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These photos of Berrichons working are postcards posted to a Facebook group. Shows how far they worked.

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B181505F-E2AA-4B43-9A69-B7C416457201.jpegThis photo of Sud brought a response from a relative who said that they went to Dunkirk to send the sons (those in the dinghy) to school.

Edited by Dav and Pen
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1 hour ago, Dav and Pen said:

These photos of Berrichons working are postcards posted to a Facebook group. Shows how far they worked.

 

 

Marvellously atmospheric photos. I think Marseilles-les-Aubigny is where we turned round when we had a week on a hire boat from Briare last year. From memory, where the basin is on the left there are the remains of a branch canal which closed long ago.

Edited by Athy
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15 minutes ago, Athy said:

Marvellously atmospheric photos. I think Marseilles-les-Aubigny is where we turned round when we had a week on a hire boat from Briare last year. From memory, where the basin is on the left there are the remains of a branch canal which closed long ago.

The basin at Marseilles was the junction with the Berry canal network and it’s now used as a mooring place with some pontoons.

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6 minutes ago, Dav and Pen said:

The basin at Marseilles was the junction with the Berry canal network and it’s now used as a mooring place with some pontoons.

Of course. As I've been on the restored parts of the Berry I should have known that. Yes, we moored at one of the pontoons while we we went to the boulangerie on the other side of the lock. The lock-keeper, if I recall correctly, was a most officious fellow.

 

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It was a difficult place for us as the canal banks slope and the offside is full of permanent moorers. Just near the lock was ok whilst nipped in Butcher and baker but the lock keeper who looked after the two locks was a pain and one Sunday definitely drunk and I had to get quite nasty to stop him causing us real damage.

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6 hours ago, Dav and Pen said:

It was a difficult place for us as the canal banks slope and the offside is full of permanent moorers. Just near the lock was ok whilst nipped in Butcher and baker but the lock keeper who looked after the two locks was a pain and one Sunday definitely drunk and I had to get quite nasty to stop him causing us real damage.

This berrichon came floating by during our trip of 1968. She was motorised and adapted for leisure use. Note the strings from the wheelhouse to the bow rudder, an arrangement beyond my personal understanding (We inherited a bow rudder on our later vessel Secunda and I never got the hang of it at all).

 

Also seen on that trip were the railway sidings for the cement works at Beffes, next door to Marseilles-les-Aubigny. Ten years later, with Secunda as a hotel-barge, we were based beside these sidings, under the auspices of the hire-boat company Loire Line. Thinking it would be nice to have a bar for the Loire Line clients, Jim Clarke, the manager, pulled from the water one of the remaining wooden berrichons, which would otherwise be taken away for scrap. and sawed her in half to make the bar. It all ended badly as the only clients were the railway workers, who came in several times each day for a 'canon' as they were known, ie a tiny glass of vin ordinaire at the government-regulated price of, if I remember, 80 centimes in old money.

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Edited by John Liley
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3 hours ago, John Liley said:

 Thinking it would be nice to have a bar for the Loire Line clients, Jim Clarke, the manager, pulled from the water one of the remaining wooden berrichons, which would otherwise be taken away for scrap. and sawed her in half to make the bar. It all ended badly as the only clients were the railway workers, who came in several times each day for a 'canon' as they were known, ie a tiny glass of vin ordinaire at the government-regulated price of, if I remember, 80 centimes in old money.

Berrichon.jpeg

 

 

There were two wooden berricons used as bar/restaurants moored on the Loire itself immediately by the St Thibault arm from the Canal Latéral to the river, but pressure from locals had them closed down about 20 years ago. I heard that the hulls were then burned but I'm not certain.

 

I have seen bow rudders used on empty trente-huits. They discharged sand at a wharf in Cambrai and then reversed back about 1k to Cantimpré basin where they could swing and return north. No ropes involved there ? - the marinier lowered the rudder and dropped a tiller bar on the shaft to steer, with his wife on the wheel. Most didn't seem to bother with them though.

 

Tam

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15 minutes ago, Tam & Di said:

 

I have seen bow rudders used on empty trente-huits. They discharged sand at a wharf in Cambrai and then reversed back about 1k to Cantimpré basin where they could swing and return north. No ropes involved there ? - the marinier lowered the rudder and dropped a tiller bar on the shaft to steer, with his wife on the wheel. Most didn't seem to bother with them though.

 

Tam

There were plans to fit a bow rudder on the paddle steamer Waverly but they scrapped the idea

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2 hours ago, Tam & Di said:

 

There were two wooden berricons used as bar/restaurants moored on the Loire itself immediately by the St Thibault arm from the Canal Latéral to the river, but pressure from locals had them closed down about 20 years ago. I heard that the hulls were then burned but I'm not certain.

 

I have seen bow rudders used on empty trente-huits. They discharged sand at a wharf in Cambrai and then reversed back about 1k to Cantimpré basin where they could swing and return north. No ropes involved there ? - the marinier lowered the rudder and dropped a tiller bar on the shaft to steer, with his wife on the wheel. Most didn't seem to bother with them though.

 

Tam

 

The two restaurant berrichons failed to get certificates from the navigation authorities at Nevers, who, until then had always been to some degree understanding. Their reasonableness, however, had stretched in certain quarters, where the issue of navigation permits had been eased by gifts of whisky and brandy - in some quantity, I believe. .

 

This was latched onto by the parallel authorities at Lyon and Paris, so Nevers appointed new brooms and put on a show of severity. Whether this was merited in the case of the berrichons I would not know, but I had a tough time with the same inspector myself when he  made us make a 10 day voyage there and back just when we needed it least. He could easily have come to us in his car, which would also have saved us the all night sessions of work and the rushed exit from the dry-dock we were currently in.

 

It did not help them in the end: the Nevers navigation commission was scrapped and Paris took over. We spend a lot of time now convincing them our barge is not a bateau-mouche and that the Nivernais differs from the Seine (Hence the regular replating of the hull bottom, owing to the things that we hit).Here, to cheer this account, is a picture of a deeper bit.

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Edited by John Liley
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On 23/11/2020 at 00:53, PeterScott said:

On this day in 2003


We were just finishing going down the Wolverhampton 21 and wondered why there was a television on the slide. Not being particulary interested in people kicking balls about it took some thought to recall that the Rugby Union World Cup Final had just about started. We listened on Radio Five and  hence to the classic commentary "Jonny Wilkinson Kicks For Glory ... " (last minute of extra time - scores level at 17-17)

 

"Bugger"

 

The simultaneous commentary from NZ. 

 

 

 

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On this day in 2002

On 07/07/2020 at 12:03, PeterScott said:

 

L0944_20021124_0003.JPG.7b0ffa4daef8b0612a0f9054fc5a734a.JPG

near Shugborough Hall T&M

 

Misty November moring and we woke to find ourselves in t'middle of a fishing match, with one peg immediately ahead and another just behind. It was with some trepidation that we opened the hatch, fearing hitting the bloke sitting at his peg on the roof. ...

 

 

And from t'other direction

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