken from where we have stopped for the night.  Seasoned boaters may well recognise the view.  Clue: it is very muddy on the towpath.

Sent from my HTC

So far so good

Well here we are 100 yards from where we started after an hour's cruise. No don't worry, we have had to get out of Calcutt marina and ascend three locks in that time. The new drive plate has made quite a difference. No big clunk when we engage gear and the engine seems very smooth and quiet. As to the alternator, they bench tested the old one and it was giving over 16v on the bench even after having a new regulator fitted. So that's good news, meaning there is nothing else wrong with the electrics.

Calcutt give good value I reckon. 270 quid for a new drive plate and alternator including fitting labour and vat.

We're staying put tonight and then moving to Braunston tomorrow. Me by boat and Kath by car and bus. The car has to get back to Crick.
Sent from my HTC

Our No 1 son becomes honorary coot.

Our son Richard who lives on his boat in Hartford marina on the Gt Ouse is having to paddle to his car to get to work. His pontoon is not of the floating type. I suppose that must mean the water level is at least  couple of feet higher than normal. He texted us an interesting observation to the effect that the coots that live on the bank near his boat usually scarper when he steps ashore, but since he has been wading they take no notice of him and swim around his feet.  I suppose they think he’s an honorary one of them now. That would make him very proud.

I know I’m a plonker for not taking any pictures of our cruise last week.  I should have got some brilliant ones at Braunston with all the mess the floods caused there.  I was just too hot wet and bothered at the time.  We start the return journey tomorrow with a new drive plate and alternator.  In theory that should make Herbie in tip top mechanical and electrical condition, but I feel somewhat like the guy who’s crashed a plane and has to be made to go up again to keep his nerve.  I’ll need a few miles under the belt before I can relax.  Hopefully there won’t be too much wind and water about.  The weather promises to be cold and dry.

Our worst ever cruise? Chapter 2

Wednesday (day 1) wasn’t all disaster.  Having turned off all the electrics in the boat to save the batteries, we paddled and splashed down to the Admiral Nelson to drown our sorrows.  I’m happy to say that the current landlords, who took over earlier this year, are doing a grand job and I would now give the Admiral a strong recommendation for food, drink, service and comfort.  After a good meal, Rick and I settled in a sofa by the log fire and gradually got ourselves back up to working temperature whilst relieving our mental stresses via a very nice Caledonian American style IPA.

Eventually though, it was back out into the cold starry night to splosh back up to the boat.  I was wearing my new LED head torch from Poundland (no expense spared) and as I glanced at the canal, I noticed that it wasn’t there.  At least the water wasn’t.  Someone had raised lock paddles to drain the flood, and completely emptied the pound.  Grrr.  That would cost us more time in the morning.

So we got up earlyish next day and Rick went off down to run water through the series of locks to fill up the empty pound.  Actually it didn’t take too long because there was plenty of head from above to wash the water down.  We started the engine and lo and behold, the alternator was behaving itself.  Half way down the flight we met a man from a boat coming up.  Please could we let some water through – the long pound below the pub had been emptied too.  Grrrr.  More delays.  At least it wasn’t raining, but the breeze was beginning to pick up.

Once down in Braunston we decided we deserved a treat, so we had breakfast at the gongoozlers cafe boat.  A proper fry up.  Lovely.  Now we were in better spirits.

Briefly.

Setting of again, we only just reached the turn onto the Oxford section when the alternator did its pieces again. 16.5 volts. Right. Time to deploy the Johnno method and disconnect the charge light.  Hey it works!

The engine revved up and the battery voltage stayed put at 13 point something. Putting on more speed to give us more steerage against the increasingly strong wind, we pressed on.  By now I was even more of a voltmeter anorak than ever and could hardly take my eyes of them.  Was I mistaken, or wasn’t the starter battery voltage dropping.  Checking the Smartgauge, it had dropped a bit.  Then three minutes later a bit more, then more, then still more.  Oh dear now what’s wrong.  Something is eating amps.

I remember Tony Brooks once saying that it did no harm to turn off the “ignition” switch completely, so I persuaded Rick to try. Well, we kept going and kept going and the voltage stayed put. I don’t really understand how it works, but with the key switched on and the exciter circuit broken, the alternator was kind of working in reverse.  Goodness knows where all that energy was going. In heat probably.  Had we not corrected it we might have a had a cable fire.

