Preparing for the off

After a week of ditch crawling, we kind of realised that there was not much time before our winter berthing contract would finish. April 1 should be our departure date. The poor boat was filthy from the snow and rain so the first job was a huge wash off. That was interrupted one morning when a converted lifeboat trying to turn in the marina wrapped itself against our anchor, added some scratches to the hull and needed serious fending off as they slid past trying to turn the ungainly thing,

The helmsman is a good guy though - runs local boat trips and is well qualified. Basically the old lifeboat would just not turn through the wind. Here is the offending boat doing what she usually does, sitting tied up:

As you can see, it is a quality craft.


Part of pre-departure prep was for the captain to replace an O ring in the coolant return tube from the turbocharger on the main engine (the big pipe in this picture):

This tube had started to drop some ominous black bits onto the top of the manifold suggesting that the O ring was dying. It was. Removing it means draining some of the coolant, and then some more when you find that your guesstimate of the amount needed was optimistic.

Personally I don't like tubes that just slot into an O ring but as it had lasted for over 10 years it must be basically OK. Rebuilt, coolant topped up, it ran without leaking on another "go for a burn around the bay to make sure that everything is working OK" trip. This was our latest one:

Up and down and up and down, sometimes on the wing engine to get it warmed up and sometimes at WOT (Wide open throttle). At least it was a nice day even if the scenery got a bit repetitive.

The big wash off afterwards was frustrating, lots of black streaks that didn't want to go. It is that time of the year. We didn't put the bimini cover on and the flybridge cushions as the weather forecast for the weekend was a touch blowy:

and some snow was in the offing too. So, the forecabin continued to act as a floating shed.

Despite the windy weather and sore throats and coughs that we seem to have picked up, we did venture out though. Steve the waterbus man had a job taking a load of rugby fans from Pier 64, the posh marina restaurant, up to the stadium in Cardiff for the international game against France. We had volunteered as crew. Luckily the folks were not tanked up, just happy and looking forward to the game. Mind you, getting tanked up at Pier 64 prices would probably wipe the smile off anyone's face.

Heading up the the city:

Certainly the best way to get to the game.

Having survived the earlier "beast from the east" and storm Emily, another couple of days of snow were just what we needed:

Not as deep or as cold this time though. Once it melted away, the RIB outboard had some fettling. Time for new spark plugs and a new water pump impeller. The old one was very "set" when removed and could not have been pumping very efficiently. For the non outboard people, you have to pull the lower unit off the engine to get at the pump. The engine looks a little strange then:

and makes passing folks do a double take. The lower unit itself looks a little lost:

All this activity. We clearly deserved a small gin afterwards - pity we had a large one of course.

Ditch crawling

Busman's holiday time. For our foreign readers, look at Wiktionary definition to understand that comment.

Andrew, the non Welsh speakng Welshman, had managed to get the use of a canal boat for a week after a dodgy sounding, eBay fuelled, Williams RIB sale that involved a couple of trade in items too. One of the payments for the RIB was a week on a narrowboat. When asked if we wanted to join in, the answer was a simple one.

So, just after the great freeze and blizzards, we drove up to Norbury junction ending up with a salt and mud crusted Defender. The yard is at an old canal junction, have a look at Norbury Wharf website for more information. The boat we had was, optimistically, named Princess. See boat overview.

Here she is:

showing off her cruiser stern. And from the bow:

You can decide which is her most photogenic side. The engine room was a little less clean than in our Nordhavn:

and the wiring and little Isuzu diesel were not quite as well maintained. However, Princess is a typical hire boat with many years (27) of cruising around under the control of novices under her belt.  Memories of working on a Norfolk Broads hire fleet boatyard when much younger came flooding back. We reckon that we were kinder to Princess than many of her prior occupants.

The Shropshire Union canal was very lovely. The guidebook calls it "unremittingly rural". They were right and it was all the better for it. We headed from Norbury, up to the Adderley lock flight towards Audlem, back down to Brewood and then returned to Norbury:

Dylan the Welsh terrier was the main crew member and had lots of fun:

Apart from needing a wash after each muddy towpath walk, he was little trouble. Linda might disagree as he liked waking her up during the night although during the day he seemed happy to snooze with her:

This is the second unflattering picture of Linda that we have published. It might be the last if she decides to remove us from her life permanently in retaliation.

