Hoop La

 The best ideas are always stolen. Adam has given me food for thought about shedding rain off the rear deck tonneau cover we plan to make. Thanks Adam.  Of course he knows more than most of us about narrowboat designs, having been Canal Boat magazine's boat reviewer for a long time. He says some boats support their tonneau covers using a system of curved slats.  Of course. Doh! There's me thinking about a tent ridge pole when at home I have a couple of tents that use fibreglass hoops to support the roof. In fact nearly all modern tents do that. Ridge poles went out of fashion a long time ago.

Hoops do require two things to be effective.

1. a firm anchor at their ends and

2. the fabric to be stretched reasonably tightly between the hoops i.e. at right angles to them

We would I suppose need two or three hoops to do the job and I would need to make some sort of brackets to hold their ends firmly, Thinking about our tents, which have quite flimsy but strong fabric, the lightness of the fabric is a help in avoiding puddles forming as it flaps a little bit in the wind.

Val Poore (Hi Val)  asks about the fabric we use. Its a finely woven fabric with some sort of waterproof impregnation on one side.   Its light but strong and comes in a range of colours.We got ours on Amazon, where there are several suppliers. Just search for waterproof canvas. Here's a screen shot of one of them

In other news: Our " little" grand daughter Grace is 18 years old tomorrow.  Where did all that time go?

Here she is at her last years birthday with big brother Jacob

Grand Designs mark II

Sometimes it takes two goes to get something right. Just ask Spacex!

Three years ago we made a rain cover for Herbie's side hatch doors. Here it is:

Good quality waterproof fabric with the cunning ruse of sewing magnets into the border seams.  

It worked a treat and cured the leaks of rainwater we were previously getting from the edges of the doors. It was simple to attach and remove too.

Then in sometime in the winter of 2023 it disappeared, presumably ripped off by one of the winter gales. So we're going to make another, still using magnets on the sides and at the bottom, but this time Ime going to use eyelets and turn buttons at the top.

The water proof fabric did what it said on the tin and was not expensive so we'll use the same.

This is all a pretty simple job, but we fancy having a crack at another, more ambitious, mark II.

The tonneau cover over the rear deck.

We did inherit one when we bought Herbie and it stood in good stead for some years. However it had one crucial fault. Puddles of rain would collect on top of it. Then in the winter of 2019 the puddle got so big that when I baled it out with a saucepan I calculated that the water weighed a hundredweight!

As you can see the poor old tonneau cover was stretched mightily and not long after that, after more heavy rain, it catastrophically tore apart. I vowed at the time that if we got or made another, we would rig up some sort of ridge pole so that the water would run off the sides rather than collect in the middle.  We still have hooks on the side of the boat to secure the bungee chords and there are some turn buttons on the roof just forward of the rear hatch, so that's our starting point.  

The difficult bit is going to be getting the geometry right and our plan is to bodge up a template using an old sheet which we can drape in situ and then tailor to fit.  I can put a bracket on the hatch lid to hold one end of the ridge pole but I'm not sure yet about supporting the other end. maybe some supporting A frame or simply a 'tent pole' standing on the deck. Hmmm, I could I suppose make a slat across the rear deck with a hole in it to locate the foot of the tent pole.  (I'm thinking as I write here folks!).  Actually I have a few old tent poles in the shed at home. I'll have a rummage and see what I can find.  See, this is one benefit of writing things down in a blog post; it gives you ideas.

Kath of course will be the sewmeister with her trusty sewing machine. One problem is that the fabric can't be bought wide enough to do the job without a seam, but having been campers for many years, we now about seam sealants so I'm sure we can amange that.

Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath. This looks like a non trivial task and could take some time.  There might well end up being a mark III before we get it right.

Is a shiny roof a good thing?

Is a glossy boat roof a bad thing because of the sun's reflections dazzling the helmsman?  I'd be glad if anyone can enlighten me.  

