Granny Buttons

Dayboats of the world, I salute you

 
Dayboat Mary Jane near Cosgrove, 23rd August 2008.  See MK Afloat.

When Tony Blews asked for advice a couple of days ago about taking out a dayboat and avoiding disaster, I didn't know what to say.

But silence isn't in my nature, so I was simply facetious.

Hey, there's not a lot that can go wrong with a day boat.  They are very easy to steer, and the only thing you can do is check you have good provisions aboard, because you don't want to run out of stuff.  You won't be allowed to go through locks, so you don't have to worry about hanging it up on the cill.

And you don't want to spend all your time in the pub, or you might as well have hired a mini bus instead of a day boat.

The only real advice I have is to make sure the boat's roof can hold the weight of all your passengers (see above).   

Also, you might ensure you don't go too fast past moored boats, and also slow down and go in the middle of the canal when approaching anglers.

I've not got a downer on dayboats, I really haven't.  They are the only type of boat where the occupants are invariably enjoying themselves, which is great!

Using surplus engine heat in the cabin

Dave Edwards draws my attention to this article in the Guardian about using waste diesel engine heat to power an auxiliary steam engine :

Clean Power Technologies, in Newhaven on the English south coast, is developing steam hybrid engines that claw back some of the immense amount of energy wasted by the internal combustion engine. Ultimately they aim to develop a car engine that runs partly on steam power.

Dave points out that the article says 33% of the energy in fuel is lost in the cooling system, 36% lost out of the exhaust pipe, 4% lost due to friction and a mere 27% ends up as propulsion. 

Reference the rise in fuel duty in November, he asks: "I wonder if HMRC will accept a figure of 27% after 1st November?"

Well, up to a point.  i.e., no.   For Dave's suggestion to work, you would need much more of the waste energy to be employed inside the boat, in the cabin.

Hmm, that makes me think...

Like most boats, Granny has a skin cooling tank where the engine's heat is dissipated via the hull into the canal.  Some of it goes to heat the hot water calorifier, giving me 12 gals of very hot water (typically 75C) for washing, etc.   But it takes a long time to warm up, because the calorifier shares the hotwater with the skin tank.

This article makes me realise that the engine hot water could also power the central heating during the winter, with only a very little tweak to the engine and plumbing.

What's involved?  Can someone ask Tony Brooks of TB-Training?  He's the one who would know.  Use his superb free email advice service to ask. 

Further down the development line it ought to be able to help power a refrigerator, top up extra batteries and do other things too.

[Thanks for the link, Dave]

Canal arms

Arm found in canal - KVEO NBC-23

Now there's a headline to thrill English canal boaters. 

As I've mentioned before, it's high time we found a lot more arms in canals.

Nic Chilton found an arm in the Grand Union Canal last year, and he put up a YouTube video about it here.  One person has commented that they found it less than thrilling, but they probably aren't canal boaters.

[Update: I've amended the link in the headline, as the story had moved.  Thanks to Nic Chilton for noticing]

Sink the Belgrano

Tony Blews nervously asks:

I've got the day boat booked from Norbury Wharf for the 9th of Sept. Aside from what they'll tell me, do you have any more advice about not turning their boat into a replica of the General Belgrano?

(Details about the Norbury Wharf dayboats are here).

My advice is the exact opposite - to do your best to sink the boat.  (What the hell. They'll probably only sell it on Ebay after you take it back.)

Norbury's day boats rejoice in the stirring names of Victory and Defiant, which reek of indominatable naval history, so they might be a bit harder to sink.  But all the more of a challenge, eh?

One way is to drill a tiny hole into the baseplate just before you return it. A battery powered drill can help here, with a small (say, 2mm) steel drill bit.

Make sure you get your £80 deposit back first, so I recommend leaving the drilling to a third party at the very last moment as you are claiming the deposit.

Another option is to take it through a lock, and hang it up on the cill as you descend.   There are 17 miles of lock-free canal in that pound, and the first locks - going north - are at Tyrley, quite the most beautiful in the country.  I can't think of a better place to sink the Belgrano Defiant.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia:  The Belgrano was originally the USS Phoenix, and it was the only warship to escape unscathed from the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour.  It was sold to the Argies in 1951.

Another (less interesting) bit: The torpedoes that sank the Belgrano were an unguided old model, originally designed in the 1920s.  There were three altogether; one missed, one hit the bow, but the one that did the real damage hit amidships 

There are probably parallels with canal day boats - I'm sure many of those have now been sold off and are itching to be sunk by brave British canal boaters. 