A text came in from Kath.  She was due to arrive at Calcutt by car to pick us up should we ever get there alive. “ I might be late.  I’ve locked myself out of the house and don’t have a key.  And I’ve strained my back lifting a box of logs and can’t bend.”  It never rains but it pours.

Actually it wasn’t raining.  The wind was now gusting to the point where it was beyond my boating experience, but the canal along there is wide and fairly empty so despite being frozen with wind chill, we got to Wigrams Turn in record time.  That’s when the real wind really hit us.  It was blowing straight down the canal. We could have held up a hanky as a sail and not bothered with the engine.

In 3 minutes we were at Calcutt top lock.  Hooray.  We’d made it.

Nearly.

I crossed over the lock gate and reported to the marina office where they had been expecting us.  “Aah you  made it then.  Your wife phoned to say you would be late.  Could you bring the boat down the three locks and into the marina?  It’s best to back in so you can put the rear of the boat against the wharf.”  Now that is very easy to say, and maybe if I were ten times as good a skipper and had a powerful boat with a bow thruster I might have done it.  But I’m not and we haven’t.

Getting into the locks as bad enough in that wind.  Rick had her well and truly pinned against an approach wall at one point.  Shouting out instructions against a howling wind and with chattering teeth didn’t help either.  But we made it down the locks.

Now just the marina entrance.  If I said the word choppy comes to mind, you get a tiny indication of what it was like. The wind was blasting us sideways at a rate of knots so with the spray lashing into my face and obscuring my specs I turned to point the boat across the canal and slid sideways until we got near the entrance then wacked on full power.  We would worry about how not to smash into the shiny boats inside the marina once we were through.  Miraculously we made it.  We didn’t even hit anyone.  Rick was in fact quite complimentary.

Backing on to the wharf was fun too, but we made it by going in forwards. Rick jumped off the front and lashed the rope onto a post while I did a handbrake turn to swing the back in against the wind.  Now we were alongside, so I tied off the back and Rick let go the front.  Immediately the wind took the front and blew us neatly into line with the other stern end moored boats.  It worked perfectly.  No-one was watching.

Big sigh of relief.  We had made it.   After a while Kath arrived in the car.  Then Jim arrived.  Jim is the Calcutt engineer who did most of the work we had done there when we had new engine mounts and camshaft and all that.  We recounted our alternator woes, and asked him to deal with that as well as the drive plate.  Looking in the engine bay, he pronounced that there was sufficient space to make the drive plate an easy job.  At last some good news.

Even better when we got a phone call next day to say it was all fixed and it only took a couple of hours labour to do both jobs.  I’ve seen Jim work.  He’s quick.

Did we rush back to pick up the boat?  Not likely.  We’ve seen the weather forecast.  Calcutt had too and they are quite happy for us to leave it until all this stuff blows over.

Such fun.

Our worst ever cruise?