We've always gone for a matt or satin surface, mostly raddle, but I have a suspicion that it might not be so hard wearing and is more susceptible to grime.  I do notice that when we wash Herbie's roof that the run off water takes on some of the raddle colour. I don't know, but I imagine a gloss surface might not do that so much.

The gentleman a few boats across from Herbie has just repainted his roof with International Toplac Plus which is a more modern formulation with the advantage that you can just roller it on withouth having to lay it off with a brush.  He certainly made short work of it and got a good finish with just a foam roller.  It does however produce a gloss finish.

I know some hire fleets use gloss paint on their roofs, Wyvern and Heyford spring to mind.  These folks would go for hard wearing I suppose.

If anyone can venture an informed opinion, I'm all ears.

It would take a great deal of persuasion for me to change from Craftmaster paints on the cabin sides, which are of course gloss. It's such lovely stuff to paint with and goes on easier and covers better than anything else I have tried.  However, I have a problem because they no longer offer the Light Grey colour we previously used, and I don't have sufficient left of the old paint to complete the job. I suspect they might have abandoned that shade because it did change colour after a while, presumambly from the action of UV light.  Our old Light Grey has taken on a distinctly blue hue.  

I some lights it can look extraordinarily blue like here:

That was at our lovely mooring spot at Ventnor marina, which wasn't so lovely in that that flippin' weeping willow tree draped wet leaves all over the roof in winter and played havoc with the paintwork.  Which brings me back to my earlier question. Would a hard gloss finish survive that sort of thing better?

Remembering what we did and when we did it.

I knew I had something to write about when I opened Blogger to create this post but I can't remember what it was.  

Oh yes, Memory.

For the blogger, it's not the fame and the adulation that keeps us going. It's not the millions we make from endorsing boat shampoo or the prospect of a Nobel prize for Literature. It's a couple of simple things.

1. To let family, friends and followers know what we are up to, and sometimes pass on useful information or sometimes simply to entertain,

and

2. To keep a diary so we can remember what we did and how and when (and sometimes why!).

Some years ago I had a number of printed books made from the hundreds of blog posts I had written. I used  a service called Blog2Print, now sadly out of business but competitors offering the same service remain. (e.g Pixxibook) It's dead simple, you just send them your blog /instagram/ wordpress etc link and the required start and end dates and pay them a lot of money( at my current rate of posting an A4 colour hardback book covering four years would cost £75! Bloggers who post more often and longer posts would probablly only get a years worth for that),  and they create and print the book.  It's only money. You could spend that on a meal out for two.

So when some fiendish Russian hackers delete the internet, or Google gets fed up and cancels Blogger, you still have hard copy.  You can see it's not cheap but I think mine have been worth it.

This week I've been re-reading the 2010 Herbie blog book. 177 posts, 232  A4ish pages! Here it is.

To save costs at the time, I had this one done in soft cover and black and white photos. The first one I had done in hardback and colour and it was twice the price as far as I recall but is was nicer.

I could of course have just read through all the posts on screen using the dated links on the right hand side of the blog page (if you are reading on a tablet of computer rather than a phone), but the book is so much handier and browse-able.

When did we last install new batteries? (2019 apparently, actually that's not too bad), How old is our first solar panel? (15 years!)  Which was that other year when the canal reservoirs were very low? (It was 2012). When did we move to Crick marina?  etc

You get the idea.  Of course the blog page has a handy little search box to help with finding the answers, but what about the non specific stuff you have just forgotten.  The reminiscences and all that. Browsing the pages of a book brings it all back.

We're back at home now and reading through the 2010 book I was astonished to discover how much thought and preparation -and angst - I had put into planning the repaint of Herbie - the infamous Paintfest of April 2010.  I had remembered all the work we did in the wet dock but I had completely forgotten about all the lead up plans and preparations. I'm doing more paint planning now so lessons learned back then are coming in handy.

Then of course I browsed on past the Paintfest, remembering the Little Venice cavalcade, past boat journeys, seeing photos of toddler Grace, remembering seeing the Severn bore . . . Aah those were the days.

