From owner-canals@blacksheep.org Thu May 8 07:18:10 1997 id AA18109; Thu, 8 May 97 07:17:53 EDT id GAA00544; Thu, 8 May 1997 06:51:53 -0400 Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 06:51:29 -0400 From: Dave Vickers Subject: Bank Holiday onward : part 1(longish) - Chesterfield To: canals Further to my previous brief note dashed off during a brief visit home, here is the full version of our Bank Holiday trip. The Lincoln Boat club planned the cruise and took the boats up to Torksey on Friday, ready to leave for West Stockwith at 7am. Since both Joan and I hate unnecesary early mornings, we decided for me to set off from Lincoln on Saturday at the civilised time of 10am, with Joan and daughter Eleanor meeting us at Torksey after said daughter's riding lesson, and going on the low ebb tide to Stockwith. I duly got ready to leave and as I got on TigerLily holding three key rings, two of which had cork floaters, I promptly dropped the car keys in the drink (the ones without the floater!). Out came my magnet, but after ten keyless minutes I gave up and borrowed a proper 'Sea Searcher' from another club member on the moorings and eventually retrieved the keys.(luckily, since it had my only motorcycle key on the ring !) Having thrown my schedule adrift, I cruised up to Torksey abandoning the planned stop at the pub, instead just locking straight through, picking up the family crew and heading straight down the Trent. The ebb flow was strong, and the river calm, so we arrived at Stockwith just before the tide change, and waited outside for the flood to give enough water to clear the lock and moor in Stockwith basin with the other ten Lincoln boats who had arrived in the morning. Just to complement the other sightings on the list, during the trip down the Trent we saw a bird near Gainsborough that looked suspiciously like a cormorant. On Saturday night, there were several discussions on the merits of the food at the local pubs, so half the club members went to the White Hart, whilst we and the others went to the Packet at Misterton, with the intention of meeting later at the Stockwith Yacht club for their club night with beer and hot potatoes. After walking down the towpath to the pub, arriving at the Packet before 8pm , we finally got our food at 9.30, the ribs were burnt, the steak tough, and the mixed grill cold by the time the chips and veg arrived. Not to be recommended! By the time we got back to the basin, everyone else was leaving the yacht club, so Joan and young Eleanor squeezed into our small cabin to go to sleep, while I had a drink on the Lincoln club commodore's new Birchwood 32ft luxury cruiser, before making my bed in the cockpit of TigerLily. This involves putting cushions either side of the engine cover until the level is roughly similar and then curling up in a sleeping bag on top of this 5ft 6in wide uneven platform under the rear canvas canopy. At 4am I woke with wet feet to find a leak in the canopy was right over my sleeping bag, and there was a storm outside ! After finding the spare sleeping bag and squeezing in the cabin between the two snoring females I did manage another couple of hours sleep before an early breakfast. It was a nice change to enjoy some 'Honey Nut Cornflakes', at home the kids have always finished the packet before I get there if we have anything more than basic plain cornflakes ! After stowing the beds etc. we and three other narrow beam cruisers from Lincoln set off at 10 am up the canal, with the crews of the big cruisers spread between the other three boats, (since ours was the smallest), and the sun actually came out at last. (As someone said 'Rain before seven, fine by eleven'). Just to get one over on the Trideckers, their crews had to work all the locks, so we had a smooth and easy run up to Drakeholes tunnel, only hitting a few logs and grounding the prop once or twice on the shallow canal. As usual there were several ducks with a brood of adorable chicks, along with the odd swan and moorhen along the way. One swan in particular seemed to have an aversion to swimming to the side, so kept directly in front of us, flapping ahead a short way when we got close, then swimming until we caught up again, until eventually it moved to the side. Although the rain had stopped, there was a strong wind, so the boats were performing some strange zig-zag manoevres as we continued, which we caught on video to embarass the 'old hands' who were handling them. - We naturally kept a straight course all the way ! . After lunching on the boats at Drakeholes, several of the crews had a short visit to the bar of the Griff Inn, and we set off again. Half the crews wanted to get back to the basin early, whilst the rest of us thought