Ray Bowern of Streethay Wharf recently sold his day boat Basil, but it's still afloat last I heard.

Droitwich Canal Restoration aerial views

Peter Lees has a lot of very interesting aerial views of the Droitwich Canal Restoration on Flickr.

I'd show you one of his aerial views here, but it's hard to make aerial views look arresting.  Aerial views always look factual and dull.

Far better to show you one of his dramatic ground pictures of the newly-restored canal near a modern housing development, which he says is: 

Just to the west of the M5 leading to Lock 7 into the Salwarpe river.

I think this image will be pretty arresting to most local people. It looks a bit dismal and chaotic now, but it's what they'll come to glory in, in future years.  Incredible to think that it's the stretch of canal here that is the newcomer, but in a couple of years' time the houses will probably be seen as the interlopers.
Thanks, Peter!

The Simpsons

I've not seen much on the web about Simpsons Boats since my post on them a couple of weeks back.   

I was careful about the rumours, since they might have been just that, with no foundation in truth.

But I do know that Simpsons were building a fine replica tunnel tug called Gloucester (pictured here by John Gascoign in sailaway form at the Saul Canal Festival in June). 

And recently the owner of Gloucester commented:

Sadly Simpsons Boats have gone into voluntary liquidation following amalgamation of operations with Big Fish Narrowboats at the Old Sawmill, Sharpness.

After the excitement of the launch of my tunnel tug, Gloucester, at Saul Festival [YouTube video here]  problems began to emerge to customers of Simpsons. 

In the intervening six weeks precisely no progress was made.

Fortunately I was able to remove Gloucester as a sailaway by mutual consent before the poop hit the air conditioning.  She's now back in the old Simpsons shed at Brimscombe, Stroud where she is being fitted out by two of Simpsons ex-employees.

I have no idea of the exact nature of the financial problems as no one from either Simpsons or Big Fish saw fit to contact me directly to let me know my boat had been towed from the site and moored on the towpath. 

I heard it from one of the Simpsons employees who had just that morning been made redundant.

I typed 'simpsons boats' into Google tonight and a Google ad for the company was still at the top of the page, three weeks after I first heard the news.  ("Every boat is hand-built and finished by professional craftsmen.") 

In the age of the internet, commerce is on autopilot.

 
Incidentally, I got the company's name wrong.  In my original post I wrote 'Simpson Boats' - i.e. Simpson in the singular - but it seems Simpson comes in families. In other words, it's The Simpsons.  I've changed my original post to reflect that.

Now, all I need to know is what's happened to Big Fish Narrowboats.  They had a stand at the IWA Festival last weekend, and lots of leaflets were in evidence, but I think I came too late (6pm) to the stand to catch anyone there.

What a load of bollards on the narrow canal locks

Why are all these new bollards being set into the locksides of narrow canal locks?  What's the reasoning behind it? 

And just as importantly, who took the decision?

Earlier this year I first noticed them at Middlewich on the Trent & Mersey canal (pictured here [top] so new that they hadn't been painted, and so had to be fenced off for safety), and then on the Caldon Canal.

Others have spotted them being installed in Birmingham and elsewhere. 

Paul Balmer of Waterway Routes is only the latest person to write about them (here), but many others have done so. 

Yet nobody has yet reported an official reason for them being needed.  And I've not read a single favourable report about them.

There's certainly a case for them on the broad canal locks, of course, but only by a lone narrowboat when locking 'uphill'.

My perception is that on the narrow locks they are nothing but tripping hazards.  They serve no useful purpose and so certainly can't be due to health and safety reasons.

Who made the decision to install them?  Who made the decision to pay for them?  It would be nice to have someone individual to blame, and not an amorphous, anonymous bureaucracy.

Perhaps they are part of an official BW art installation, as with Anthony Lysycia's lockside sculptures at Stockton Brook on the Caldon Canal? 

My money is on Damien Hirst as the author of this particular prank.  He certainly has the money to waste on the 'installation', and the money to back up the compensation claims for people tripping over them.

Tontine Hotel and Falling Sands Lock House

David Godson asks:

I picked up a string on Granny Buttons referring to the old Tontine Pub.  I'm trying to trace who might have been running it when it finally closed.  In particular whether it was a member of the Williams Family.

I was actually born at Falling Sands lockhouse in the 1940s and have written up an account of childhood years there.   Might your site throw any light on my query?

Well, David, 'my site' can't help, but perhaps some people passing by might have an idea.