Hmmm, I think I might look into getting some more books done of more recent times.

What the ******! is going on?

 When we woke up this morning our boat was heeling over a bit, but not because the water level had dropped but because it had risen by a further 5 inches (my estimate) overnight! I had to go out and loosen off our ropes - not easy when they're stretched really tight.

Two days ago we were stepping UP from the boat to the pontoon, now we're stepping DOWN. Look-

We have to assume that CRT are letting more water down the lock flight for some good reason, but it's a puzzle. Huge stretches of canal are closing all over the land because of low water levels.  I wandered up to the canal entrance to the marina where we have had stop planks installed. Fat lot of good they have done, the water levels either side have been equal all the time.  Anyhow last week it was like this

see the metal Arnco rail a couple of inches above the water level on the far bank?  Well today it's under water

Stupidly I took this photo from the other side, but they're the same.

Looking at the far canal bank, I would say the water is a little above the normal 'good' level.

The canal is of course still closed to boating for a good number of miles around here and I'm sure this rise is very local.

It did rain for something like an hour this afternoon, but that can be nothing to do with it. I doubt if it was more than a milimetre's worth.

Hey ho. I was going to write 'Ours not to reason why', but I can't help reasoning why.

Toodle pip.

The Waters Rise!!

 We awoke this morning to find the marina water level had risen by nigh on three inches. This tells us two things:

1. CRT have been letting some water down the Claydon flight, probably to stop lock gates shrinking and also to facilitate some work boats around Broadmoor lock where they are installing new sheet piling

2. The stop planks separating the marina from the canal must be letting water through

Anyhow we're all pretty pleased. I reckon the water depth at Herbie's stern is now 4ft which should gove us a 2ft clearance.

Rain is coming tomorrow so after top coating the side hatch doors this morning, I've suspended all painting work for the time being. It took me a good 40 minutes to clear all the tools, accumulated rags, spent abrasives, bottles and cans of various painting related substances from the deck locker tops.  Finding somewhere to put it all is a bit of a challenge but its done.

I was a bit disappointed in the finish on the hatch doors at first as they look very brush marky, but coach paint is amazing stuff and as it dried out it has flattened to a decent finish. 

Here's before and after. Ignore the scruffy surround, that's a job for another day. A lot of the brown stuff is just Fertan rust treatment.

Those doors haven't looked that good for probably ten years. You can see how much the old paint has changed colour over time. The new paint on the doors is exactly the same paint as the pale blue looking either side. Craftmaster Light Grey.

Although there is a huge amount still to do, Herbie is looking radically better then she did 6 months ago. Quite frankly she was looking a bit of a wreck then. I think one of the biggest factors in getting this done has been the use of a good cordless orbital sander and  a cordless angle grinder. They make relatively easy work of getting rid of old flaky paint and pitted rust and not having to worry about trailing power leads makes quite a difference.

Now I'm putting my feet up for a short while.

An easy job for me, but no work for boatyards

 The grass cutting contractors are busy around the marina today.  I suspect they have some sort of regular booking because in truth there ain't much length to cut what with all the dry weather.  Interesting too that they at work on a Bank Holiday.  Anyway I shall not be doing a lot of work today because it's too hot for painting. 

Yesterday I had the onerous job of watching paint dry. I laid the side hatch doors on one of the marina's picnic tables and gave them a layer of undercoat, which only took about ten minutes.  Then in order to make sure any of the local cats, including our Gertie, didn't walk all over them I sat on guard until they were touch dry.  A tough job but somebody has to do it.

No they're not all blotchy, that's just the shadow of the bushes.  In fact they came up really well especially considering how scabby they were before I started.  After the top coat they should look spiffing. That's probably a job for tomorrow.  Meanwhile I might do some more rubbing down of the side door surround and hinges.

It's a pleasant spot to sit in with this view in front of you, so I wasn't complaining.

Our basin at Cropredy has an unusually wide expanse of open water. Most marinas have a far smaller space between the rows of boats either side.