that was a waste of the chance to see more of the canal, so Windsong and Kibotos headed back, whilst TigerLily and Vicky Sue carried on up to Clayworth, turning at the winding hole and returned back to Stockwith at a more leisurely pace. This was the most picturesque part of the cruise, the others certainly missed out, since we spotted, among other things, swans sitting on floating nests, a perfect rainbow arching over a lock, a VERY large keeled sea going yacht hull under construction in someones garden and many other animals and birds (including some horses which made my horse-mad daughter happy). After arriving back and mooring in the basin, plans were made for the club boats to set off back to Lincoln at 7am the next morning (Monday). This seemed to us to be a waste of an opportunity, so I arranged to join Geoff (our club commodore) on SeaQuest to return to Torksey and collect our car to bring back to Stockwith, and then take TigerLily up the Trent to Keadby, after filling the tank with petrol, which seemed to have diminished at an alarming and cexpensive rate. After a good nights sleep in the cockpit, this time with dry feet, I rose early to help with the task of getting Kibotos out of the lock under tow from Tamar. Unfortunately, as they were returning from Drakeholes, they had hit a log which broke one side of their Enfield outdrive support ring, so could not return to Lincoln under their own power. This also meant they had no steering, so they tied a close tow arangement to Tamar II, one of the big cruisers whose skipper, Pete Lack, always seems to end up towing people out of trouble. We all then got through to the Trent and returned to Torksey without further incident, and after helping getting the boats safely through the lock, I returned by car to Stockwith to collect TigerLily ready to take her up to the Keadby and Stainforth. (continued as part 2.) During the weekend we did not see any cut webs, but met one lady from Louth who was sandblasting her nb at Stockwith basin who is an occasional net watcher, and recognised our boat name from the list.(sory, I did not catch the boat name). Dave Vickers TigerLily From owner-canals@blacksheep.org Thu May 8 11:10:42 1997 id AA20015; Thu, 8 May 97 11:10:26 EDT id KAA28544; Thu, 8 May 1997 10:51:58 -0400 Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 10:51:50 -0400 From: Dave Vickers Subject: Bank holiday onwards Part 2 - abandoned at the bridge To: canals After our weekend on the Chesterfield, I had scrounged a lift to Torksey on SeaQuest, and returned to Stockwith with our car. Since time was tight, I drove up to Misterton Garage to fill the petrol cans, then after returning and quickly emptying the cans into the boat tank, daughter Eleanor and I took TigerLily out through the lock onto the Trent to catch the ebb tide whilst wife Joan drove up to Keadby in the car. The wind and waves were rough, so we had to keep the canopy up to keep the spray out while we bounced across the wave tops, but it was an enjoyable trip with 11 year old Eleanor doing most of the steering while I retied the pennant that threatened to blow away, and tried to keep the kettle on the cooker to make a coffee. The Keadby lock keeper had the gates open ready for us, but we still had to keep the boat diagonal to the lock entrance as we approached due to the wind, luckily TigerLily is very manoeuvreable so we locked in without problems, and woke up Joan who was having a nap in the car, having arrived earlier. After the very helpful lock-keeper had explained about all the various bridges and locks en-route, we decided to head down to Thorne and moor there for the night, although this plan soon changed. Since one of us needed to get home at night, we needed to 'leapfrog' with the car, so we decided that after taking the boat through the first swing bridge, I would walk back to the car and meet Joan and Eleanor at the next bridge 5 or 6 miles further on. We waited for a train to pass before the railway bridge could slide out of the way, and then went to open our first ever swing bridge.