Five years on

Several new jobs, and a move overseas, have all played havoc with our time spent on board North Star.
Five years after buying North Star, we are nearly completed with all the work. It feels like painting the Forth Bridge though.
I'm hoping to write up some of our cruises but more interesting for the family - who are now growing up and moving out - is probably what mum and dad are currently up to with the boat. 

Flash locks again

Three years ago, I wrote about flash locks, suggesting that one of the last operating flash locks in Britain was probably on Bottisham Lode in Cambridgeshire. At the time I couldn't find decent images of a flash lock. I am delighted that the old waterways books blog has posted on Thames flash locks, complete with a lovely engraving of one.

On the Mississippi in Baton Rouge

I've been on the Mississippi twice in a month. A few weeks back when the floodwaters were trashing Memphis and this last week, where I have spent time around Baton Rouge with those same floodwaters now receding slowly. They were starting to roll up the tiger dams but the water is still high. Just north of the port on the west bank, the waters still lap into the parkland.

Putting the orange and white tiger dams away as the waters recede

I don't know if the barge-trains stopped when the flood waters were at their highest, but they are moving again this week. Long, flat, deep pans of coal, gravel, grain being propelled through the grey muddy water by vast, squat tugs.

I see no pleasure boats and at the port authority they confirm they are not encouraged. The river is simply too busy and too dangerous for small, light craft. Baton Rouge takes Panamax ships - up to 80,000dwt - and the barge trains create significant wake across the width of the river. It's no place for little boats. I wondered how many leisure boats would be on the British canals if the waterways had adapted to larger cargo vessels down the years. Probably very few.

Tugs attend a swift-moving ship heading downstream on the Mississippi at Baton Rouge

Not sure whether I was more excited by getting out on the mighty river, or sitting near Iggy Pop on the plane back from Miami last night. Trouble is you don't want to disturb him. He's a bit scary!

Garmin - creating geographical blindness?

I have had a Garmin GPS for years. Possibly ten years. I once escaped arrest in China by pretending that my GPS unit was a mobile phone. Last Christmas, after our old Garmin GPS unit (called Daniel after one of the male voices that tells you where to go) started to become very unreliable, especially in London, was replaced by a newer, sexier model. The new model is called Daniel (after one of the voices on....errr....our old GPS unit) and is very slim-line, very Nuvi and very irritating.

The old Daniel used to scream blue murder if you drove within 5 miles of a speed camera. The new Daniel seems unbothered. He amost shrugs his shoulders in a huff as if to say "You want me to make noises as well as show it on my pretty little screen?"

But a far bigger irritation with the new unit - and I believe - all Garmin GPS units is that it shows me exactly where I am but with no real context. A couple of weeks ago I drove from New Orleans to near Baton Rouge and noticed that the main references visually and as reference 'cues' were road numbers...I-10, Highway 44, Highway 22. These take priority over place names, especially as every 'place' of any size in the US is a 'city'. There are no villages or towns, just 'cities'.

The Garmin maps in units everywhere use exactly this same context of roads, not places. This means that when I am driving along in an unknown area I have absolutely no idea where I am passing and where is just off my route. It often flags up street names, but not the name of the village, town or city in which the street sits. You drive along in a complete sea of ignorance, with no idea where you are, except that a) you are precisely here, now, b) what road you are on and c) when you next have to turn.

Garmins's GPS units are creating geographical blindness, a complete lack of spatial awareness.  The maps in Garmin units are not maps at all, just a means of filling in the bits between the road you are on now and another unknown road. Almost like a painting that manages to show nothing at all apart from what you want it to show at that moment. 

Stagnant Sunday afternoon at Lime Farm

I hate that day, every year, when you open the boat up after the winter. Today was that day for us, and we churned up the M11 and A14 to the bowels of North Warwickshire to return North Star to her cruising splendour. A levels, staggering amounts of travel (Washington DC last week, New Orleans next week) and a thousand other engagements have prevented us cruising at all so far this spring.

We have been on tenterhooks (whatever they may be) since the snow in December when we were iced in at Ansty and didn't manage to drain the water tank until a week later. Will we have survived without damaging the pipework? We don't know. Actually we don't know how we will know either, as the water pump is behind a bulkhead and so very inaccessible.

We decide that the easiest test - and quite possibly the stupidest - is simply to fill the tank and see if the boat floods or sinks. It doesn't, but we remain unconvinced. How on earth do you check all the pipework? Answers on a postcard.