I presume David picked up on my post about the Tontine Hotel in Stourport, a couple of years ago.   Good lord, how time flies.  I re-read it tonight,  and was amused by my own joke at the end.  I laugh too much at my own jokes.

But gosh, someone born at Falling Sands lock house?  That sounds historic.  Where can we read your childhood memoir, David?

The last time I went by that spot was in 2000, and I don't recall a cottage there at that time.   And there's no record of one on the Canalplan page.  Hundreds of lock cottages have been lost in the last six decades.

Granny Buttons likes Twix

Wait there a moment.  I've just got to nip out and buy a Twix!

I've been catching up with the blog of Lucky Duck - in the last week better termed Unlucky Duck - and how they've spent recent days on the Thames tied up to aaa Warrior. 

If you want to see girls blogging, this is how it's done.  Buy them a Twix.  (There'll be one bar for each of them)

Beeston Castle of Claymoore Navigation now has a holiday blog

'Steve' is doing a holiday blog about his family's canal boat hire trip, on www.1024.co.uk.

They started last Saturday and are doing the Four Counties Ring over a fortnight,  including a detour side trip down the Caldon Canal.

Before they started he wrote:   

We are hiring a boat called Beeston Castle from Claymoore Navigation. 

We followed this boat up the Shropshire Union Canal towards Chester last year, so we are reasonably sure what we are getting.  Here is the layout:

It’s much better than the layout of last year's boat Summer Wine as you don’t have to squeeze past the bed to get to the kitchen.

This is great stuff, very useful for other people thinking of hiring. 

Interesting to hear his thoughts about the different boats.  I presume Steve's referring to the Norbury Wharf boat Summer Wine.  It's personal preference of course, but he likes the way Beeston Castle has the kitchen at the back.   

Summer Wine, incidentally, is now for sale on Ebay, asking price <£60k.  Norbury Wharf is the only boat operator I know with its own Ebay shop!  See norburywharflimited.  (No doubt someone will tell me I've missed another one...)

I'll put Beeston Castle on my boatroll temporarily - the first hire boat on the list.

Oothoon spots another 'famous' boat

'Big Martyn' is blogging from NB Oothoon, and on Sunday he spotted Granny at Campbell Park in Milton Keynes - presumably while I was up at the IWA Festival:

I'm always interested in how other boats are painted and named, so I nearly fell off Oothoon's counter when I saw a boat I recognised.

It was Granny Buttons, which I know thanks to another narrowboating blog.

I know that there are famous boats out there, such as the Phyllis May from the "Narrow Dog" books, but you don't expect to actually see them!

I'm flattered to be noticed, Martyn, and I, too, am interested in how other boats are named and painted.

Oothoon is a new name to me, and quite distinctive and remarkable.  Thanks to the wonders of Google, I'm only a step or two away from knowing the origin of any name.

This one is taken from William Blakes's 'Visions of the Daughters of Albion', a felicitous name for me, because 'Albion' is my alter ego.  If I do change my name as I've been promising for years, it'll probably be to Albion Dumsday - hence my email address.

Big Martyn's blog is very well written, a superb cruising log, spare and most readable.  I could never write as concisely - and yet as fully - as this.  Wonderful Pepysian stuff, an elegant public window into a personal diary.

He seems to have started it as he set off north from King's Cross, perhaps from Battlebridge Basin, three weeks ago, although I get the impression he's been living aboard rather longer. 

Anyway, welcome, Oothoon, to my boatroll.

Bagpipes in the cathedral of the waterways

Netherton Tunnel re-enactment celebrates 150th anniversary - Dudley News 

A week ago they celebrated the opening of Netherton Tunnel.

It would have been nice to have been there.  I'm sure I would have found a reason to poke fun and applaud at the same time:

Canal enthusiasts donned tailcoats and bowler hats, corsets and crinolines, for a gala re-enactment of the opening of Netherton canal tunnel - 150 years ago to the day.

A procession of over 40 narrow boats, joey boats and tugs, including ‘President’ - a steam boat on loan from the Black Country Museum - made its way along the tunnel, accompanied by music from the West Midlands Fire Service Band.

I love Netherton Tunnel.  I think it's my favourite.  I love the dual towpaths, and the length, and the fact that it's almost always empty for boaters, despite the fact that the hoi polloi general public can cycle or walk through; you don't need a boat. Indeed, it's a veritable cathedral of the waterways.

But what music did the West Midlands Fire Service Band play?  They are a pipe band (it says here) so I presume they did something bagpipey. 