Enough canine news. What about the waterway. Well, initially we were pushing lumps of ice out of the way - the canal had frozen over big time during the prior week. Some impressive icicles were still visible on the banks:

Andrew looked very serious as he piloted 62 feet of narrowboat around:

and yes, we were that close when passing the moored boat - we had to get through the bridge right next to it.  Tyrley lock flight (5 of them) allowed the crew to practice their lock winding routine. A very pretty spot in which to do so:

Market Drayton was a favourite stopover, mainly for Jones coffee shop and their excellent cake. Oh, and a little Asda supermarket too for essentials like wine.

The approach to Adderley locks was our turning point heading north:

It felt strange to be constrained in where we could turn around, needing to find a "winding hole" to allow this. The canal has some spectacular cuttings and embankments:

All the crew enjoyed their week:

even if it was a bit chilly at times. We were happy to have a solid fuel stove on board which Andrew tamed after day 1. Less amusing was a water point where the thread on the fitting was damaged. Andrew manfully stood and held the hose in place, getting very soggy from the leak as we needed to top up our water tank. We took this picture of his selfless act:

Linda took one from another angle that suggested there was another source for the water collecting on the towpath. We would not be so rude as to publish that. Why? - mainly because Linda is likely to disown us thanks to the earlier picture of her so we need to stay friendly with Andrew.

All in all an excellent week on a very different style of boat. Life at 3 mph ditch crawling suited us well.

And then it snowed and got chilly and windy

Any thoughts of taking the boat for a brief spin around the bay were halted by the weather forecast:

We cannot recall seeing the "risk of light icing" comment on an inshore waters forecast in years. It was going to be cold.  The land based forecast was no more encouraging:

Wind chill of -12C  persuaded us not to go for a walk either so the crew's Fitbit figures might look bad this week.

A few inside jobs got completed. Locker tidying and cleaning, fitting a new 32A plug to the shore end of our power lead etc. The old plug had screws that held the two parts together which were fitted from the outside. Hence they were corroding and one didn't want to undo when we went to do a regular check on the tightness of the cable clamps. The new one is better - the screws are inside, protected when the plug is in use and attached to a shore outlet. Must remember to take it apart in a few days and recheck the tightness of the newly made connections.

Then a couple of days spent totally on the boat followed. Why? Well, there were the force 10 gusts and snow and wind chill and blocked roads and lethal icy pontoons to consider. We even got a red Met office warning for the area:

Creaking ropes, a very busy heating system and lots of tea followed. We were so glad that our boat was originally built for a Danish guy and was specified with a huge Webasto boiler to make copious amounts of hot water for the heating system. She also has double glazed windows (very rare on Nordhavn 47s) and some Thinsulate insulation in the roof lining. All that means we stay nice and warm inside despite the -13 C wind chill they expected (and we got!). Of course, it did involve burning a little diesel but we didn't have to worry about the reports of UK gas shortages. In fact we still have around 3,000 litres of diesel on board from our spring fill up and that would keep the heating going for a few days. We hope that it will not all be needed though.

After a night of snow, the captain bravely shovelled the drifted stuff out of the walkways and aft cockpit despite the -12 windchill outside. This once was a walkway with steps up to the pilothouse but ended up as a 3 foot little drift:

The foredeck could not be cleared as the snow that laid there had turned to ice. The stainless steel handrails were coated with ice, it was hanging from the rub rail and even a poor screen wiper:

Oh, the boat had no name either - snow seemed to have attached itself to the transom (which was downwind):

The road through the marina was closed too. OK, with the Defender we could probably have escaped where normal cars would fail but it was not tempting outside. We will save the "snow fun in a Defender" thing for emergencies. BTW, an emergency does not include people who ask us "can you run me to Tesco because I have run out of milk".  Newsflash - so have they and you can survive without the stuff.

Of course, after clearing up the snow, it started to fall heavily again. A day later and with the fun of clearing the next batch of snow off the boat, we realised that things were not that bad really. Steve the waterbus man lives a few miles away in Sully and took a few pictures when he ventured outside. This was stuck in the lane to his house:

They say that another snow plough was also stuck further up the lane trying to get to rescue this one. The Cardiff area got hit with a lot of snow drifts, thanks to the gales. We offer our thanks to Lord Bute and his old docks as we were pretty well protected and today the big thaw is well and truly underway. All those flood warnings don't really worry us much. The snow tends to melt into the marina and an extra inch or so of water underneath us is no bad thing.