Quite remarkably, the batteries have retained 70% charge and the engine putters into life almost instantly. With the pleasant rumble of the BMC in the background, we busy ourselves with cleaning inside and out, listening to the cricket and a bit of Wogan. You know you're getting old when you can listen to Wogan without feeling old. If you see what I mean.

The afternoon was humid, stagnant and just about typical for June: the sound of squirrels, pigeons and robins chattering all around, the air warm and perfectly still. Maybe opening the boat up isn't as bad as it used to be either. Maybe that's also a sign of getting older.

BCN Table of Distances

I recently bought one of the original BCN Table of Distances, partly because I had recently lost out in an auction for another BCN share certificate. And partly because I wanted it.

The BCN Table of Distances is heavy - just under 8kg - and is all solid, rubbed leather, bindings and heavy paper. Each of its one hundred pages simply shows the Birmingham Canal Navigations in strip form. Every branch, every arm, every wharf, bridge and lock.
My copy is copy Number 9 and is from the Short Distance Collectors Room. Quite what this was, or who they were, I don't know.

The long-lost Danks Branch 

I have gazed so longingly and wistfully at its pages - many covered in pencilled calculations - that my wife has suggested that I might want to date it. I also don't know who did all these calculations or why? Maybe someone writing about the BCN? A "short distance collector"? Who knows. All part of the mystery.

I do wonder how much more of the heritage of Britain's canal are sitting around in old attics and sheds?

Canal and Community: The Towpath Wars

Two hundred and fifty years of canal building has given Britain a wonderful legacy of waterways, spanning much of the country. Britain's canals bring leisure amenity into the very heart of cities, towns and villages forming a venue for so many interests: boating, canoeing, running, walking, angling and form a perfect backdrop often for those who just want to sit and reflect.

In the 1950s and 1960s, small groups of pioneering activists took on the mantle of protectors of the waterways. They spent years, working tirelessly to reconstruct - often from virtually nothing - and reopen abandoned and unloved stretches of dank, greasy waterway.

In the countryside, the amenity value is clear at its very highest, and the landscape value is also at a maximum. But the waterways are in crisis that extends far beyond the short-term funding and maintenance crisis.

Netherton Cottages 

On the one hand, there are those who take full advantage of the amenity and put nothing back. The classic example is the modern apartment or excecutive housing developments with their stern "No Mooring" signs and their unsympathetic landscaping. Both developers and house-owner benefits enormously from proximity to the water but shoo away those other users who actyually contribute more. I, and you, pay more financially in one year's BWB licence than these developers or house owners do in a lifetime sitting alongside the canal. Yet they earn, in premium land values, a considerable, and ever-increasing, sum.

On the other hand of the social scale, the potential amenity value is huge for inner city areas yet the canal remains largely blighted. Attempts to open up the canal to local residents seems, tragically, doomed to failure. For every successful intervention of landscaping and access provision, there are maybe thousands of failures: blackened, broken seats; broken railings; derelict, weed-strewn gardens; graffiti- littered bridges and walls; grass littered with old mattresses, smashed glass and blowing paper.

Much of Birmingham and the Black Country turns its back on the canals, erecting barriers at the end of their property to hide the canal from sight. For the canal is evil.

As the canal is hidden from sight, it becomes suitable ground for the scum of society, those who live only to destroy, distort and hurt. Those for whom damage and distress seems cool. The more the canal is isolated, the more it hides and nurtures the predators.

Our cruise through Wolverhampton last Sunday started with teenage boys through rocks and stones at us and ourt boat. Why? Because they could? Who knows?

It continued with a distressing physical attack by a lad on a girl, leaving her on the towpath crying.

Further along we saw many feral ponies, some in a poor state of health. Men hanging around furtively under bridges, gangs of youths idle, scowling. The canalside had become threatening and dark. All along, we saw extensive graffitti on every firm surface.

Two hundred and fifty years of history, heritage and industry turned vandal's playground; our leisure intrusion was clearly unwelcome. Our boat was a middle-class spectacle: something strange and something alien. We were asked by one of the stone-throwers "Are you foreigners?". A positive answer would have been the pretense for a barrage of rocks. As it was, a few were hurled towards us as we sailed away.

Yet among the darkness, there were many glimpses of light. Many people asked what the boat was like inside. Two years ago at Titford, a small group of initially unfriendly teenagers were won over by being invited on board to see the engine and the cabin inside. They knew nothing about the canal that ran close to their homes but were fascinated as we told them about the collieries, the maltings, the forges, the history.

