From owner-canals@blacksheep.org Mon Aug 18 17:40:19 1997 id AA06302; Mon, 18 Aug 97 17:39:21 EDT id ab1400289; 18 Aug 97 22:08 BST Date: Mon, 18 Aug 1997 22:06:57 +0100 To: canals@blacksheep.org From: David Long Subject: This year's French Trip (Long) In-Reply-To: <199708160845.UAA24761@Axil.wave.co.nz> Just a few highlights... The start of the trip was rather unexciting. The best bit being when we arrived at Chalons-sur-Marne to find all the best mooring places occupied by holidaying or unemployed peniches - so we tied up on the furthest of the bollards from the lock, leaving about 3 peniche-lengths to accommodate the one working boat which might lock through in the hour or two we were there. It was about 1.30pm, so we sat and ate lunch. At 2pm precisely a gang of waterways workers arrived at the lock, and got on with their task - putting up a notice saying "No Mooring for 400 metres" - indicating the area we had moored in. We half-expected the lock-keeper to come along and shift us.... After Vitry-le-Francois we started our run along the Marne au Rhin Canal. At the first lock we presented with a leaflet which requested us to give the Service Navigation our schedule for doing the next 70 locks. I shrugged my shoulders when the lock-keeper asked if we could fill it in there and then - "But I have no idea -it depends how the locks and the boat go". So we were told that one of the moped-riding eclusiers would take it from us later... but I think the lock-keeper had a better idea of what I meant when I struggled out of the lock, tied up to a tree, and wrestled with a plastic bag through the weed hatch for half- an-hour... then set off, only to draw in again yards away when I discovered that the real reason we were making little progress was that the throttle connection had fallen off the ventura! Funny - we never were asked for the form again. Next morning, after I'd discovered on my 48-hours-out-from-home check-up that one of the exhaust-clamp bolts had sheared off, and one of the injector pipes was a little loose, so needed tightening up, we set off at 8am (it's cooler then) - as agreed with the lock-keeper the night before - who smiled, knowing it wouldn't be him who'd have to be on post at such an hour. Pushing away from the bank to clear the tjalk PETER PAN moored in front of us, I put her into gear - and the engine died. I'd over-tightened the injector pipe, and she wouldnt run on her remaining two cylinders. The tjalk's master took my hastily-thrown rope, and pulled us back to the bank. I rooted among the boxes of things that'll come in handy one day, and found a suitably-sized brass olive to substitute for the sweated-on steel one I really needed - and it (nearly) did the job... so on we chugged towards Bar-le-Duc, with the rain clouds boding ill for later in the day. Rain it did - but cleared enough when we reached Bar-le-Duc for us to stroll around the town and the old places on the hill. However, it was pouring down by nightfall, and it persisted throughout the night. We were in no hurry, so decided to sit it out for a day - during which I would return to our moorings by train to fetch the car. Bright and early next day I reported to the Control up the canal that we'd not be moving on as planned, and I got to the station as the Paris via Epernay train was about to leave - 40 Frs extra it cost to pay on the train! At Epernay I had the problem of hitching the 15 miles or so back into the hills of Champagne to our isolated moorings. After walking to the outskirts of town, and standing for 20 minutes in the rain, I thought this was not my day. Then a car slowed in response to my raised thumb - and the driver and myself could hardly believe it: it was Hassen, who had helped me out with my boat in the past - he also had a boat on the moorings, and was on his way there. Pas de problem! >From Epernay there are 38 locks up to the Mauvages Tunnel (3+ miles long). Half were operated by a young lad on a moped, the other half, and twelve the other side of the tunnel, were automatic, but actuated by an infra-red zapper the lock-keeper gave us. It worked... most of the time. At Mauvages we paid the compulsory 68Franc fee for the towage through the tunnel, and arranged for the tug operator to wake us in time for the 6.30am tow. On starting the engine in response to his insistence that we get on the move straightaway, it seemed to have more than its usual rattles. I ducked into the engine room, and discovered that the bolt which was where (if everything was done as it should be!) a Woodruff key should have been, had broken off, and the large pulley, which drove the water pump and the alternator was moving about on its shaft, held in position by the tension from the belts. No worry, thought I - all I have to do is chug around the corner, hook onto the electric tug, and relax in the tunnel until it had hauled it and us through on the endless chain in the bed of the canal. BUT... as we approached the tug, the operator simply waved us through under our own steam! Well, by now all was relatively quiet down below; the batteries were getting a good charge, and a healthy flow of water was coming out from the engine, so I did as I was told, and ploughed on through the weed-infested waters into the tunnel. All went well until the start of the last mile. A large patch of floating weed (harvested by the props of the peniches) suddenly slowed us almost to a halt. As usual, I slipped into neutral, and then into reverse. CLANG! The belts, pulley, and shaft fell off together. However, the weed was cleared, and FALCON surged towards the tunnel's exit. There was another boat behind us in the single-width tunnel, and that was being driven by a nervous female, German hirer - so I thought I'd best nor make life difficult for her, and continued on. Without the water to silence it, the exhaust roared out of the outlet, even on reduced revs., but we made it into the daylight without the smell of scorch getting as bad as it did when the raw-water inlet got clogged occasionally. We tied up behind the cruiser and peniche which awaited the 9.30am return tug. Eventually the tug appeared, and I explained my predicament to the operator. "But what a pity this did not happen yesterday - I could have taken it home myself and welded it back together!" Oh well, you can't have all the luck. After a few calls to his chef, a fitter was promised for the next day (it was Sunday, you see), and the tug set off back into the tunnel but this time earning his fee, pulling two peniches after him (the cruiser having gone on ahead under his own steam). 