Jump to content

Dav and Pen

PatronDonate to Canal World
  • Posts

    1,462
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Dav and Pen

  1. Think she looking better now than ever certainly got very run down by the last owner.
  2. Tadworth had and still does have an original Yarwoods steel cabin. I never had a problem with the design of the handrail and always felt safer on her than on Alton which we were running at the same time. Found it useful for occasionally using a boat hook to pull her in.
  3. Best to go to Braunston to view it as the other one is Leicester.
  4. The original lifts in Belgium were closed for a long while after an accident with the bottom lift. The caisson started to go up went the Peniche was about half way out, the boat was broken in half and the lift was eventually stripped right down and rebuilt by the Eiffel company. We did a couple of coal runs on the weaver selling mainly to the lock keepers around 1978 and loaded the first load near Harecastle tunnel and the second load on the weaver. That load came from the forest of dean as the NCB were having a dispute with the miners and the pits were closed. I don’t remember any payment for the lift so maybe commercial traffic was ecempt.
  5. When we had our commercial NBs the 15 ton calculation for zero vat was very close for joshers but the big Northwich and woolwich made it with a bit over. When we had work done some yards accepted them ok but others we had to give a they had trouble with the vat man. My Dutch barge was well inside the rules but I had to send all details to the maker of a new prop so they could check. My advice is do not let the vat man know by raising this question.
  6. That’s a real shame does the farm own it?
  7. Mersey is also for sale by the same people who are the contractors for crt. Believe both of these boats were taken as S8
  8. Only went as far as Stanlow when with Shell Tankers. Joined my first ship there in 1958.
  9. This sounds a bit like my cousins steam bath for the pig swill and they did well on it.
  10. We had a boatman who kept a pot on the range in the back cabin and just kept topping it up with whatever he had available. It looked really grim but he never got any stomach problems.
  11. On this day in 2006 on the R. Meuse we were on our way back to our winter mooring in Antwerp for what would be the last time as for various reasons we moored in France for the next 10 years.
  12. They certainly got around and even found Hydraulic paddle gear that worked.
  13. This arrangement is on the last wooden 30m Peniche called Aster which is currently being restored. I did see it moving and they were using the bow rudder quite a lot.
  14. Today 2018. Lift bridge on Nivernais canal. These were hand wind ups until 2 years before and I got ready to get ashore when it started to move. A kind person walking along operated the control which amazingly they had put on both sides of the canal.
  15. My Dutch barge had a GM 2 stroke diesel which worked like a normal ic engine with oil contained in the sump.
  16. Had first canal boat in 1965 and progressed through 5 others including ex commercials until 2001 when we gave up on the canals as the enjoyment was spoilt for us by how busy it had become (even worse now) and brought an old Dutch barge in Belgium. We had 18 years on the continent spending all the summer there until both the maintenance of the barge and madams health made us decide to finish. This was just as well as things have turned out as she now needs a wheelchair to get around. We had brought the barge from someone who had lived on it until his wife died and it had a wheelchair lift from the galley up into the wheel house but the rarely went anywhere by then. Enjoyed all my boating life and miss it every day.
  17. As a Deck apprentice on my first ship the third mate told me to get a small tin of enamel paint from the store man. He came from Orkney and pronounced it enaminal paint in a very broad accent when I said this to the store man he said we don’t have that so back I went to the bridge told the mate and he said you know enaminal paint for the bath. Job done.
  18. I first went through the Panama when still a deck apprentice and it was run by the Americans. The ships were much smaller then but being on tankers we never shared a lock. The first timers were wound up by the crew about the mules that pulled the ship through the locks and were given carrots to feed them! We had to anchor in the lake overnight as tanker movement was not allowed at night, lots of the crew got ready for a swim until the pilot said he’d seen alligators in there recently. A few years ago we went through on the sailing ship Star Flyer from the pacific end and shared the locks with a reffer ship. The new locks were being built alongside and they are big enough for much larger ships but do not use the mules instead they have a tug which goes in the lock with them, an accident waiting to happen. There is a proposal to build a sea level canal through Nicaragua financed by the Chinese.
  19. Always associated Wigan with Uncle Joes Mint balls as promoted by the WRG .
  20. I have never worn a life jacket on the canals or even the English rivers but when we had the NB in Ireland we did wear self inflating ones whilst on the big lakes for if someone fell in it would be some time before the boat could get back alongside the casualty. For our camping boats we supplied the passengers with the old fashioned jackets and some of the kids wore them all the time. After we brought the barge in Belgium Life jackets were compulsory equipment for all crew and in the big river locks there are notices requiring them to be worn and after the regulations for bigger boats came in we had to have a notice in the wheelhouse giving the actions to be taken in the event of a man over board and we also had to have a method of recovering the person. In addition two life buoys and a buoy with a flashing light to be thrown in with the lifebuoy. The life jackets could be inspected at any time along with fire extinguishers by the river police.
  21. A lot depends on the conditions you are painting in, ie under cover or outside. I have only ever used 2 pack on the hull of my barge whilst on an open drydock and it was going off before I got to the end. For the topsides I have always used the traditional enamel top coat after a coat of etching primer followed by primer, undercoats and the topcoat. It is also easier to paint out scratch marks etc which are inevitable . I have owned boats for over 50 years and always painted them myself but I did start working life as a deck apprentice with Shell Tankers which consisted doing an awful lot of chipping and painting.
  22. Up in North Yorkshire last week and pleased to see the cobble and the crew had been restored at Skinningrove.
  23. This day in 2009 stopped in a flood at St Jean de Losne with our barge looking quite small. We had tied alongside Floan when the other 2 arrived.
  24. There were some Springer hulls which had Wooden cabins and were fitted out at Cosgrove in the middle 1960s think the company was called Faulkners but could be wrong. They got a lot of people afloat cheaply but were never a long term proposition.
  25. Amazing to see boats we knew or owned way back in such shiny paint jobs which we never managed, strange to see Raymond at Braunston without Arthur . Great turn out all round.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.