"Probably my grand-dad," one said, as we talked about the men and women who worked in the grime, soot and unceasing noise. I told them there was a good book about it all, Dickens 'Hard Times'. They asked about the Pumphouse and - as there was an event on - I offered to show them inside. They were fascinated. Later that evening, in the dark and rain, they reappeared dragging a young policewoman.

"Show her the boat! Show here inside!" and so we duly did. Again, there was genuine interest in every aspect of it all, from the boat, to the canal, to the history. Yet no-one had ever bothered to reach out and explain.

Our societies all largely cater for a certain type of person. For the Birmingham Canal Navigation Society, it's boaters. For the angling societies, it's the anglers. The BCNS, in its instructions for the BCN Marathon Challenge, suggested that the Challenge was not just for boaters but also for anglers or walkers or cyclists "however you can". It was a fascinating suggestion, but one that was ultimately shallow, facetious even. How much attempt had been made to engage with these significant others, those who share our love of the canals.

It was certanly an opportunity to engage but one that was doomed to failure. Assuming these anglers, boaters, birdwatchers or cyclists knew enough about the Challenge to have obtained a set of the rules, how were they supposed to take part? Just make it up?

It confirms how little many of us know about others who use the same waterways. We recently discussed whether to go to the right of the canal as we passed a line of anglers, or the left or stay in the middle. Speed up or slow down? In the end, we confessed that we all had absolutely no idea. None of us had ever asked any one of the thousands of anglers we had passed.

If our urban canals are to survive another 60 years - and I fear many arms, branches and lengths in the Black Country will not - then we need, collectively as anglers, birdwatchers, boaters, businesses, cyclists, residents, skateboarders, walkers to work together. The canals are heritage for all. If we share our experiences, our interests and our demands, we will both defend and promote the canals better. The sooner we learn that we as boaters are just one part of the wider canal and waterways community and start looking to engage with others, then we will be a very big step along the path of furthering our cause of preserving it all. When our urban canals are safe, pleasant and contributing to the value of local residents, then our task will be that much easier.

Heron at Oldbury

BCN Marathon Challenge 2011

After a two year gap, while the Chasewater Reservoir was rebuilt and filled up from a BWB tap, the BCN Marathon Challenge brought about 30 boats to the clear, tranquil waters of the West Midlands again.

In an air of quiet, determined competition, half the battle is won in pubs, dining rooms and studies across the country, as teams plot their route to maximise the number of points. There are points for distance, points for locks, points for questions and multipliers for boat draught, number of crew and numbers of crew. More crew, less points; more draught, more points. Computer programmes get written and shared, tactics get debated in computer forum: "More crew, go for locks; less crew, go for distance".

2009 winner NB Muskrat and 2009 runner-up Tawny Owl were both known to be lurking on the BCN the night before, the former keen to retain their title, the Tawny Owl - on which I was a crew member - keen to replace them. We were also tweeting the event as @nbtawnyowl, even though not one member of the eight-strong crew really understood what tweeting was or how to do it.

They don't make bridges like this anymore

The weather forecast suggested cool, grey weather and as our bows rose up the top of the Crow, we were disappointed to see tug Joanna with not one but two butties, and former Yarwoods butty Manchuria, waiting for the off. Protocol dictated that first up, first out would prevail and we faced the prospect of descending the Crow behind two working boats and two bow-hauled butties. Quick discussions ensued.....should we start at the top and risk significant delay or return to the bottom of the Crow, get extra points for doing the locks twice but lose the 20 point Titford Pumphouse starting bonus? Oh questions, questions, questions.

Saturday dawned battleship grey, true to form and at the stroke of 8 o'clock, Tawny Owl slipped its moorings and headed down for Uncle Ben's Bridge. We planned to wind there although the instructions indicated the Navigation Inn winding point, we knew that there is no winding point there and that the bridge hole by the Navigation was very shallow.

We solemnly passed the shattered shell of the Langley Maltings, then ploughed down the 6 locks ahead of the working boats who, politely, had nodded the others through in front of them. With a crew of eight, locks are a breeze and a slick routine established itself quickly, using one lock's water to fill the next. We stuck our noses over the wall to ensure the little stub of the Jim Crow branch was still in water (it is) and commented approvingly on the restored - but unoccupied - cottage by the bottom lock.

All that remains of Combeswood Tubeworks

Our route took us through the Brades staircase and the Netherton Tunnel to "the dark side". Most of us confessed we had never been south of the ridge, so we were on new territory motoring down to Hawne Basin. We had passed Atlas and Malus in the Netherton, wreathed in orange smoke but saw only two more moving boats all morning as we marvelled at the luxuriant greenery along the Dudley Canal. In 2009, we had marvelled at the beauty of the Rushall and Daw End, this time it was the turn of the Dudley Canal. All agreed it was well worth a detour.

