Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 09:36:43 +0100 From: Peter Wright Reply-To: Canals To: Canals Subject: Four Counties Anglo-American trip (long) In accordance with custom on this list, here is a record of what another bunch of us got up to last month. Hoping some of it may prove interesting, even useful. Peter W The participants were: Vic and Kris (Portland Or), Jamie and Dana (Batavia NY) [all newbies], Bob (Batavia NY) [several trips] and Lynn (Marysville Wa)[one trip], Paul and Helen (Brasted) [H had useful long-ago cut experience] Sebastian (Mortlake) [lots of trips] and Karen (Mortlake) [one trip] Peter and Clare (Mortlake) [lots of trips]. Saturday 7 July 2001 Convergence spot for all but Seb was 12.30ish at The Crown Eccleshall. They brew their own (Slaters) and Peter had prior experience of Top Totty. After various excellent house brews (inc a vg dark mild) and a pleasant snack lunch, it was off to Black Prince boatyard at Etruria. Peter & Helen then drove to Nantwich in 2 cars to drop off Helen's car as prearranged with the friendly and helpful Nantwich Canal Centre. Meanwhile Clare did a last minute top-up of the already copious food and drink stocks at the close-by Morrisons while everybody else got installed upon Olivia and DamSelfly. Olivia was a new boat c 65' long. Front welldeck sans guard rails; dining saloon, kitchen, loo, two double-bed saloons, shower+loo, 2 singles, semi-trad stern. Everything worked initially, and throughout. Quiet Isuzu diesel. Excellent boat. Damselfly was older c 62'. Front welldeck with guard rails (grr); dining saloon , kitchen, loo, 2 doubles, shower+loo, double, cruiser stern.. More worn but still a very good boat. Slightly noisier engine. Kitchen configuration less good than Olivia, with less food storage space. On takeover two of four front fender attachments broken. For reliability see below. Handover routine. We were asked about previous experience and pronounced ourselves not to be in need of boat handling instruction. The instructional walkthroughs of the boats seemed OK at the time but we subequently found ourselves inadequately briefed re the heating system and seriously let down by the manuals. Just pre-departure Jamie slipped on the jetty and cut the bridge of his nose nastily on the roofline of the boat. He accepted a sticking plaster but declined trips to casualty, tetanus jabs, etc: the right decision as it turned out. While this was going on Clare's camera also hid itself in Paul's luggage whence it did not re-emerge for a week and a day. But from then on - 4.30pm departure - life improved. We boated gently through Stoke to beyond Barlaston - a sort of painless extended training session on both boathandling and locks for the newbies. Moored after bridge 102 at 9.00pm . Dinner courtesy Clare: A large cold ham with cold roasted vegs, chilli sauce, couscous, various salads; tarte au citron. Ple-enty to drink. Day's total 6 miles, 6 locks Sunday 8 July 2001 Set off 6.55am. GRP cruiser arrived at Meaford top lock just before us. When we caught up with them at the next lock it was to learn that the subsequent pound was empty. Mrs GRP went down to the next lock where she closed an offending paddle and we refilled from above. On said drained pound was an up-facing hireboat at a 30 degree angle on the mud. Its inhabitants whinged to Mrs GRP that they had phoned BW at 11.00pm the previous night to complain but no-one had yet done anything. As Archimedes doubtless told Confucius 'The price of stupidity is a sloping bed'. Soon rendezvoused with Seb walking up the towpath having driven up from a concert in Oxford. Seb loaded on the extra stuff that hadn't come up on Saturday and left his car in Stone for picking up by Karen later in the week. Excellent mega-omelette breakfast stop for all below Stone Bottom Lock 9.45 - 10.20am. Boated happily on to Weston -on-Trent. Excellent pubstop 1.40 to 3.15 at the Woolpack. Turned right at Gt Haywood (actually Olivia, with Seb at the helm, went straight on initially, but then demonstrated some v. reasonable reversing - first to get back to the junction, then to let an oncoming boat through.). On to moor at Acton Trussell just before Br 92 at 8.00pm. Pleasant mooring but noise from M6 intrusive till we went to bed: shutting the windows on that side, and doubtless the drink, solved the problem. As we didn't patronise the (unrecommended) pub we would have done better to moor between Bridges 94 and 93. Dinner courtesy Karen: Bobotie (hot spiced minced beef pie) w rice and raisins; strawberries. Day's total 20 miles 14 locks Monday 9 July 2001 Dep 6.00am Breakfast transfer stop 9.30-9.50 below Gailey top lock. Watered up Damselfly above top-lock. Very slow to Autherley Junction behind other boat(s). Tried to get Stone minicab to collect Karen from there to take her back to car - refused cos they didn't know where it was. Watered Olivia at Autherley. Damselfly initially refused to restart, then was healthily OK. Reached Brewood, moored just after Bridge 3.30pm. Karen collected by minicab. Others shopped in the 'cute little town'. Meanwhile, 3.45pm, Damselfly died again, definitively this time. Not even a solenoid click. Phoned Black P who forthwith got Countrywide Cruisers on the job. But it was 7.15pm before a blown fuse was identified and replaced - with a bigger one: ho-hum!. (If there had been a labelled fuse diagram in the boat manual somebody, having RTFM, might have put 2 and 2 together a bit faster.) Moored at north end of Rye Hill cutting 9.00pm. Idyllic spot, tho no pub: we've still never made it to the Anchor at Bridge 42.. Dinner courtesy Lynn: Mexican starters; enchiladas; chocolate and raspberry pud. 22 miles 11 locks Tuesday 10 July 2001 Dep 4.50am. 8.00am Passed Cadbury wharf at Knighton. Some nice boats, eg MSC steam tug Frodsham. Starling and Ethel pair ?coy, regd Manchester. 