Fought our way to Coventry

It was cold and foggy when we got up with a mist running up the canal, but you could tell it was going to be a lovely day. We pulled the pins at around 10.45am and set off up the Oxford. We passed Rose Narrowboats (a hire company) who were busy getting the next batch of customers boats ready. The Oxford is very pretty until you get within half a mile of Hawkesbury junction. Sutton Stop! as everyone calls it, is a shallow lock which used to be a toll house for use of the Oxford. We then turned south towards Coventry.....Brave move!

It brought back great memories of when we were at the Ricoh stadium to see Bon Jovi last June. We will have to try and get tickets to the next one and moor right outside. (at least they can't nick the wheels)

As we got closer to the city it got worse with junk in the canal. We were about to test that new prop, big time. We were picking up plastic bags at every bridge we went under and we could only do 2mph and the engine running at 1000rpm to avoid the stern going any lower into the water. We were dodging pieces of timber, bottles, cans and lumps of wire, but again with another flick of reverse it seemed to clear itself.

Its such a shame because there is so much history in this section of the Coventry canal and some of the areas are great and some are just dam well awful.

It seemed to take ages before we pulled under the toll bridge into Coventry Canal Basin and when we turned, there was only just one spot left. We never passed any boats leaving Coventry today, so we were very lucky to get in here.

We moored up right next to Mr James Brindley himself, who was always keeping a watchful eye on Derwent6. We wanted to venture out and see the city, but it didn't feel right leaving Derwent6 on it's own...it's a bit of a shame that...

Del went for a city tour and saw the Cathedral while Al cooked the dinner on Derwent6.

We sat out in the cratch, as the sun set on the basin, just watching the mad city life go by, and we listened to the sound of police car sirens as we went to bed....Lets hope we sleep well !!!!!!

A call out of the blue

Another early start to see the Red Bulls win the GP. The sun was at it's best today and we couldn't wait to open the cratch covers and have breakfast.... We then cleaned the boat, it was so warm we didn't feel like moving, and then out of the blue we got a call on the mobile and that decided it...we'll stay put today!

It was a lazy day watching others along the canal with their friends turning up, BBQ's going, and people walking along the towpath.

At 4.30pm Maxine and Graham turned up with Troy and his girlfriend after going to Santa Pod for the day. It was a nice treat for us to see them again. We sat in the sun for a couple of hours and then decided to have something to eat. Passing us as we were talking were a couple who we met a the Crick show who are now having a Fernwood boat built, starting in June. It was nice to see them again and we wish them good luck in their build. We were advised to go to The Bull Inn in Brinklow for something to eat, and what a great choose. It was great big portions at reasonable prices. We all had a good laugh, and thanks for another good afternoon and evening guys! (Yes, that is Al and Maxine on the childrens slide at the pub)

On our way to Brinklow

We were up early to watch the qualifying of the Grand Prix and then we did some Tesco's shopping before heading off to Brinklow. We took in some beautiful scenery along the way passing through Newbold tunnel with it's pretty lights through the middle, and The Boat Inn pub which now sadly is a cottage.

We then passed Oaks wood to take up our mooring. It was very busy with boats along this stretch, but after lining up a gap we slotted Derwent6 in. After tea and cake we set off for a walk into Brinklow. We followed the old Brinklow canal arm which still holds water and then passed a large hump of earth which used to be a Motte and Bailey castle to protect the Fosse way and Brinklow village itself.

Brinklow has a lovely 15th century church, and the village has two pubs, a Chinese takeaway and a Fish and Chip shop, it also has a post office. We came back along the lane to the towpath at Oaks Wood to get back to Derwent6.

We just managed to get a signal here so we sat and watched Saturday night TV.

Well it looks like the gauge has packed up on the waste tank and for the first time the freezer has been used with stuff in it. We don't know how the batteries will cope and will have to count our days on our waste until we ask Fernwood to sort out this problem. We are still picking up bits and pieces with the prop, but it still seems to be clearing itself.

Were on our way !

Well we woke up this morning to a poo smell coming from the engine room and leaking into the bedroom...how nice was that!

The gauge on the waste tank was showing just under nine and it goes to ten, but when we checked the bilge there was a definite leak from the tank. This may have been caused by the steep ramp when Derwent6 came out of the water.

So we set off to get a pumpout at Braunston. The weather was damp but dry and Derwent6 was quite fun to steer with the new propeller fitted yesterday. We arrived at the DIY pumpout station and we were surprised it was empty. We already had a token and the tank drained very easily, but when we checked the gauge again it was showing past the zero mark. It had never done this before, because when we had emptied the tank before, the lowest it had gone was just below one.