We realised that our planning was awry as we were 90 minutes ahead of schedule by the time we winded at Hawne, so decided we would earn 1 point for exploring the Boshboil Arm. On our return at Windmill End, we crossed at full tilt, to the astonishment of gongoozlers, into the 100m-long arm, before reversing out. We knew it was short, but not that short!

We earned no points for the return through the tunnel, but picked up the track again at Dudley Port Junction as we headed west again towards Wolverhampton. We used the Blue Book to identify the historic past of the area, struggling to imagine Spring Vale, Bilston Gas Works, the old Bantocks boatyard and all the industry around Catchem Corner.

Wolverhampton proved as undesirable as in the past, with our only trouble there - as last time out. Unpleasant, racist, stone-throwing youths were followed shortly after by the shocking sight of a young man punching a girl then stamping on her as she lay on the ground. Even as he turned his aggressive attention on us, we were on the phone to 999, requesting help. As someone with roots in Wolverhampton, I was as sad this weekend, as I was in 2009, that the only unpleasant experiences were in that town - not in Birmingham, Walsall, Oldbury, Dudley or Sandwell. We motored on towards Pelsall Common as the day turned slowly to dusk and to night. We passed the 14 boats of the Wolverhampton Boat Club - rather surprised they weren't joining the BCNS event - and then Joanna and others resting up for the night.

All through Wolverhampton, we had seen ponies - feral, perhaps - in the rough ground, alongside the canal, just wandering wild. We wondered if this was My Little Pony Land.

All along the waterway, we were waved at by beaming children and adults, many of whom said they had never seen a boat "up here".

As darkness descended, we turned into the Cannock Extension, mindful of the two white vans parked on the towpath at the junction. Inside, two men watched TV. In front, a young woman sat in a Peugeot.

We moored up for the 6 hour break in the quiet of the fields and trees.

At 3.45 we were woken, not by our alarm clocks, but by the sound of Yeoford chugging past. It was all hands to the mooring lines as we set off for The Grove. The gloom of night lifted as quickly as it arrived and we were in the grey light of Pelsall. Darkened houses, drawn curtains, just the sound of birds as we set off again.

We turned a bend to see two young men carrying a very large circular mirror along the towpath. "We've been to a party," said one, grinning broadly. It sounded suspiciously like a prearranged phrase to be used in the event of being asked by a policeman. Good parties here: you get to take furniture home in lieu of a paper bag full of lollipops and a bit of cake. Still, no more damn ponies.

We swung back and forth in the cool morning air, observing the correlation between house value and propensity to make a feature of the canal at the end of the garden. The inhabitants of one new conmplex of executive housing has seen fit to add twee pontoons jutting out precariously. We frowned disapprovingly and headed onward to near the northern extremity of the BCN, where we winded and started our southward trek down the Daw End and Rushall Canals.

We follow NB Firefly down the Rushall flight then turn onto the Tame Valley Canal where we discuss how or if we should make diversions for more points. Back along the Tame Valley for 21, up to Ryders Green for 32 and maybe more, back and forth along the Walsall for a few more.

But we are tiring fast. We turn right at Golds Hill and make our way up the long last stretch to Walsall. Last time, we had marvelled at how slow the Walsall Canal is, and it was the same this year. We were reduced to a slow creep, wondering how many others were doing the same, just out of sight.

So relaxed, we all spent much of the time snogging

An hour ahead of schedule we turned in to the Walsall Town arm, joining six other boats queueing to be gauged at the narrow point. The basin has changed since last time, with a bg complex of flats and houses just by the entrance. The sight of one boat, let alone a whole bunch of them, brought residents to their balconies. We finished our marathon, spinning nicely to reverse in alongside Dove.

24 hours cruising since 8am yesterday. The BCN Marathon Challenge brings a great community together, and the show is not about the best boat, or the oldest or the cutest. A 20' Dawncraft or hybrid GRP boat is as welcome as the most expensive or traditional craft. In fact there is a distinct shortage of marina gin-palace craft in the Challenge. (They are all at Crick) It's a very unpretentious, hands-on, get-dirty event which is about canals. And your boat. And eating and drinking with friends. For me, no other canal event evokes the pioneering "use it or lose it" spirit of the early waterways activists quite like the Challenge.

Bring on BCN Marathon Challenge 2012!

