Nice weekends and crappy boat handling

My friend Ed thinking

I arrived at Great Haywood Friday afternoon to do a few jobs on TRB, there are always a few jobs to do, I don't know why, but there are. So I set about fiddling and fixing, Mrs EB arrived at around 6pm and I made coffee, we listened to The Now Show an excellent half an hour, then we tootled off to Stone by car for a curry. Castle Balti I think it is called does a fine curry and has large portions. On our way there I received a TXT from a friend to ask if his family could visit TRB the next day, I check with Mrs EB and I called him back.

The Day crew working the lock

Saturday was a little over cast and quite windy to start off with but that burned off, our friends arrived and off we set, well if only it was simple. I was having one of those days, I tried to help J&J move a boat, but for the life of me I couldn't turn it in the wind, setting off with TRB I had problems getting out of the marina. Later that afternoon, turning at the winding hole above Sandon Lock a BW Boat was moored on the winding!!!! so that proved a nightmare, then getting back into Great Haywood I missjudged the turning and that was as messy as it could get...with someone asking if we needed help. I don't think I could have been more embarrassed if I tried.....

Some of the day crew resting after a little liquid lunch

Well apart from all of that we had a wonderful day, some great company and some good unwinding time with a family I think are wonderful. It gave us time to talk time to laugh and time to just be with friends.... excellent. We went to Western first for a pint and then up to Sandon for the winding, its a nice few hours 3 locks and wonderful countryside and lots of peace and quiet.

More days like these please without the crappy me bits.

Boat Handling and Dr Who

Easter is up on us, and I guess its the first big break when boaters will brave the canals of England, the schools are on holiday and the hire boats are all polished ready to go. We wont be going out as we have commitments else where at Church. Though a night on board will be had on Friday and maybe a lazy day Saturday. The problem with not having a TV on board is I am a massive Dr Who fan and Saturday evening is a one of the 4 Dr Who's of this year, I will record it, but I know all too well come Sunday morning at Church everyone will be talking about it and all will be told from how handsome David Tennant looked to the SFX and even the plot will be discussed (we do go to a lively and full Church of about 400 people...) So if I don't watch it Saturday there will be no point. Sorry about that waffle, back to the blog about boat handling...

When we bought TRB in September 2007 we had a one day boat handling course (our only real handling upto that point) and then we were left to it. I do find it kind of strange, if you have any other motor propelled vehicle you have to have a test, you don't have to have lessons, but you must pass a test, but not for the inland waterways? Anyhoo we had the one day boat handling and off we set. Mrs EB had to go back to work on day 3 so I was on my own and was not happy when I ended up bouncing TRB around a lock. For a time after that first trip I didn't enjoy steering TRB but I pushed through it and now I love taking her out and seeing the beautiful English countryside.

I have taken TRB out a few times over the winter and this has proved to be invaluable in the learning curve on boat handling, it has been a slow process learning how to manoeuvre a 57 foot boat backwards whilst steering and using the wind to get her into her mooring. But over the winter that is what I have done and I am proud to say I can now do it and in the strong wind coming from either direction, using under steer or over steer. It isn't always the prettiest sight to watch, but I do it without damage to either the Jetty, my neighbouring boat or TRB.

The day TRB was put back in after the blacking was windy and no one was around so I spent half an hour just playing, using the wind to blow me whilst I tried to manoeuvre around and into mooring letting it blow me sideways and back and forth, at one point a couple of asked if I needed help, I just said no thanks I am playing with wind, and they just said oh OK and looked at me as if I was simple and had been let out for a day to play on a boat.... then one of the Jon's of Jon & John the marine engineers asked if I wanted help, when I explained I was playing using the wind, he said bloody good idea, no one is around, get the experience!! You can't really practice at our marina as it is a busy and lively place most times and where we are moored we are on the path to the diesel and pump out and we are next to the marine engineers (a fortuitous spot) so boats are usually going past all day from morning till dusk. So I took the opportunity when I had it and played for a good half an hour and well worth it I think.

