gmane.recreation.canals

Harnser Trip Report

Brian — 2013-05-21T20:04:02

Date -  21 May 2013
Day - Tuesday
Start - 1100 Ely
End -1300 Little Ouse Moorings

You will find our latest position and all our past travels with
photographs on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/

Now we are home I have uploaded so videos to Sundays Blog, you can read it here.

last night we ate at The Boathouse on Ely waterfront. The food was very good and Diana thought her Duck was the best she has ever had.

 This morning we woke to wind and rain, we had been moored under a
sycamore tree and the wind had deposited loads of unripe sycamore seeds
on the roof, at the same time the pigeons had deposited something else,
so we had to scrub the roof before we set off.
 While we were doing this a uniformed gentlemen came by recording all
the boats on the moorings, these moorings are limited to 48 hrs with no
return in 48 hours.  
 We only went a short distance to the other end of town where we stopped
to pump out the toilet tank. Once this was sorted we were really off.

The light was much better today s

Re: CRT User Group Report West Midlands

Peter and Jeanne — 2013-05-21T08:32:27

Click on “visit your group” (at bottom of this page on my pc)
Click on files from the list on the left of the group page.
Click on “add file” at the top of the files page
( Pete

From: Oonagh & Peter Trigg 
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 11:50 AM
To: canals-list-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw< at >public.gmane.org 
Subject: [canals-list] CRT User Group Report West Midlands

This was circulated to the BCNS list – thought it might be of interest. If the attachments (PDF files) don’t get through can someone please let me know how to post.

Regards

Peter

From: Brenda Ward 
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 7:26 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Fwd: CRT report for Boundary Post

Hi All

Dean Davies & his team along with John Dodwell presented a User Group Meeting at the Visitors Centre at Chasewater at the end of April. It was well attended but not all of you were there so Dean & John think its a good idea to spread this information to as many of you that can be reached so if you want to pass this on please do. S

Harnser Trip Report

Brian — 2013-05-20T17:26:52

Date -  20 May 2013
Day - Monday
Start - 1030 
End - 1630 Ely Jubilee Gardens

You will find our latest position and all our past travels with
photographs on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/

 Firstly I have decided to title my blog in a different format, starting
with the place we are moored at that night. I thought this may help
people if they are looking for information on a particular place or area.

 back to today. The weather has gone back to early spring, yesterday was
tee shirt weather, today tee shirt, shirt, fleece, jacket. 

 We set off at 1030am and headed up the Cam. There are a couple more
boats moored at the Fish and Duck but not much sign of life. Until today
I had only seen a couple of Swifts, today I have seen dozens of them,
probably more today than I normally see in a year, also Swallows and
Martins of course. I tried very hard to get a photo of them but they are
not called Swifts for no reason, I got lots of photos of sky.a
PhotoDSCF1892 
This is a real haven for bird life. As

CRT User Group Report West Midlands

Oonagh & Peter Trigg — 2013-05-20T10:50:26

This was circulated to the BCNS list – thought it might be of interest.  If the attachments (PDF files)  don’t get through can someone please let me know how to post.

Regards

Peter

From: Brenda Ward 
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2013 7:26 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Fwd: CRT report for Boundary Post

Hi All

Dean Davies & his team along with John Dodwell presented a User Group Meeting at the Visitors Centre at Chasewater at the end of April. It was well attended but not all of you were there so Dean & John think its a good idea to spread this information to as many of you that can be reached so if you want to pass this on please do. See two attachments.
All the best
Brenda

Re: Harnser Trip Report

S NEILL — 2013-05-20T09:32:55


.Just

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



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Harnser Trip Report

Brian — 2013-05-19T21:46:10

Date -  19 May 2013
Day - Sunday
Start - 1620 Prickwillow
End -1930 Little Thetford

You will find our latest position and all our past travels with
photographs on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/

 Yesterday evening the wind died to nothing giving some lovely
reflections.a PhotoDSCF1819  A Black Prince Narrowboat came down stream
and moored at the moorings the other side of the bridge.