Back to Burnham

A restful night and proof that a Stag is indeed a comfortable boat! We are up for a 7.30 departure out into the Orwell where we head out into a southerly, stronger than yesterday afternoon. This is not going to be so pleasant.
We motor down the Orwell. Some are steadfastly tacking there way out to sea; others like us are more lazy and have the diesel engaged. As we leave the protection of the Harwich Shelf, we feel the full force of the wind and the short, typical North Sea chop. Under power, the Stag cuts cleanly through it. Alan cooks up a fried breakfast and we then put up the sails with a single reef and beat past Walton and Frinton. We are too close to the wind, so tack in towards Walton. It's slow going, and we are one of a handful of boats on the same track.
I sit low down on both tacks and face the stern; I get queasy - surprisingly - and decide to lie down for a while. Both Alan and Ray are sceptical, suggesting that it will only get worse as the only usable berth (it has to be on the port side because we are on a long starboard tack and heeled over) is up in the forecabin and so particularly prone to the choppy sea. But I am tired and know I will feel better. Sure enough, I emerge an hour later, into the bright sunshine and the fresh breeze, feeling 1000% better.
We have, in the meantime, crossed the sands and are approaching the Crouch estuary. Fishing boats are out in the freshness, men relaxing over a small forest of rods. We skim close and raise a few frowns, then start the short tacks up the estuary. We join a procession of yachts punching the tide and tacking quickly and sharply between the high seawalls. In places, the seawall has been deliberately broached to create wetlands inland.
We cross carefully through a fleet of 707s racing into the Roach, before crusing slowly along the Burnham front to pick up the mooring.

Northeast to Levington

I couldn't pass up an opportunity to join a trip on a Stag 28 up from Burnham to Levington. I don't know the owner but have been in touch by e-mail. He needs crew; I need a boat.
We meet at the cafe behind Prior's boatyard at Burnham-on-Crouch, where I sit nursing a latte in the burning sun. They do a 'Full Monty' breakfast and I do wish I had the time for it: eggs, bacon, sausages, the works.
But we are soon striding purposefully down the pontoon moorings to where Malcolm, the ferrryman, is waiting in the launch. The three of us - Alan, Ray and I - are quickly whisked out to the boat, where we ready her for departure.

The Stag 28 is a well-known, well built boat from the 1980s. It is renowned for being sturdy and quick, but there was only a short production run. Like other consumers, sailors will buy what is cheapest and so the Peter Milne-designed and Emsworth-built vessels didn't sell well. They always get favourable reviews though.

With the tide still flooding for an hour, but with a good southerly abeam, we set off quickly down the Crouch. We are but one of a flotilla of boats heading out; the tides of the Thames estuary are dteremined and good timing is important for getting anywhere. Alan has been sailing here for 50 years and knows the ins and outs of the river, the tides and the swatchways. I, on the otherhand, need to double-check everything. These days, an iPhone subscription is pretty much all it takes to get all you need.

We zip along purposefully, aiming at the mass of wind turbines on Gunfleet Sands. There are around 40 here, but the London Array, further out, will bring 400 of the beasts into the Thames Estuary.
We are headed for the Swin Spitway where we turn through 90 degrees and head for the Wallet, the next channel in. There are several channels across the shallows, but this is the easiest.
We shortly turn again and speed along past Clacton, Frinton and Walton.

All too soon we see the cranes at Felixstowe and decide to carry on awhile. We cross the deepwater channel - not at 90 degrees as recommended, but there isn't a single commercial chip in sight - and head for the Deben Estuary. As we see the Martello Towers on the shoreline, we turn through 180 degrees and beat back to the deepwater channel. We cross it and turn in to follow the yacht track in.

Harwich and Felixstowe are both quiet but there is a nice procession of small yachts heading up the Orwell. We listen in to an emergency as a small boat, the Estelle, puts out a Mayday; they have water coming in to the boat. A golden rule of sailing is that water must remain primarily outside the boat. The Harwich lifeboat is launched, but heads inland as the Estelle is off Wrabness, up the Stour Estuary.

To new moorings

We have other business at hand today, involving much running around the northern half of Northamptonshire during the day. We set off from by the long-closed New Inn on the Kilsby Road and make our way around the eastern outskirts of Rugby. For the third time in as many weeks, we skirt the bristles of the aerial farm.

Approaching Hillmorton Locks, we see a boat coming out of the top lock and slow to allow him to pass; he takes the cross-current nicely in his stride and this allows me to slip into the northern lock without stopping. We lock down through the flight, again bemoaning the inoperability of the old cross-filling mechanism. This allowed half of the water of every lock to be saved by first filling the empty adjacent lock before spilling the rest into the pound below. The mechanism still seems to be there but BW no longer trust anyone to use it.