Well as the Hull is now blacked and the inside is ship shape I need to go up and really give TRB a jolly good wash and wax and get the winter grime off, I did give her jolly good wash and double wax with a friend before winter set in, but she is looking a little jaded now and needs a loving wash and she will be ready for an enjoyable year tootling around.

Wolseley Bridge

Photo's will be added this evening

So Friday arrived and we met at TRB for a weekend of relaxing, Friday afternoon we did the usual shop and also bought a treat the new James Bond film. Once back from the supermarket and tea was made and enjoyed we settled down to watch A Quantum of Solace on my laptop. I nearly cried as they destroyed the Aston Martin DB9!!! (I really do love that car)

Saturday morning Mrs EB set off home to meet her sister who had just flown back from her holidays and then they drove to the marina. I made TRB ready and we set off about 11:30am for Wolsey Bridge, two locks and about 2 miles. Not a vast trip but enjoyable and it was freezing with a damp air with the odd bits of rain. We got there about 1:30pm and had lunch and a glass of nice red. A little bit of chat and stuff, I then took us to the winding and turned TRB round and headed back to Wolseley Bridge as we had planned on going to the Wolseley Arms for tea.

Waking early Sunday morning 8:30 (really 7:30 DST started), we had taken a day off Church (that doesn't happen very often) I set for home about 9 am we went via Tixall Wide as then sun was out and it was the most beautiful morning. Arriving at Great Haywood Marina at about 11:30 we needed to refuel and pump out, there was queue 1 boat in and one waiting, so I moored up at the side by John and Jons Marina engineering. Mrs EB's sister loaded her car and I went and said hello to Jeff, one of the owners of the marina. He was as rude as ever and even tried to stop me getting in the club house!!! I had the last laugh, he was helping to to moor a boat that was filling up and I had a bacon butty, and winked at him and said if he had been a little nicer he could have had on as well.

After filling up and pumping out I moored up and we cleared away, I topped up the water and washer TRB down, Mrs EB tidied up TRB. It was a wonderful weekend and very nice to see Mrs EB's sister.

The Wet Black Bottom is now in the water.

So today after 3 days of jet-washing, and painting The Robber Button was trailered back into the water, a slightly nerve racking experience. Jon Sharpe an expert with the tractor and trailer reversed the huge lifting trailer upto TRB

This is when an amazing piece of driving is needed, one slight misjudgement and our wonderful boat could be damaged beyond repair, John made it look very easy.

After a short time I climbed aboard the trailer and onto the stern of TRB whilst John drove up to the rear gates and then revered down the slipway, I put the tiller arm on and made her ready to reverse off the trailer. I have to say I was slightly nervous, the wind had got up and there were waves on the marina. It went very smoothly and I was soon reversing off the trailer and up to our mooring. I was just reversing onto our jetty when the wind took the bow.... and I had to start all over again, I have never done this on my own, Mrs EB usually grabs one of the guide ropes and pulls TRB in whilst I am guiding the boat in with the engine and tiller. It was interesting and fun, I was offered help by a couple of very helpful people, but I declined as I really wanted to achieve this on my own, and I did it!!!! yay

A Very Wet Black Bottom (day 3 of Blacking)

I drove to the Marina with a scowl on my face it was raining and boy was it raining. It was also very cold, but at least it wasn't freezing. There are rules to painting blacking on a boat, rule 1 You can't do it with the risk of freezing or at a temperature below zero and rule 2 you can't do it in the rain.

The port side of the boat was in the lee side of the wind and rain, so I managed to get that done pretty quickly, unfortunately the starboard side was in the wind and was really getting a battering. I couldn't do anything at all for about an hour and half as the rain was relentless. After that it did ease slightly, so armed with a drying cloth and my roller I started again only to be rained on again after about 15 minutes. That was how it was until the starboard was done about an hour or so later.

Now The Robber Button has a nice Blacked Bottom and is ready to be put back in to the water tomorrow afternoon.