The water level continues to fall and some boats with low to the water gunnels are in danger of having the gunnels trapped under the pontoon when eventually the water rises.  We're keeping an eye on Herbie for that.  The word is that local canal related businesses are really suffering.  No boats cruising, so no diesel sales, no breakdown call outs,  no blacking customers can reach them, hire companies unable to provide routes etc etc.

Apparently CRT are occasionally letting some water down lock flights to stop the gates from shrinking as they dry out, but there are definately no boat movements for miles either side of us.

We are expecting some proper rain for a couple of hours on Wednesday and some light showers the rest of the week. If it raises Herbie by an inch I'll be pleasantly surprised.

An English Country Saturday

 Ships cat Gertie is having a whale of a time here at the marina. There are plenty of other cats to chase and they all seem non aggressive. She goes off goodness knows where for hours at a time, but always comes back to Herbie to check in and blag a meal or a treat.

Today we popped in to look at Cropredy Gardening  Club's annual show. It's hardly Chelsea flower show, but the little village hall had some cute exhibits of prize winning stuff like "four potatoes" or "Best tray of mixed vegetables", and of course there were best cake competitions.  After touring exhibits (which took about ten minutes) we took tea and cake , then retired to the Red Lion for a pint of whallop. What's not to like. This is real rural England.  

Just down the lane from the pub is Cropredy lock, so we thought we'd better go and have a look.  It is of course padlocked and chained shut because of the water shortage. There are boats moored above and below, but they won't be going anywhere for some weeks.

Back at Herbie the painting continues. The side hatch lid is now complete apart from a second coat of the red stripe.  

it doesn't look much but it is significant because it was previously the most rusty and pitted thiing on the boat.  The doors below were pretty bad too but now they're sanded and rust treated and ready for undercoating tomorrow.  They look terrible in this photo but in fact they're sanded really smoot and flat. 

With a bit of luck they'll come out as well as the aft cabin doors which are now finished and looking good.

Look at those reflections!

This is all more tortoise than hare but we're moving forward.

Eating the elephant

Now that it has turned somewhat cooler I've resumed  painting bits of Herbie. Odds and ends you might call them but they really needed doing.

First the bulkhead either side of the aft doors which had becaome faded and grotty. So lots of rubbing and cleaning then scraping and filling then more rubbing and more cleaning  and washing with sugar soap then white spirit then tack ragging got us to this.

After all that the actual painting only took a few minutes and now it looks like this

Any odd looking patches you see are actually relections.

The worst bit of rust on the whole boat I think has been the side hatch lid which in the spring looked like this

All that deeply pitted rust is where the old wooden handrail was.  

After much grinding and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and more sanding we got to this

which is actually fairly smooth, so after cleaning and tack ragging I slapped on an undercoat today and now we have this

Whoo hoo that's better. Once again umpteen hours prep and ten minutes painting. When we started I couldn't imagine it getting as good as that even it's not perfect. Top coats and the red stripe on the edge to come.  Then the dreaded hatch doors which are pretty ropey right now.

Meanwhile I've been prepping the aft cabin doors so they're ready for painting now.  Maybe tomorrow if the weather is right.

So one bite at a time we are eating the elephant.

Summer madness -swinging the lead

 It's one of the hottest weeks of the year, so what brilliant idea did we have?  "Lets go and sit in a hot tin box in a place where we're not allowed to move".

Well here we are on Herbie anyway, having a break from home.  Actually it's OK, we have  shade a few yards away and the open water of the marina does allow a cit of a breeze to blow across it.  The boats are all sitting lower against the pontoons because the water level has dropped by about six inches.  

Sexy socks eh?

I probed for the bottom with a pole and allowing for Herbie's draught (about 2ft at the back). I believe in nautical terms it's called taking soundings or sometimes swinging the lead -that sounds like me. I've been reading a book about Erebus, the ship that led Lord Franklin to his doom while trying to find the North West Passaage. Earlier in the book when the ship was exploring the Antarctic they were measuring depths of 1500 fathoms, that's 9000 feet!  That's lot of rope!  Meanwhile it looks like we have perhaps eighteen inches or more of water beneath the baseplate of the boat so were not in danger of grounding yet. At the bow end, near the bank the water is about six inches shallower. 