Hilmorton is full of hire boats today: most friendly and cheerful, several - sadly - were foolish and irritable. We relax and let them cluck around helplessly. Glad it's not our boat they are bashing around.

Rugby appears, hovers around the southern horizon through the gaps in the trees and then we are in Newbold Tunnel again, enjoying the son-et-lumiere show. Our BMC is providing the "son" and Warwickshire ratepayers have stumped up for the "lumiere".

Just a mile or so down the Cut and we are turning in to Lime Farm, where John and Sarah are tying up their returning dayboat. It's a very pleasant surprise to see Andy and Diane's boats at the head of the arm.

Log
6.1 miles, 3 locks

Apologies to NB Longsdon

Late afternoon, Sunday 13th June and we slow down at the bridge just east of Newbold Tunnel to pick up H and the dog - Sadie.
Sadie is a rather elderly Springer Spaniel and a bit fragile: she's not particularly keen on boating, sadly, and it requires a stationary boat close by the bank so she can be lifted aboard.

We have a boat, Longsdon, 50m behind us and as we approach the bridge, I signal to them that we are stopping. They wave in response that they have seen, and I turn forward to concentrate on stopping North Star. We pick up them up and set off again, and as I open up the throttle, I turn to thank Longsdon behind us. To my consternation, they have misinterpreted my signal and believe that there is a boat approaching from the tunnel towards the narrow bridgehole: they are reversing and preparing to be passed in a very narrow channel, with boats moored along the towpath for a long distance. I feel rotten, having misled them.

I hope that they catch us up before we get to Lime Farm so I can apologise but they don't. I note they have a blog, but no e-mail address. I hope this apology reaches them! They were very good to immediately take avoiding action and I am sorry my poor signal misled them.

Once more up the North Oxford

The refit is complete. In fact, there is still work to do, but it is beyond the original agreement and Wharf House have won orders at Crick. We need to move on and out and either get the work done next winter or find someone else to do it during the summer. It's little things and we can probably do some of it, but time is really limited this year.
M has GCSEs coming up, so refuses to sail this weekend, so there's just the three of us head up the M11 and A14 again for Braunston, returning kit that had been removed from North Star back in November.
We are happy campers as we take possession and execute a somewhat messy turn, winding among the moored UCC boats and residential boats. We don't touch anything, but there's plenty of blue smoke and water sprayed around.

We enjoy the stretch up from Braunston towards Barby: we never tire of the canals in this area.

As on previous weekends, numerous boats are happy to moor up to enjoy the evening in peace: it's a pleasant landscape with a nice stretch of hedgerow alongside the towpath. We keep going with a view to mooring at Hillmorton and eating at Badsey's, but with the England-USA game starting soon, we moor by the old New Inn short of Hillmorton Wharf and walk to the Royal Oak. I really can't stand these cookie-cutter suburbopubs with their plastic menus. They have no real ale - and I seem to remember they were out last time as well. Every door and open window has people smoking in it. The food is edible, but these plastic pubs are fairly dire.

Log
6.8 miles

Stretton Stop to Braunston

The proximity of the railway line worries us but once again, we are impressed at the quietness of modern trains, and they barely disturb us all night.
In the morning, Kate Boats kindly send up a mechanic with a crowbar and spanners to help adjust the alternator. Almost immediately, he is cursing the BMC for having non-standard bolts and he disappears to get the right spanner. All is fixed quickly and they refuse payment - so I stick a few notes in the Air Ambulance tin in the shop. Kind people.

However, on departure, the arrival of boats in both directions causes chaos as there is barely the space to pass. We end up waiting for more than half an hour as three boats in succession arrive from the south and steam on through the narrow gap, seemingly ignoring the five boats patiently waiting an opportunity to start again. There's more than a little muttering and grumbling from us and the boats around us.

It seems a long day as we have to reach Braunston, and we need to motor quicker than we like. We are not a quick boat at the best of times, and any kind of deadline makes for stressful sailing: plenty of concentration needed and long stretches of tickover through Barby.
Late on, the sun dips slowly and majestically, creating a warm, golden summer evening. The wise moor up south of Barby and enjoy the warmth with a drink and a barbecue. We grit our teeth and press on.
We arrive back at Braunston hours late, and with no mooring.
Log
16.1 miles, 3 locks