Anyway we then went round to the water tap and filled up with water and while we were doing this we cleaned out the bilge with disinfectant. This is not an easy task, as the waste tank is under the tumble drier and washing machine. We will see if that improves things!

Well, we were full of diesel, empty waste tank and full with water so it was off we go......

We set off towards Rugby seeing both n.b Piston Broke and n.b Moore2life with their new blacking again, and it was lovely to see three other couples on the way shouting "we follow your blog" We are so glad you're all enjoying it as much as we are..........

We got through Hillmorton locks, watching some of the hire boats struggling.The new prop performed great in the single locks, but we still haven't mastered reversing yet. We got used to reversing Derwent6 with the old prop using the 70 degree tiller technique but on the Axiom prop there is more flow past the tiller, and it's easy to lose the bow, and hard to get it back again. Time will help here!

On getting into Rugby we could feel more rubbish in the canal being picked up by the prop as we had various noises on the way, once nearly stalling the engine. We had never had that before!

Just a quick blip in reverse seemed to clear it very quickly luckily.

One hire boat had come off it's moorings as they were in the pub...they are in for a nasty shock when they come out. We managed to just get by it.

And this lot were having so much fun! How many can you get on the front of a narrowboat!

We arrived in Rugby at 5.00pm and sorted ourselves out before going down to Frankie and Bennys for something to eat and then to see the film "The Boat that Rocked" which we thought was great and the music was fantastic. We think our age group helped!

P Day

We set off this morning in between showers and after a bit of a queue through the locks we got to Calcutt marina at around 12.30pm.

Alan and Dave from Axoim propellers, (http://www.axiompropellers.com/axioms-propellers-for-narrowboats ) were waiting for us to arrive. We moored up along side the ramp which had a large trailer like thing with four tall legs on it. The guys from Calcutt then took the tiller of Derwent6 and backed up into the marina. The trailer thing was then lowered into the water with just the four tall legs showing above water level. Derwent6 was then steered between these legs and with still a lot of forward momentum was Oinked out of the water. It all happened so quickly.

So Derwent6 was high up out of the water and we then got the step ladders and recovered the camera, scrubbing brush, sponge and the hull protection paint.

It then started to tip it down..... below the water line Derwent6 was covered in a green slim and algae which we started to scrub off, while Dave and Alan started to remove the old prop. We were all getting soaked, but it helped in washing down the hull.

It was all done in about 45mins and we were ready to go back in the water.

One of the guys from Calcutt turned up and said "who's going to steer the boat"..."blimey it better be us then" we said. With that we had to climb up onto the trailer and onto the back of Derwent6. We started the engine and we were lowered into the water. The Bow seemed to come right up in the air and we could have done with a prop on the bow. We were worried about the plates again and other things sliding about. Once Derwent6 hit the water she glided back in reverse with no noise...a sigh of relief...

We took Derwent6 back to the side mooring and loaded our gear back on. Alan and Dave then came on for a spin and we took Derwent6 for a tour of the marina. The prop performed perfectly.

The first thing you notice is the power through the tiller in reverse where water is pulled past the rudder. The second thing was that water was flowing both sides of the bow evenly in reverse. The third thing was how quick it stopped.

There seemed to be so much more power available when needed which improved the turning circle. When mooring back up, it took some getting used to because you had to watch the power.

The great thing for us was that we couldn't hear the noise...We had no singing prop. yipppeee!!!

Alan and Dave from Axoim will be at the Crick show. They left us after seeing that we were happy and with no noise we were over the moon.

We then left the marina and headed through the locks..Derwent6 feels a different boat and it will take a while to get used to it's new handing. We still had that nice slow speed for going into locks and stopping was better with the stern not pushing out as much. There was no need to rev the engine, as idle speed was sufficient for the correction of any movement.

We then got Diesel at Calcutt which is in between the locks...Good move as they weren't worried about your split and at 59p a litre and a empty tank we were over the moon again.

When we got to the top we could now do some cruising, we passed some moored boats and we've got to say the wake....well there wasn't any... you could creep pass boats and no-one would know you were there. When we got up to normal cruising speed (about 1500rpm) we found out we were going too fast, so backed it off to 1200rpm, this will be a massive saving on fuel comsumption.

We only went about a mile and the rain started again, so we moored up for the night. We took off our wet things and when entering the boat found that the candle on the cratch table had moved right to the end...our luck was still running!

Well the verdict on the prop?....too early to tell !!!

The good points already noted are

1/ The noise has gone!