To have the backing done by someone would have costed £7 per foot plus the lift out of £150. which is a whopping £549.00 I am guessing plus V.A.T. I do have to pay for the paint I have used, about 1/3 of a large tin which I am getting at trade from the wonderful Jon & John as I have been helping them out, so I have saved a heck of a lot of money which is just wonderful, as being out of work means no money, but I do have to say I am well tired and in need of a large curry and cold beer.

This is my first real D.I.Y job on TRB, I am not in the class of Mortimer Bones or Captain Ahab, but I do feel very proud of myself for having done some major D.I.Y work on The Robber Button.

Knowing that TRB will be back in the water tomorrow we have a weekend trip planned Mrs EB's sister is joining us and we will be popping out to find a pub on the cut for a meal and few glasses of something of the vine or from the Hop.

We have a Shiny Black Bottom!!!! (Blacking day 2)

So I arrived at Great Haywood in glorious sunshine. I was given an old paint brush and an old roller and a paint tray and off I went. Painting first with the brush the water line, I painted a good thick layer of bitumen paint 57 feet one side and 57 feet the other. Then I started on the roller and about 4 hours later she had a covering of blacking all over the hull and the swim.

I took a break at about 1pm and popped into Great Haywood and bought a lot of bacon for sandwiches and made us all bacon sarnies...Mmmmmm I love bacon sarnies. Then after lunch I used the roller again and painted the water line once again. That was that for the day, nature will take it's course and the paint will dry and tomorrow I can give TRB her final coat of Blacking.

TRB looks great with her Shiny Black Bottom.

Day 1 of Blacking (prep) (or cleaning a big dirty bottom)

I arrived at a rainy Great Haywood Marina, to be greeted by John and Jon I was to be the first boat pulled out. I helped John, for insurance reasons, John would sail the boat onto the trailer, basically if the boat was damaged or fell off the trailer I wouldn't be covered.

So by about 10:30 TRB was on the trailer being hauled out of the water. This is amazing to watch and is not an easy job, well I know I wouldn't want to reverse someone pride and joy and place it on blocks...... Anyhooo 8 large wooden blocks were placed under TRB and she was lowered onto them.





Once on them I made us all a cuppa and then I was shown the huge jet-washer, diesel powered and so strong that it is a fight to keep it spraying onto the hull of the boat. So for the next hour and half or so I was spraying the bottom of my boat, two and half years of grime and weed was just flying off, along with old paint and rust. With the help of very heavy rain, it was a very wet and messy business but highly enjoyable. The jet-washing job was done but it was raining and Jon and John had to go to do something away from the marina so I locked up a boat on stilts and headed home.

Tomorrow as long as it isn't raining too much the first coat of blacking will be going on.

To be honest her bottom wasn't too dirty and it would have lasted another year, but I am going on what I was told and that was 2 years should be the Maximum time between blacking's, she has never been blacked and I was really surprised that she wasn't as bad as I expected. One side had a heck of a lot of weed growing on it and some big rust pockets. It was also good to see first hand the propeller (read this link)

Grrrr Central Heating

*big sigh* I went to TRB this morning to speak to Jon & John about Blacking the hull, I am hoping to have TRB out of the water in two weeks time... whist there I popped on-board and the central had lost all of it's header tank yet again...... even after my dad had "fixed it" grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So I took the wooden hide away in the bathroom to find it soaking wet, at least I knew where the leak would be... I felt around the joints and one was wet.... *another big sigh* I am at a loss, I fetched my wrench and started tightening up the compression easy fit fittings... I am guessing this will not be the last time I blog about this.

Blacking

The weekend weather was just fantastic...but we didn't get to TRB which is a crying shame... It is Mrs EB's 40th birthday in a couple of weeks and went into Birmingham to buy her a nice present. I am hoping to get to TRB in the week to arrange for her to come out of the water for a much needed blacking, I need to price it all up first, but as money is very tight I will be doing the blacking myself...I have helped Jon and John on a blacking so I know the score...its smelly, very dirty and I will end up wearing blacking...