Yes, we were out on the boat in That Weather this week. Not hunkered up in a safe spot, but on a journey. And it’s one I won’t forget in a hurry.  Rain, floods, empty pounds!!!!!, and a worrying technical problem. Its a long tale so you can have episode one today and number two tomorrow.
I had arranged to take Herbie to Calcutt for a new drive plate and we were due there on Thursday morning. All I had to worry about was the drive plate not failing en route.  Or so I thought.
Kath (lucky her) was otherwise engaged so Rick volunteered to crew.  Asleep on the boat on Tuesday night, I could hear the rain drumming on the roof, and by the time Rick arrived  early on Wednesday morning the water level in the marina had already risen by several inches.  No matter, we had waterproof clothes and there was little wind so we deployed the Brolly Mate umbrella holder on the tiller and set off towards Watford staircase. 
Arriving at Watford was strange.  It was completely deserted.  No lock keepers. No signs telling you to book in. Nobody at all.  So we set off down the locks on our own initiative. So far so good.
The rain continued to pour and the canal was the colour of milky coffee, but we were OK.  Then I chanced to routinely check the charging voltage. Flipin’ Nora ( I paraphrase)  16.5 volts!  Some of you might not think that strange but believe me it is.  The batteries would be boiling off hydrogen gas at some rate.  If the hydrogen gas didn’t ignite and explode, the batteries would fairly quickly go dry and be permanently damaged.    Aaaargh.  We noticed that volts were proportional to engine speed so we throttled back to tickover (15.5v) and drifted on at a snails pace to get help at Welton marina.
With rain dripping off my nose, I entered the office and the lady remarked that I looked as if I was having a bad day.  Well it wasn’t about to get any better because it was their engineer’s day off.  OK, we’ll call out River Canal Rescue.  Welton smiled and said, ”They’ll probably call us first , and  doubt they’ll have the right alternator with them anyway.”  “Can you turn on all the electrical devices in the boat to drop the voltage?  A washing machine, a fan heater? Lights?”  Not us, I’ve spent the last two years installing LED’s, getting a very low wattage telly and eliminating anything that eats power.
We returned to the boat and fiddled with a few wires round the alternator. Starting up the engine, hey, I don’t know what we’ve done but it’s fixed!  Maybe some water (there was plenty of it) shorting out summat.  So we pressed on.
On the summit pound between Norton junction and Braunston, there’s a weir spilling water into a gulley which goes out across the fields below.  Well, that was like the Olympic white water canoe cataract.  On the canal itself the current towards the weir was a couple of knots at least.  It felt like we were on the river.
Approaching Braunston tunnel we could see what appeared to be a fountain.  Water off the surrounding land was pouring down a pipe with such force that when it hit the canal it created a standing wave about three feet high although fortunately there was room to sneak past it. Going through the tunnel was going to be fun – not.  In fact worse than that.  After a brief bacon roll stop we entered the tunnel,and the alternator went berserk again.  Oh no, now we could get a hydrogen explosion in the tunnel.  Really we had little choice but to press on.  At tickover, against a two knot current, Braunston tunnel takes a surprisingly long time to pass through. 
It looked like our plans to get to the Folly at Napton for the night were well and truly shot. At the top of the locks we pulled in and I walked (actually, that’s not true, I waded up to my ankles) down to the bottom of the locks to get alternator advice.  And where better than Union Canal Carriers where the esteemed Johnno fixes everything on their hire fleet.
He would replace the alternator if we wanted next morning, but he advised us not to attempt the locks that afternoon.  I sensed he was not wrong.  Water was gushing and swirling everywhere.  The towpath was inches deep all the way down.  Water was pouring over all the gates.  In the pound above the Admiral Nelson there appeared to be some sort of maelstrom, and the brick ramps where you walk up to the locks from under the bridges were like waterfalls.
Johnno also told me how to safely disable the alternator if we wanted to press on to Calcutt next day and get them to sort it.  What you have to do is disconnect the field wire that excites the windings.  The simple way to do this is to disconnect the charge warning light.  At least I was learning something useful out of the experience.
So we stayed put overnight, waiting for the water to calm down.  The forecast said it would be dryer next day,.  Oh good. Only with 60mph winds. Oh B*gger.  By now I was feeling very grateful that I  had kept an old pair of wellies on board.  At least I had dry feet.
Next day was quite different.  Not better, just different.
Stay tuned.

Something I bet you never realised

Well I didn’t anyway.  Did you know that it takes more water for a boat to go up in a lock, than it does to go down?

I can see it now, but only because I read a section in Inland Waterways of Great Britain and Ireland (see yesterday’s post).

It quotes an essay by Mr W O’Brien which won the Canal Association prize in 1858.  Its a bit wordy and long winded so I’ve simplified the text and used more modern mathematical language.

The loss of water caused by the passage of a boat through a lock is as follows:-
Let W = the loss of water,
Let L = a lockfull of water as calculated by the surface area x the depth of rise or fall
Let B = the volume of water displaced by the boat.
When the boat ascends, the loss of water W= L+B
When the boat descends, W= L – B

Hmmm. You see when the boat comes into the bottom of a lock it pushes out B amount of water.  The lock fills with L gallons, then when the boat leaves the top of the lock another B gallons is drawn in from the canal above the lock. So it has used up L+B.

Going down.  The boat gives back B gallons to the canal above as it comes in, so the lock has L-B galloons in it, which is what is lost when it drops. I think that’s what it implies anyway.

That being so, we ought to have canals designed by M C Escher so we’re always going down hill.



Or thinking of it another way, shallow drafted boats like Herbie are cheaper (in water terms)  than deep boats like the coal boats Ara and Archimedes going uphill, but it’s the other way round going down.  Good innit?

Oooh, I just noticed that this is my 1006th post!! What a pity I missed out on doing a special thousandth edition.  Aah well, when we get to 2000 I'll do one.

Canals 1960 style

They say if you can remember the sixties, you weren’t there.  Well I can and I was. It was fab. 