I saw some photos of the Wormleighton resevoir which feeds this part of the South Oxford canal showing it to be nearing empty.

The marina is sealed off from the canal with sheets and stop planks but looking at it I couldn't really discern any difference in surface height either side of the stop.

I suspect that there might not be such a good seal at the bottom when the pressure difference is so small as the plastic sheet doesn't get pushed so hard.  Is that right?

This weekend our grandson Jacob and his girlfriend Esme take over command of Herbie and ship's cat Gertie while we go to see our son Peter in Cambridge, then we'll be back for more going nowhere.

PS for anyone on the Thames, note this sign I saw in Marlow.

Don't say you weren't warned.

Too much water???

What with all the canal closures down our way due to lack of water, it was ironic to get an email  warning from CRT at the weekend of potential flash flooding and strong currents at the bottom of the Hanwell flight on the Grand Union. That's where the river Brent empties into the canal . I suppose the Brent runs through a lot of built up areas with water run off.  Well there was some very heavy rain but I don't know what the result was down there.  Of course the storms of the weeknd did freshen things up a bit, but they would have done very little to ease the reservoir problems.

Meanwhile how about this little poster we saw in a pub in Shrewsbury.

Sound advice I suppose. I'm surprised something of the sort isn't seen in some canalside pubs. Canal towpaths are not wide at the best of times and some of 'em can be very narrow and slippy not to mention pitch dark.  In our years as boaters we've heard of quite a few people drowned in the canal after a night on the booze. 

I'm not sure when we'll get back out to Herbie, marooned as she is in the now sealed off Cropredy marina.  We'll probably go up and stay aboard to do a bit more painting. I just hope she won't be sitting on the mud.

A happy sight and a grim experience

First things first. After my pervious lament about the dried up stream alongside our holiday cottage, I'm pleased to report that we walked up the valley (Ashes Hollow) yesterday and found running water. (BTW we are getting more and more messages every day of canal closures through lack of water.)

Ashes Water is fed by a spring called Boiling Well near the top of the Long Mynd.  I always find it strange that a spring should be found so high up, but there it is.  Anyway the gin clear water was gurgling over the rock bed of the stream. I'm always tempted to drink from it when I'm up there but I'm well aware that there might be a dead sheep in the water round the next bend.  I have encountered such a sad sight up there in years gone by.

The mystery is, of course, why is the stream dry further down?  I think it's because it runs through a patch where there is turf and mud, so it either gets absorbed  or goes underground somewhere.

Anyway, today it rained a bit. Not nearly enough to do any good fo course, but enough to encourage us to seek indoor entertainment so we went to prison.  I'm no stranger to prison of course because I have been inside on numerous occasions, but only in a professional capacity.  I've even been inside Dartmoor, although as most people know that's a hospital not a prison, even if the man ( nurse) who showed me round did look and dress like Mr  Mackay from Porridge.

So today it was Shrewsbury Prison, no longer in active service but open for guided tours. 

It is truly a grim place and far more oppressive than others I have seen.  It was only closed in 2013, not that long ago at all.  The  tour you get is very thorough (ours took two hours) and you get lots of stories of Victorian era cruelty by the staff and more modern day brutality among the inmates.  They do lots of tours for school parties and believe you me, the sights and stories you experience are enough to scare any youngster away from crime.  Worst of all is the visit to the execution room where a number of people have been hanged. The rope is still there and you can peer down into the 'drop room'.  Strangely I was more deeply affected by a visit to the little room where the hangman would sleep on the night before an execution.  

So there it folks, a pretty dark experience, but a real education and a total rebuttal of the notion that prison is 'soft' in the 21st century. The prison officers may be interested in reform but the prisoners are very often brutal to each other.

I think the sun is due to shine tomorrow.