If anyone has some good tips on blacking please post them, thanks

EB.

Fiddle sticks

I am really unsure as to whether to try and get to "TRB". Staffs is under quite thick snow and the marina is round the back of a farm and I am guessing that hasn't been gritted nor the Village of Great Haywood. I really want to pop along and make sure that all is OK with her. I also feel quite bad today I seem to have a migraine that is just lurking in the back ground that has made it's presence felt after eating some cereal...nice. I know that I can call Jon and John the marine engineers there and they would pop onboard and give her the once over. Mmmmm I just feel restless... I would love to turn the engine over and get it nice and warm, turn the heating on and dry her out... But I also don't want to get stuck in the snow and ice in the car.... Maybe we can pop over in the morning?

First Night onboard this year

I arrived at the marina at around lunch time on Friday and saw a van saying C.O.R.G.I Gas Man...ohh I thought, I wouldn't mind him running an eye over my boat, I had lost a bottle gas over the Christmas period, and was slightly concerned...so I popped into the marine engineers to ask if he could pop to TRB. John said he was on board an Ownerships boat and to go and have a word. with Derek the Gas Man, So I did. Derek is an old school gas engineer. He said he would pop down in an hour, true to his word he came along and I explained about losing a bottle of gas...he tested the pipes, and he said yep there was a leak. After about 30 minutes he had found where it was from, a bulkhead fitting and it was leaking into the insulation, that couldn't be fixed there and then. He went away and did another job he had booked in, then came back, set about stripping the fittings. He then said ...I will have make up some parts for you...I'll be back Monday....MONDAY we were about to spend the night...and had no gas, that meant no cooking. We have an electric kettle, so we could have a mug or two of tea.

Yay, we had our first over night on TRB this year, and all was well, in spite of no gas. Well ,I was awoken in the night, by the wind and went to sleep on the hammock as I didn't want to disturb Mrs EB. Last night was very windy and being in a hammock in the wind is strange, I loved it at first, but after about half an hour I was feeling a little sick. I stuck my IPod on and listened to Stephen Fry's podcasts, that seemed to help, then it started to rain, and boy did it rain....it sounded like a machine gun was being fired against the boat, I think I got about 6 hours sleep.

So I woke up very late 10:30!!! after breakfast I suggested a short run up to Tixel Wide, just to give TRB a New Year wake up. So after making her ready we set off, the sun was shining, the sky was blue, there didn't seem to be any other boats about all was well with world. Then Mrs EB said the kettle wasn't working or the microwave...mmmm I thought. I explained how to reset the inverter. Still no joy, bugger I thought, Mrs EB took the tiller and I went to investigate...I got the manual (yeah I know but when all else fails) I couldn't find anything. I checked everything I could, but there was no power to the inverter. I thought oh crap, the inverter is broken. So I said to Mrs EB we had better turn around and head back. So after a few minutes we were at Tixel Wide Mrs EB turned her around and back toe the marina we headed.

We got back to the marina and I moored up at the marine engineers and went to find Jon, who was painting a boat, I said HEYLP!!!! he came and had a check, the main fuse was blown ,a 200amp fuse!!!!! He fitted a new 300amp fuse and hey presto all was working again. We moored up in our birth, had lunch and a mug of tea. Not the greatest starts to the year, but we have moved and had a run. Lets hope the rest of the year is going to be fantastic, with some great tips with friends.

Boat Props and Paint

This post was from 10th Spetember 2007

Today Jim came to the boat, he brought his paints and talents, and has painted the one side, tomorrow he does the other side. These photo's are only when he was painting and don't really give the artwork justice, I have some better photo's taken with my camera and not my phone (These are phone)

I will blog those tomorrow if I remember to bring the right leads home!!!!! Like a numpty I left my camera leads on the boat

Anyhoo the marine engineers took some photo's of the bent propeller which I have posted at the the end of this blog...they break my heart, but as you can see by the last picture the bend isn't as bad now. Well done John and John.