I’ve been reading through a 1960s book that Rainman kindly gave to me. Inland Waterways of Great Britain and Ireland compiled by Lewis A Edwards Hon Sec of the IWA (1950-58).  Published in 1962 this tome takes over where the 1904 Bradshaw’s (see my recent post) takes off.  It uses a lot of the original Bradshaw’s data but augments it and updates where necessary.  It also has some very interesting general remarks about the state of the waterways at that time e.g.

In the Foreword by Robert Aickman – “Over the last 100 years, through public inertia and the destructive activities of those responsible for competing forms of transport, British inland waterways have fallen largely into ruin and almost entirely into oblivion” Well at least bits of it have improved since then.

In the Preface: “The National water shortage, coupled with serious flooding in many areas is an anomaly the nation can ill afford . . “ Ring any bells?

Then in a very detailed and  interesting section on Derelict Waterways, “Usually canal and river navigations were promoted by Act of Parliament though there were numerous short private canals constructed.  These Acts almost invariably laid down statutory rights and provisions, which in many cases have been flagrantly ignored.”

Too right! You don’t have to look far into the detailed data sections to spot one or two of these flagrant breaches of responsibility.  For example on the Middle Levels the book reminds us that headroom under bridges should by statute have been 8ft.  Oh Yeah?

7ft would have been nice!  As the book says, several of these bridges are only 6ft above the water.

On the Basingstoke canal, the book reports “This canal is not in a good state of maintenance”

No change there then.  Oh look , a Special Note:

“A curious legal situation surrounds this waterway.  No part of it has been abandoned by Act of Parliament.  Its construction was promoted by Act of Parliament in 1778.  The original company  due to railway competition, was wound up in 1869.  In 1910, this winding up order of 1869 was found invalid, and that the responsibility for upkeep and the power to exact tolls remained vested in the ghost of the original company”  No wonder the various authorities involved today still can’t seem to get their act together.  The people responsible for upkeep have been dead for over a century!

Finally, a look at Cruising Licences on the Nationalised Waterways in 1962

Powered pleasure craft  - vessels class A over 50 ft. Annual licence £16.  Todays value based on Govt. inflation records  - £280.  Hmmm my licence costs more than double that, but at least many of the waterways are in better nick than in 1960.

Excellent book Rainman.  Thanks.

First the chores, then we can all join in the fun

There’s work to be done on Herbie before the year is out. For these jobs I shall be deploying the most versatile of all marine engineering tools, – the cheque book.  Alright, the Visa Debit Card actually, but cheque book sounds better.   I could attempt taking off the gearbox and changing the drive plate, but frankly I’d rather have it done by somebody who won’t do more harm than good in the process, so we’re booked in again at Calcutt next week.  Rick will be crewing and so it would be churlish of me not to take the short detour en route for an evening at the Folly, so he can be fed and watered.  (When I say watered, . . . . )

Then after all that is done,we are due for blacking at Crick early in December.  I could do that myself too, but I find the idea of getting cold and wet pressure washing a hull in winter, then getting black and sticky whilst layering on black and sticky stuff less than appealing.  It can come out of what we laughingly call Herbie’s sinking fund.

So those will be our last cruises of 2012.  One no doubt plagued by fallen leaves on the prop but hopefully silky smooth and clanking noise free on the return journey, and the other a two hundred yard marathon across the marina to the dry dock. I’m hoping for that one that the Daily Express (or was it the Mail?) headline earlier this week predicting  sub arctic temperatures in December was up to their usual standards of accuracy and it will in fact be reasonably warm.

And then (da tada da da da daaaaaah)

we can get on with our traditional end of year celebration.  Yes dear reader, you can get down to Moss Bros and book your DJ and/or polish up the tiara– it’s nearly time for the Herbie Annual Awards.  Hooray!!!!  All along the cut, nervous publicans wait with baited breath, towns and cities polish up their waterfronts, and boaters thank their lucky stars that they were nice to us this year as they all tremble at the thought of being nominated for one of these coveted awards.

Alongside the traditional awards for Best Pub, Best Overnight Mooring, Scariest Moment and all the other old favourites, we’re open to suggestions for new and exciting categories.  Send us your ideas. One we’d like to give this year will be for Best Photo on Another Boater’s Blog.  I’ve seen some great candidates for that and you may have too.

At the Grand Finale we’ll once again be announcing the winner of the Herbie Special Award for 2012 for someone who has done something really special this year.   It’s as near as you can get to a Knighthood without going to the palace. 

Stay tuned.