Bagpipes are magnificently resonant in a confined space.  They would have sounded astonishing.  And Netherton Tunnel is probably the Cathedral of the waterways.  Imagine a bagpipe band - the grandest of walking bands - playing as they walked down the towpath of the cathedral of the waterways.

Thank heavens for that.  I get so fed up with the same old trad-jazz or folkey stuff which is usually trotted out at canal festivals. Nothing wrong with trad jazz or folk, but it's probably even less authentically 'canal' than chamber music.

Only, of course, you just know they didn't play bagpipes while walking down the towpath, did you?   Did they play trad jazz outside in the rain?

Plans for old narrowboats - e.g. Dover

John McEwan saw my post about NB Dover from a zillion years ago (in blog years) and asks:

1937  Town Class, large Woolwich motorboat Dover.  My father is interested in building a model of this particular Harland and Wolff boat.  Where would we get plans of the vessel to scale down?

I dunno.  There must be loads of people who know the answer, but I don't.  I'm sorry to let you down.  Any suggestions, Buttoneers?

One possibility is A.M. Models, who actually offer to build scale models of particular narrowboats themselves.   

(I don't know what the 'M'  of A.M. Models represents.   Could it be, by any chance, er, McEwan, as in 'John McEwan'?  If so, John knows rather more than me.)

Another is Roger Fuller.  As his building of Hadar shows, Roger relishes the chance to build models of old narrowboats.  Although in his case he builds them at 1:1 scale.

Update 1:  Many thanks to both George Boyle and Colin Marshall for reminding me about Laurence Hogg's excellent source of narrowboat plans:

www.laurencehoggproductions.co.uk/plans.htm

That led me to call Laurence (his phone number's on his site and he's always willing to speak), and he reminded me about his special Ebay shop, Train Boat Depot, where you can buy them online with just a mouse-click.  His plans are mostly 1/24 scale (1/2" to 1ft), making a 3ft model of a full-sized narrowboat.

Update 2: I just remembered that I wrote about Laurence's plans a couple of years ago.

IWA Festival 2008

I went to the IWA Festival on Sunday. 

Granny was at Milton Keynes.  I was still dithering whether to attend, right up to 1pm on Sunday.  So I locked her up at lunchtime and drove up without any plans for staying the night, but fully expecting to find a cheap hotel if needed.

In the event, I arrived at 4.3opm, nipped in on a late entry price (£3.50) and wandered the festival as fast as possible, before ending up in a raging and unpleasant row with Barry and Jason Kaye of BK Marine, the Webasto distributors, for reasons (and with consequences) I'll elaborate on later. It's an ugly story, which they'll undoubtedly say is entirely my fault.  And I'll reply in kind.

This soured my trip, so I was in no mood to stay long.   However, I met Mike Moorse of NB Guelrose and his wife, and I calmed down over a cup of tea and a stroke of their beautiful labradors.  My hand stank of dog for the rest of the night, but by god it was so relaxing.   

Then I waited - like everyone else - for the illuminated boats procession.  And waited. And waited.

It was a bit anti-climatic this year.  I think the problem was the stoplock at Autherley Junction. It really held up the flow of boats.  Still, some lovely efforts.

They made a better fist of it than I did of the photographs.  Still, I made some lovely efforts too.   

Steam boat Emily Anne was perhaps the most spectacular, but I particularly liked Kew, which always takes part in these parades and never fails to rise to the occasion.  This year Kew was festooned with illuminated 'windmills', which rotated to great effect, remain ghostly in the air after the boat itself had vanished.

At the festival this year I was flattered to see that not only did Granny Buttons contribute three photographs in this year's IWA calendar, but also that my pictures are represented in their show posters and on their 'Join the IWA and help save the inland waterways' leaflet. 

I found one of these leaflets left underneath my windscreen wipers, halfway back to Milton Keynes and seeing my own photos allayed the irritation.

I still had to pay to get in to the show, though! 

I walked back to the car from Aldersley Junction, reaching it at 11.30pm, and in 2 hours drove back to Granny.  Gosh, how comforting it felt to return home.

Granny is now here.   

Incidentally, in their blog post for Sunday, Steve & Maggie of NB Albert mention seeing Granny, before lunch:

We passed Granny Buttons close to Campbell Park. Andrew Denny appeared not to be on board. Perhaps he was shopping in Milton Keynes, or perhaps not.

Hey, yes, I must have been on board!  I didn't leave the boat until well after 1pm.   Never be afraid to bang on Granny's hull to wake me up!    All I ask is that you don't run away before I've had a chance to surface.  Nothing more infuriating than the classic schoolboy tease of ringing the doorbell and running away.