(Vazon bridge). By now the rain was pouring down, and I could not see any instruction plate (later I saw it was prominently on top of the control box), so I followed the instructions previously given by the lock-keeper. ie put in and turn the BWB key, then push the bridge open. After 5 minutes of frustration, a helpful local came and pointed out that we had to lift the locking bar to release the bridge ! Now feeling thoroughly embarrassed, I opened the bridge and waved TigerLily through, calling out that I would meet them at Godnow bridge, so Joan cruised through and set off at a fair speed. After closing the bridge, I suddenly realised the car keys were in Joan's pocket on the boat ! The folding bike was also locked in the car boot, so that didn't help. Now, although I am slightly religious, I have not yet managed to walk on water, so I set off running after them on a slippery towpath in the pouring rain, and caught up to about twenty feet of the boat before I had to stop, and yelled various rather loud comments after Joan, who I could see plainly through the canopy windows, whilst waving my orange waterproof to try and attract her attention. Joan meanwhile was in a world of her own, enjoying the rainswept canal scenery, never once looking back, whilst Eleanor was in the cabin listening to music while she watched the few ducks through the window. As I alternatively ran and shouted, the boat gradually grew further away, until after about two miles I was totally shattered (not my original choice of words, but there may be children reading) and the boat was disappearing round the next corner. According to Nicholsons, it is about 5 miles between Vazon and Godnow bridges, which does not seem far in a boat;- but when walking a towpath in pouring rain it seemed like a double marathon! After an hour and a half, I came in sight of TigerLily at the bridge, a few hundred yards away, just about to pull out to see where I had got to, and I eventually got back on board, with a few muttered epithets including the words 'divorce' and various other unrepeatable comments, before changing my sodden clothes for dry ones. Apparently, Joan had heard eldritch screechings, and checked the radio, then checked Eleanor, then she decided that we must all be correct when we sometimes tell her that she's mad, and that the first sign of that is hearing voices ! Since I was now freezing and still soaked, and we were 5 miles from the car, we returned to Keadby (this time negotiating the swing bridge without trouble) and moored near the lock. We then decided that since the weather was awful, we would drive home, leaving TigerLily there until Wednesday, then return and set off again. This we did, arriving home to find that our three teenagers at home had been party-ing all weekend and the house was like a tip, and decided that in future we could not leave them for a complete weekend without supervision. I don't know at their age I would have behaved myself, quite how is a different matter. On Wednesday we returned to Keadby and set off again in slightly better weather.Clouds but no rain, sun and wind making the water dance. Joan and two kids set off on the boat, whilst I drove the car from bridge to bridge to assist, although now everything worked as smooth as clockwork. A BW man was at Medge Hall bridge, but it worked fine. Apparently at the weekend when the bridge got warm it wouldn't move until they had played a hosepipe on it to cool it down. At Moors bridge we swapped over, with Joan driving the car to Thorne lock while I cruised down in TigerLily with Eleanor and 13 year old Simon, who really enjoyed operating Wykewell lift bridge, with the flashing road lights,barriers etc. Making your own doodah noise, what fun! At Thorn lock it took us about ten minutes to figure out which buttons were for the bottom sluices, bottom gates etc. It would have been far quicker to operate a manual lock instead of the electric one. After the lock, Joan took the boat to Bramwith, passing a floating ewe and lamb to which Simon wanted to give assistance, as both were like balloons, Joan explained that it was a little late. I then took the boat from Bramwith from the Stainforth and Keadby onto the Sheffield and Sth Yorks canal. At Bramwith there was an expensive new cruiser coming down towards the lock, and since this was their crew's first attempt at a manual lock, we assisted them before coming through ourselves. Long Sandall lock was a slight problem, since the electric operated bottom sluices did not want to open and the lock keeper had gone home. Eventually after opening and closing the top gates and sluices, the lower ones worked, presumably one of the interlock switches was not making contact. We then continued to our destination at Strawberry Island Boat Club in Doncaster, where Joan had been made very welcome during her wait for us, enjoying the chat with the locals and was most impressed with the stylish ladies loos. Unfortunately she also had time to look at some of the boats for sale, and saw a very nice larger cruiser, so we may soon have to start looking at loans and mortgages again. After chatting with a few of the friendly Yorkshire folk on the (very extensive) club moorings we left TigerLily and drove home We will go back on Friday for the return trip to Keadby, returning back down the Trent to home on Saturday. Dave & Joan Vickers Tiger Lily