1.30pm arr Audlem above lock 12. The Bridge proved a good beer stop. Clare and Seb collected by minicab back to boatyard. Then there were 9. Dep 2.30pm. 7.00pm arr Nantwich, moored just before aqueduct. V good Indian meal. (We took the advice of a man in The Bridge who had said the first Indian one comes to, on the right walking into town, was the best, though the next looks smarter.) 30 miles 28 locks Wednesday 11 July 2001 Helen and Paul picked up their car, ferried a re-provisioning and retail therapy party into Nantwich, then departed to UEA to collect a doctorate. Bob and Peter watered boats at Br 92. Crew, now 7, reconvened and set off at 1.00pm . Both boats coolly avoided aloofly-driven Midland Counties pair on cross-straps at Hurleston J - *we* were sufficiently in control to be able to manage unrequited waves - oscillations of the hand, not perturbations of the water. Bob rose to some interesting manouevring challenges at Barbridge J. A windy and exhilarating bit of boating along the Middlewich cut followed. Crews got a goodly exposure to splendid cut-character lockie at Wardle Lock, Middlewich. Vic was invited to sign her Visitors Book. Thus emboldened Vic negotiated the purchase of a few takeaway pints from the pub at Kings lock IN-clusive of a couple of souvenir Imperial pint glasses. Lost a further front fender fixing on Damselfly - an ingenious lashup with already-not-long-enough bow rope was managed, but thereafter it seemed prudent to keep to the back end of a filling lock, which requires very much slower filling *and* silly games with bursts of reverse. Peter puzzled that some people do it this way from choice, rather than go up to the top gate; maybe it is to do with boat length. Moored just above Booth Lane locks 8.30pm. Dinner courtesy Dana; impressive range of home-made pizza fillings on Nantwich-bought bases 16 miles 9 locks Thursday 12 July Dep 5.30 am. Got into a good rhythm for a nice run up Heartbreak Hill, though it was pretty busy both ways. Well timed for 1.15- 2.00 Lunch at Red Bull. Good beer and pub nosh served promptly. Through tunnel with no delay at all. Moored outside boatyard 4.30pm. Vic and Jamie, ever the energetic pub-scouts, located a pub worse than the China Garden. Fortunately, on-board supplies came to the rescue. Dinner courtesy Kris: a Mexican chicken number 16 miles 26 locks Friday 13 July All but Bob and Peter went to Gladstone Pottery (vg) and for general retail therapy in Stoke. Bob and Peter set off up the Caldon on Olivia at 8.15am. Arrived Hollybush, Hazelhurst J, at 1.40pm Excellent pub; beer to match; v satis lunch. Dep back again 2.55pm. Bob - being a Knipe (and a pretty good Feeder, too) - wanted to take boat up Knypersley Feeder: this attitude could get him recruited to Earnest. Back at boatyard by 7.30pm. Dinner courtesy Lynn, Dana and Kris - excellent leftovers w huge Margheritas and wine and...and..... 19 miles 18 locks Saturday 14 July Having taken Peter to join Earnest at Denver, Bob drove the rest of the tired but happy crew back to London, and beyond. Conclusions. Very high level of friendliness from all other boaters, fishermen, officialdom. No problems whatever re the human race; even the oddballs at the lower end of the Caldon responded amiably in their own way. US newbies regarded the conversations they got into as at least as enjoyable as the food, drink, scenery, cute villages and boating. The cut is the cleanest we have ever seen it. One, barely necessary, trip down the weedhatch for two boat-weeks is a record. It was a shame to see continued reduction of old potteries and canal buildings around Stoke. The weather did everything, every day. In the cold-wet bits the US newbies wished they had brought warmer clothes to go under their rainwear. The sunny bits were great. Cut not exactly overcrowded, but quite busy enough thank you, esp on the ring. From comments gleaned en route we would have found the previous week more to our taste. Both boats could do with a long centre rope from a roof eye (eg for control in broad locks and quick temporary mooring by a single crewmember, etc) and preferably with a gunwale-level eye through which it can be threaded. This is a general criticism of/suggestion for hireboats. Both boat 'manuals' were b. awful. It took us about 5 days to work out the heating on one of the boats (only partly to do with individuals tweaking things without telling anybody else!). Some switches were unlabelled and anyway you need to know what an Eberspacher *is* before you know whether you want to operate the switch. And whether on is up or down - the US convention is different. As for manuals telling one anything interesting or useful about the boats themselves - length, draught, approx air draught, engine details, build date, equipment specs, fuse labelling - pah! Loos - freshwater flush - were the best we have experienced. However there is an electric reset button hidden behind one of the loos in Damselfly that needed resetting now and again: guess whether it was labelled in any way and whether the manual or walkthrough told us about this? Overall configuration of boats supplied was different from what we had booked. Only problem with this was that we had deliberately ordered a 4-berth boat with a large saloon with an eye to group dining, together with a 'dormitory' 8-berth, the plan being that Karen and Seb would sleep 'on the table' in Damselfly. Instead we got more beds and less dining space than we wanted on Olivia. We managed OK partly because weather allowed us to spill on to the front well, but it was a squeeze. We had also selected two cruiser sterns. Instead, Olivia had a semi-trad stern which didn't allow the steerer to sit. (Earnest's is v similar but with the important difference that the steerer can sit on the morse-gear or instrument binnacles on either side when life is quiet and stand between when it isn't.) Black Prince is a yard in the upper price-range: in this context Olivia definitely cut the mustard; Damselfly got close; the boatyard staff were friendly, helpful and competent. We had both the Nicholson and Pearson guides, and mostly used the Pearson. An excellent time was had by all: the phrase 'next time' has been much used since. ---