Stop to Stop: Sutton to Stretton

We are woken in the night by an odd, repetitive noise. It turns out to be a haggard man, propelling his boat and a second boat under tow, simply by waggling the tiller. He apologises for disturbing us and disappears into the gloom.
In the morning, rain has freshened the shrubs and trees all around; a constant hum from the mass of overhead cables is testimony to the continuing damp in the air.
Just an hour after setting off, smoke pours from the engine-room and we grind to a halt. It would appear that the alternator belt is on its last legs - and, stupidly, we don't have a spare. However, given that we have only put 20 hours on the clock since a new alternator and belt was fitted by Calcutt Boats, we didn't really expect to need one at this point!
North Star limps another few miles before the belt finally parts by Bridge 11. Calcutt sends a new belt by taxi and two hours later we stand in the engine room - looking at the wrong belt! They have sent the wrong one. Another even more tense call ensues and another belt is dispatched.
We have lost much of the day - from around 10am to 4pm - and our engineering contingent need to head up to Yorkshire. We are grateful to Brookfield Farm at Ansty who allow us to use their lane to park a car and load the departing party.
We decide to break for dinner at the Rose & Crown at Ansty, who no longer have visitor moorings - clearly for Health & Safety reasons. We moor up beyond the bridge and head up the lane to the pub. It is one of those pubs that is now 99% restaurant with a single table left for those who just wish to drink. However, there is a good range of decent drinks and an extensive menu.

Afterwards, we get under way again, to see a gorgeous sunset behind us. We make it to Stretton Stop, but remain a little concerned about the tightness of the belt. It seems too loose and we haven't brought all the tools back to the boat.

Back to Sutton Stop

We leave Coventry Basin rather sadly. We have enjoyed our day in the city and know there is a lot more to see, but we do need to head back to Braunston.

We have only a short hop this afternoon, back to Hawkesbury Junction, where we will make another attempt to sample The Greyhound's legendary meat pies.

An interesting art trail has been created along more than 5 miles of the Coventry Canal, placing charmingly surreal sculpture that really brightens up the now rather run-down urban surroundings. The art adds to the increasingly eclectic architecture of canalside residential developments - although most of these still see the canal as an entity to be put firmly behind fences, barriers and the truly hated 'No Mooring' signs. (Funny that moored boats are always, but always, a feature of the developers' publicity brochures!)

Sadly, some of the art has been obliterated by the work of vandals' graffiti.

Equally sad is the disappearance of Coventry's industry: no more Courtalds, no more Rover (?), no factories at all. Big expanses of crushed brick, the occasional remnant wall and a few chimneys are all that remain of Coventry's canalside industry. To my surprise (because I don't like Jimmy Hill, I suppose) I have rather taken to Coventry.

The Greyhound lives up to its reputation with an excellent range of real ales and great pies.

Log

5.1 miles, 1 lock

Sent to Coventry

We have spent a small fortune on creating our six-berth boat from the original two-berth boat we bought. Not even all that small, in fact. So I am sitting on the roof with a cup of coffee wondering why we have crammed seven people in for the maiden voyage. Moving around the boat now requires choreography. It's easier being on the roof with a cup of coffee. While the water tank fills from the tap.

The water point at Hillmorton is slow beyond all possible description of the word. You have this sense of clouds passing, along with entire weather systems and Ice Ages. While the water dribbles out of the hose, I watch as new tropical seas cover the Midlands, dry out and become new coal seams. A man walking a dog passes several times. The dog looks visibly older.

We set off for Rugby, a comparatively modern town which hasn't been "ignored" by the canal as some guidebooks suggest. The town simply didn't exist when the canal was dug out of the sandstone and clay and, instead, the canal linked together the towns of the day - Hillmorton, Brownsover and Newbold-upon-Avon. Today, the Oxford Canal cuts a swathe across embankments and through cuttings; originally, the canal meandered up the Avon and Swift valleys some distance. Close examination of the maps suggests that considerable stretches remain in water, although not particularly accessible.

We chug slowly through Newbold Tunnel and on out into the streaming rays of dusty sunshine. Almost every bridge reveals an old cut off arm some with moored boats, some just guarded by long reeds and overhanging boughs. Who would have thought such sylvan delights lie between Rugby and Coventry?

We wind our way round the bends at Hungerfield and into All Oaks Wood, after which is a particularly popular mooring stretch. Beyond we plunge headlong into the south-westerly winds at Grimes Bridge; if this was at sea, we would heel over and pick up speed dramtically. On the North Oxford we concentrate on keeping the boat off the moored boats.

We track the West Coast main line towards Ansty, feeling rather insignificant as the big Virgin trains flash past above us. The cutting shelters us from the wind and set our sights on Sutton Stop for the evening. Despite the wind, Bill and T bring North Star round the tricky junction perfectly but we have to moor up at the far end of a line of boats, rather too close to where cars park by the bridge. A small hatchback is already sitting there with windows throbbing in tune with the sub-woofer.