2/ Lower rpm on cruising, lowering fuel comsumption

3/ Less wash when passing moored boats

4/ Easier to moor with less stern movement in reverse

5/ More power for stopping and turning

6/ Less tiller vibration

We did notice a lot of wash when manovering about because of the pressure passing the rudder, and water noise on the stern didn't seem much different than the screw prop (and this was with the diesel tank empty and full), but we are still finding our way with it all.

We are looking forward to going out tomorrow....weather pending!

Retracing our footsteps again

When having breakfast this morning we spotted this woodpecker locating some worms. We decided to set off this morning and headed back through the tunnel. We met two boats, one right on the kink and the other, a large coal boat, but we got through unscathed. We are once again retracing our footsteps because we need to get back to Calcutt for Thursday. We got through the locks just as it started to drizzle, so we moored up in Braunston as we wanted to use the butcher again. We noticed n.b Moore2life (http://www.moore2life.blogspot.com/ ) out of the water, having it's blacking and engine problems done. Ann was out walking the dog and we sat and chatted for about half an hour. Al set off up to the post office to post a card to Tanya for passing her driving test (well done girl)

The sun then came out so we set off at around 5.00pm to find a mooring in quiet surroundings, passing n.b Piston Broke ( http://nbpistonbroke.blogspot.com/ ) on the way. They have a great piston on the roof from a Spitfire engine, but sadly we didn't have the camera.

We then had a nice curry with organic chicken and watched TV. We don't know why, but we felt knackered, early night we think!!

Making new friends

Woke up today to a cow mooing right outside the porthole in the bedroom and another one trying to pull the pins for us....Who needs an alarm clock!

As we opened the cratch cover two swans came floating by through the suns rays. It was a lovely warm day and we sat out in the cratch for about a hour before we decided to set off to Whilton marina. We needed to get some hull protection paint as Derwent6 will be coming out the water on Thursday. Derwent6 has been coated with Rylands Colflex VT which is a Vinyl tar paint which can be put on over anything. We will be blacking the underneath and stern, if it has been marked and around the bow, if we can get to it. More about that Thursday!!!!

We popped into the canal shop which is someones house in the middle of the Buckby locks, it was doing a roaring trade with loads of canal memorabilla. We picked up a peg tin and some place mats.

We got to the bottom lock and round the corner we heard someone shout "it's Del & Al from Derwent6" not ever having met these people before we were a bit shocked, but soon learnt that it was bloggers Roger and Pip from n.b Windsong.(http://www.nb-windsong.blogspot.com/ )Their boat is being built at the moment and should go into the water in May, they were so excited and we knew how they felt. Good luck to you both. It was nice to be recognised by someone you had never met before. We chatted for about half an hour before going into the Chandler's.On our way back we saw our first Easter chicks, and just couldn't pass the pub without popping in for a ploughman's and a pint.

When we got back to Derwent6 we had to battle our way past the cows who we made friends with over the afternoon. This one wanted Al's cup of tea.They were licking the side of the boat and we felt like turning round so they could clean the other side.

N.b Clarance pulled up along side us, they had gone out their way to meet up with us when we were at Rugby and are good friends of Fernwood. It was good to see them on their boat and we must say, it looked fantastic.

We then did some cleaning inside and touched up some paintwork and set up the aerial for the football tonight. We also put some anti slip matting down in the cupboards, so we don't lose anymore plates!!!!

Easter trip Day four

We got up early today with the sun shining through the portholes...Yipppeeee!!!!

We got out the chairs and had a fried breakfast out on the towpath...While we were there we spotted someone else wanting breakfast. A owl was scanning a field opposite us and diving down to eat his next catch. This was the best shot we got of him.

We set off at around 1.00pm and passed n.b Moore 2 life (http://www.moore2life.blogspot.com/). It was nice to see them as Ann was walking the dog past us during the morning, but we didn't know who she was...we will have to catch up some day.

We took a steady cruise down to Braunston taking in the wildlife, and hit the bottom lock with no queues, but when we got to the Admiral Nelson we were in a queue of four. There we met Brian and Diana off n.b. Harnser (http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/) on the way back to Napton. It was good to chat while waiting for the locks.

We then hit the tunnel and only met two other boats, but it was a bit foggy in there. The good old Frances lamp lit up the way for us. We got to Norton junction at around 5.30pm and reversed back to the water point to have some chilli and rice, while we filled with water. Bernie and Sarah loaded up the car for their return trip and we then took our mooring spot for a coffee and our last goodbyes.

Thanks guys for a super Easter weekend!!!!