24 hours in the middle of nowhere wasn't a jolly prospect, so I put the bits into a carrier bag, and set off out of the deep cutting to the nearest village, where my first enquiry found me an amateur welder who happily welded everything back together and helped me devise a better method for holding the pulley onto the front of the engine, before driving me back to the boat and supervising the reassembly of everything - having in the meantime declined my proffered 200fr note, saying it wasn't worth more than half that amount (I gave him 100fr and 50fr to his young lad who was picking up the biscuit tin of odds and ends we'd rifled through in search of suitable bolts). He disappeared on the dot of 12 - lunch-time is sacred, especially on a Sunday! And so we set off again. A little blue van seemed to be bobbing around us lower down the flight - it was the chef. He'd been told from the tunnel that we'd moved on, and was anxious to know if we still needed help. He didn't seem to mind the bother we'd put him to. And so on towards Toul, passing Frank Jansen's friend on the tug BERLY soon after the Fouges Tunnel. By this time the Meuse/Canal de l'Est had spilled flotillas of fancy cruisers (and an irascible solo Belgian sailor in a little yacht, who twice tried to barge my 14 tonnes with his 500 kilos! - and braved my exhaust spray to do it!) had broken the peaceful isolation we had enjoyed thus far. From then on it was crowded (and to-be-paid-for) marinas and moorings all the way to Strasbourg. Still, our nb stood out from the crowd (though we did meet FESTINA LENTE at Bar-le-Duc, and saw AQUILA moored up near Arzvillers), so we never did feel overwhelmed by them. Nancy was lovely (strange, there were some eponymous males lounging around along one section on the edge of the city itself) - especially Stanislas Square, one of France's truly magnificent places to be on a warm summer's night. The market is worth a visit, just for the aromas. With the days getting warmer - but with the fridge now fixed up at last, so that we enjoyed cold beer and vin gris - we continued on our way. A 15 metre deep lock brought us to the 33 km summit reach (the second on this unusual canal), where we went through two more tunnels before reaching the famous Arzvillers inclined plane. Suddenly we were in the midst of hundreds of tourists, with a dinky little road-train bringing scores more to the top of the structure. A loudspeaker told of the great feat of French engineeering this was - and suddenly we were in the script, as we entered into the moving chamber for our descent down the hillside. It was a very smooth, silent ride compared with the bumps and grinds of the far more massive and longer Ronquieres plane we did last year. We had been in a very different setting once we came through the tunnels - on the other side it had been rolling hills - on this side it was steep, wooded cliffs, with many of the hills topped with ruined chateaux, all the way down to the Rhine plain at Savern. We reached Strasbourg after 14 days, including two full days stationary. I've not got my log here, but I think we did just over 200 miles and about 170 locks in that time. Very pleasant moorings on the edge of Strasbourg - water, electricity and showers for 25frs a night (Savern wanted 46frs... plus charges for the water and electrics! - we left it to the Dutch and Germans). Then we set off to see Strasbourg and the Petite France from the waterways which encircle it. We'd been told we had to do this from the South, so we went round the back end of the docks and wharves parallel with the Rhine, and duly reached the River Ill as it entered the top end of the city. We rounded a bend in the swift-flowing river, to be confronted with a massive stone barrage across our path, pierced by half a dozen low arches, some with portcullis spikes stretching down towards the water. We tied up hastily - there was no one else around - and certainly no other boats. I went to the barrage - a Vauban construction, with a walkway through its centre across the river, with chambers full of broken bits of statuary on either side - and found a fonction. Yes - we could go through the arch - but what be the use? - through his office window we could see only No Entry signs on the arches downstream - except for the branch where swift bateaux-mouches were plying, and that could only be followed for so long before you must return the same way. The waters of the Ill were, I thought, just a bit too fast-moving for me to be sure that FALCON's engine would bring us back through the confines of the arches... so we retraced our steps for the hour or so it took to reach the downstream entrance to the city. Here the vast and splendid buildings of the EU and the Courts of Human Rights dominate the waterway junction. We headed upstream, with our progress getting slower as the river became more confined by the stone walls as we entered the centre of the city. But how strange... there were no other boats - until a bateau mouche came hurtling round a bend. And they were the only craft we saw - apart from moored restaurant peniches, and a maintenance boat dragging trees and vegetation from behind them, only to dump them back into the mainstream for me to dodge. Still we went on - now becoming anxious for our picnic table on the roof as the water and the bridge arches grew closer together. Eventually, after passing more trip boats laden with snap-happy tourists, in the archway of the next bridge we could see white water from the weirs ahead. I decided to respond to Jacquie's "suggestions" that we turn... and began to swing FALCON's bows... only to be picked up by the current and swept towards the iron supports of the bridge. Oooh, this was fun! I decided I'd turn in smoother waters, and reversed out of the flow. Once turned, I was borne along by the stream - uasually river flows are so well controlled you hardly notice much difference between going upstream or downstream. This was different - my sedate 4mph on the water was nearer 10mph in effect - no wonder we'd struggled upstream! It was exhilarating... especially when two trip boats were so spaced that I'd no sooner passed one as I came out of a bridge-hole than I was confronted with another in the space I needed for the next.... FALCON's engine worked overtime in reverse as I held her stationary in midstream until the way was clear. Can anyone tell me whether you CAN actually get round Strasbourg on the Ill?... and are you allowed to? The highlight of our few days sight-seeing around Strasbourg was a run in the car into Switzerland, where we went to the awesome Rhine Falls - where trip boats dance about in the spray on the white water below the falls. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. -- David Long: Back on station up the Wigan Flight.