 This morning the sun was streaming in, there was no wind and it was
warm. We set to and washed the boat roof, this was so we could see the
rust spots easier as in places all that is visible is a small crack, but
scrape it and great lumps come off. Once that was done we wandered down
to the Pumping Museum. 
In the car park they had three steam powered Fire Engines all in steam with there copper, brass and paint work gleaming. 

a PhotoDSCF1824

a PhotoDSCF1828


a PhotoDSCF1826 

a PhotoDSCF1829

 They also had an old what could best be described as a pickup to tow it
with instead of horses. It is actually a first

Guyers lock closure.

Lee wells — 2013-05-19T11:56:18

Hello, 
 Guyers Lock (84) on the Kennet and Avon canal. 

Boats have been returning from Guyers as one of the fate has come off its hinges. Workman on site are telling boaters that it will be closed for a week plus at least as crane etc need to be brought to the lock. 
I've not been up there myself, just passing on info from returning boats. Hope this doesn't disrupt too many journeys!
All the best Lee

Sent from my iPhone

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Re: Ropes when locking

2013-05-18T14:33:40

And just how do you get to the Pub?
We probably would have "planked" it as the next option but it was getting quite dark.
Last time I used the plank was on the K&A  - I set it down onto the weeds and promptly disturbed a hornets' nest, thus imprisoning ourselves inside for half-an-hour and thereby missing the first few trivia quiz questions in The Barge.



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Harnser Trip Report

Brian — 2013-05-18T14:00:51

Date -  18 may 2013
Day - Saturday
Start - 1015
End -1330 Prickwillow

You will find our latest position and all our past travels with
photographs on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/

Last nights moorings at Station Road are in my opinion the best ones in Littleport. They are well away from the main roads and also the most distant point from the railway.

This morning we were away at 1015hrs. and we could see that the water level had dropped by quite some distance overnight,a PhotoDSCF1807  so the EA must be expecting more heavy rain in Cambridgeshire. Again we didnt meet any other boats all day. About three quarters of an hour latter we were turning into the Lark. As we turned we could see the moorings at Diamonds were also empty, just like the ones opposite the Swan.

Making our way down the Lark, Toms Hole Farm moorings were also empty, such a shame we didnt want to stop here. It was not long before we were at Littleport. Again all the moorings were empty, not a boat in sight. We stopped j

Re: Ropes when locking

Neil Arlidge — 2013-05-17T22:24:09

On 17/05/2013 19:33, 
captain.beeky-AJ91bsLKfcsqdlJmJB21zg< at >public.gmane.org wrote:

Yes, you are quite right, Mick Wright the Dog In A Doublet sluice keeper 
locked us up at silly-o-clock, left sluice up in top guillotine and told 
us to spend the night in the lock....this was twelve years ago...how 
time flies...2001 the year we REALLY got value from a Gold Licence 
Medway/Thames/Nene/Great Ouse/Welland :-)
http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/Tour_01/fen11.html

Come to think of it we also spent a night in Cowbridge Lock on the 
WND's...we were ejected at 09:00 the next morning as drain men wanted to 
take weed boat though.

Harnser Trip Report

Brian — 2013-05-17T20:21:27

Date - 17May 2013 
Day - Friday
Start - 1430
End -1530 Littleport

You will find our latest position and all our past travels with
photographs on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/

We arrived back at the boat a little after 2pm. We had bit of a diversion on the way along the old A47 as a coach full of pensioners had caught fire casing the police to close the A47 just west of the end of the Norwich bypass.

Once on the boat we went upstream through the moorings to wind and then back down to the end of the moorings to load up from the car.

Just after we exited the Little Ouse, turning left along the Great Ouse a Narrowboat came from the Denver direction and followed us all the way to Littleport where we pulled in to moor just ahead of NB Balmaha. As Diana adjusted the front rope to give maximum room to moor for any boat to moor ahead of us the passing Narrowboat called out to ask if we were just going. There would have been room for him ahead but he just kept going.

The afternoon was spent drinking

Hand cranked Thornycroft

David — 2013-05-17T19:42:32

Anyone fancy a trip on a 60ft trad powered by a 20hp Thornycroft engine?

The deal is that you get to hand crank the engine as the owner can't do it, and I won't try!

David



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Re: Re: Ropes when locking

2013-05-17T18:33:04

Neil remembered .  .


Sounds of whirring and kerchunking of worn out memory. Laziness also
prominent - not bothered to check the trip records.