We wander back to The Greyhound, only to find that they have stopped serving food. We need to press on towards Coventry as we have little food on board. We look to moor by the Longford Engine pub but are put off by fairly dodgy activity on the tow-path. Instead we search out fish and chips - successfully - before slipping the lines in search of central Coventry.

The light is fading, and we are a little alarmed by a lad warning us of stone-throwing ahead. However, we don't see a soul as we putter through the suburbs of Coventry, a city none of us have visited before.

It is really getting dark and the shadows of old factory walls and wasteland trees spread over us. We are suddenly brought to an ignominious gliding halt as something stops the prop dead. Quick thinking in the bow gets a line ashore, but I have to spend an hour in extreme discomfort unravelling what feels like a complete keepnet from the prop. I need two knives and am cursing anglers by the time we are free.

Just twenty minutes later, shortly before 10pm and we inch quietly through Bridge 1 and into the terminal basin, a place that is very atmospheric but clearly lacking in real usage. It's a picturesque finish to today's journey, but we had expected it to be teeming with boats: there are just three of us for the night and one resident boat adrift by the bridge.

Log
20.3 miles, 1 lock

Onto the North Oxford

We have had difficulty choosing our route for this commissioning voyage. The Crick Show means it will just be too busy to get to Yelvertoft and Welford, our preferred choice. I am keen to go back up the Grand Union, but a discussion with the crew suggests the North Oxford is preferred.
It has been raining all morning, and we are all rather anxious as we leave Wharf House, slipping out among the UCC hire-boats. They are now too busy to fuel us up, so we head for Braunston Boats a little reluctantly: they had been extremely rude to us last year, and they never responded to my polite e-mail complaint. We motored down the half-mile, light rain forming a million glittering ripples on the brown water.
Coughlan himself serves me and is pleasant and helpful. I wonder about mentioning my irritation with our reception before, but decide against it. We joke about the damn diesel declaration and I go on my way.
Our departure is spoilt by the impatience of an arriving boat being so pushy, turning in before we have completed our reversing out. We are forced back onto the far bank, and mutter darkly about our continued bad luck with any link to Braunston Marina. It also distracts us from having a better look at the land currently up for sale in the village. The house two along from the Braunston hotel is on the market (as is the hotel itself) and has land that stretches right down to the canal. It has about 100' of canal frontage, but much of it is right opposite the marina entrance and the narrow stretch opposite the toll office.

We turn north and pass familiar fields of rich green, deeply furrowed by hundreds of years of ploughing. We see the house at Willoughby Wharf that is still for sale, then the big barn conversion at the end of the cutting. Why do we know the location of all the houses for sale?

We wait a while at the start of Barby straight for the in-laws to head off for church, and then motor on with the sun dipping into the clouds to our left. A gang are clearing out the lovely old buildings clustered just south of Rugby: men stand by a flatbed truck and watch us pass.

The tall masts loom up ahead, and we pass under the railway arches, turning west for Hilmorton and Badsey's, where we head after mooring below the locks. Pints of Church End's Vicar's Ruin are downed quickly. Followed by pies. Yes, we are back on the Cut!

Log
7.9 miles, 3 locks

North Star returns

At last, North Star is back with us. After six months, the boat is ready for us again. The first few months she was at Calcutt Boats where a lot of electrical and engine work was completed, then Phill Abbott and Wharf House Narrowboats took her to pieces to create a 6 berth boat.

What started as modification has become a complete refit: only the engine room remains untouched by Phill. The cross-bed has become a lengthways bed with fitted wardrobes. The bathroom with a cross-bath and lousy shower and a Thetford is now a smaller, neater affair with a shower cabin and a proper toilet and pump-out system. The massive, largely unused, kitchen is now shorter, fresher and there is now a dinette/double berth. The old stove has been replaced by a smaller one and up front are two single berths doubling up as bench sofas. Three new windows replace two small portholes to add light at the front end.

I am a little sad at the loss of the portholes. Although of doubtful historical validity, I love the tug look and even now I look lovingly at tugs moored up (and there's one advertised on ABNB this week).

After arriving at Braunston, T and I head for the Admiral Nelson for dinner. I feel I should like this place more as it has such a history but I always feel there's not enough range of ales and the food is good - but nothing special. I like it, but want to like it more.

The mattress has not been delivered so we have to both use the single berths up front.

It's good to be back.