What about after the Wash crossing from Surfleet ? Didn't we overnight in
that tidal lock near Peterborough.

Beeky



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Re: Ropes when locking

Neil Arlidge — 2013-05-17T16:25:35

Oh yes, forgot about that! :-)

We were going to do the Basy on our way exiting from Harefield...but 
seeing as I have always done the whole canal, we went straight up the GU 
towards the Ashby....then got kind of lost. Linda smelt a rat on the 
Caldon, when I rescued a bit of 2x3 from the canal (No handspikes, left 
in garage as Linda deemed them surplus to requirements :-)
We very lucky getting Earnest back to it's allotted entry and pick up 
(Linda was most precise) from it's new mooring...especially as we seem 
to be one of the last boats to successfully get into Cromwell Lock, 
before they shut it for dredging out the sand bar below. I had heard 
that it was silted up, even though the Keadby lockies claimed to know 
nothing about it!...we arrived 3" off HW. Even so we had to do some 
early starts and a bit of night boating (Tamworth in the dark is much 
more appealing)

Re: Ropes when locking

Graham — 2013-05-17T15:03:08

Neil explained about spending the night in a lock on the HNC.

Didn't you also spend the night in Woodham lock on the Basy in 2006? That was where we found you.

Graham
www.jannock.org.uk




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Re: New tradition ... Canal Handspike Dancing

Neil Arlidge — 2013-05-17T08:15:34

Did you get a picture of the "TNC handspike creation dance"? :-)

RE: Ropes when locking

Harriet Bazley — 2013-05-17T01:51:35

On 16 May 2013 as I do recall,
          Mack, David wrote:


[snip]

What if you left (tied?) a gate open?

Re: New tradition ... Canal Handspike Dancing

Martin Clark — 2013-05-16T23:40:57

.......

Interesting and novel use of the C&H handspike.

Pity the Dewsbury Reporter can't spell "practising".

Re: Ropes when locking

Neil Arlidge — 2013-05-16T20:36:10

When we visited the Derwent / Pocklington in June 1997 there was no 
where safe to moor up on the Derwent, as it was in flood, and up around 
8ft....so we moored up (Loose centre rope, to keep boat away from cill) 
in Cottingwith Lock (entrance to Pocklingto,. which at that time was 
straight through! :-)
http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/T97_Imag/cwithlk.jpg
http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/T97_Imag/DerQ.jpg

As for the HNC, we finally did Standedge self steer (1hr 40min, with 
Fred!) a couple of weeks ago, just after Diggle lock repair. Also the 
first time we have done it with opened out Sellars and the new new Lock 
3E. Much easier W to E, as the notorious shallow pounds are on the east 
side, so coming down, you are always letting water down into the pound 
you are about to go into. Martin Clark directing lock operations, so we 
did not fill the next lock, until boat nearly up to it. As for lock 
landings, we did not go near them, if crew travelling on boat they were 
bow dropped off / picked up at ent

RE: Ropes when locking

Mack, David — 2013-05-16T16:44:40

derek-g-/r06uHMkKnwAvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org asked:


If you leave the boat in a full lock overnight there is surely just too much risk that you might end up with one end on the cill by morning, unless you are going to have a crew member on watch all night. An empty lock isn't much better, as it might fill and then empty during the night leaving you with the same sort of risk.

If you really can't get into the bank anywhere to moor you would be much better just spending the  night in mid channel. Pull the bow in as far as you can, so you can tie off to a mooring pin and maybe put a plank across to the bank if the gap is too far to jump, and just leave the stern in midstream, or tied off to a mudweight if you have one.

David 


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Ropes when locking

2013-05-16T16:34:29

Further to this thread title, has anyone tied up overnight in a lock? Or seen it done?
I had to seriously consider it on the Huddersfield Narrow last year as it was almost impossible to get close to the towpath above Slaithwaite account depth, weeds, collapsed bank etc. Eventually, we found a lock landing that was barely usable before it got too dark. (There were no other boats moving in the torrential October rain and we planned to leave early!) 
I had thought that, if I did moor in a lock, it would have to be full and I would have to keep the top gate paddles open to avoid a slow drain. I was hesitant to use any ropes in that situation. Would it be safer if the lock was empty?
Jus' wonderin', like.



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