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DandV

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6 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

It wasnt that shiny when we passed, maybe it been in a bigger floating dry dock?

 

Nah, my photo is from 2016 shortly after it was launched.

 

It splits into two pieces, making it manageable by crane or short enough for road transport.  The chaps recommend a drysuit when bolting it together though, and wouldn't fancy doing it in deep water ...

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32 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Nah, my photo is from 2016 shortly after it was launched.

 

It splits into two pieces, making it manageable by crane or short enough for road transport.  The chaps recommend a drysuit when bolting it together though, and wouldn't fancy doing it in deep water ...

Mine was 2018

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Today 2020

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Tinsley Flight. More from a walk this afternoon. Try the slideshow button.

3 hours ago, OldGoat said:

Deen ligh that all day here in (sunny) Sussex-by-the-sea....

The nice Mr Google is now showing pictures rather than grey squares, which is what happens when I press the wrong buttons. Hmmmm

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On 18/05/2020 at 12:52, jake_crew said:

Nice to the the display still outside Stockers lock house, Rickmansworth.

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From our southwards journey to Cavalcade May 2019

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and on returning north in October 2019

 

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and in happier display-times in 2017 More from Stockers Lock

 

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Edited by PeterScott
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This day 2014 we were in North Norfolk for the Thursford Christmas show which we go to most years with Madams choir.

Saw the replica barge Juno at Blakeney Quay. Built locally by Charlie Ward in 2000 she does day charter work.

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41 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Are you going this year to see the lights

 

No not this year as really it’s an overnight visit from here and normally we stop at the Lifeboat Thornham for 2 nights and make it a pre Christmas get together. 

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Some hotel-barge nostalgia. This one was introduced by Gerard Morgan-Grenville, a freight barge converted by the work force I had earlier employed on our own vessel Luciole. The American company Abercrombie & Kent backed the project - I wish they had done the same for us. She has 4-poster beds and exotic decorative props. The swimming pool was a typical Gerard wheeze, and an exciting thing to be in when the vessel stops abruptly in a lock.

 

When purchased in freight barge format, she still had that Belgian peculiarity of reversed steering. ie you spin the wheel clockwise and the vessel turns to port. Something to do with arrangement of the pulleys, perhaps, it is known in Belgium as "English sheering." Philip Streat, who was hired to pick up the boat from a mooring on the Canal de Bourgogne, had to take her stern-first a mile and a half and through a couple of locks. He got into such a muddle with this, he had to stop periodically, then wander round to the stern to see which way the rudder was pointing. The system has since been corrected.

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Edited by John Liley
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Gerard Morgan Grenville a name from the past. His books about the Adventures with the Elizabeth (I think) in Barging into Burgundy when there were very few pleasure barges is superb. It should have put me off but in fact did the opposite. I had no idea he was connected with the hotel boat business.

I lent the book to someone who never returned it and now I can’t remember who it was!

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11 minutes ago, Dav and Pen said:

Gerard Morgan Grenville a name from the past. His books about the Adventures with the Elizabeth (I think) in Barging into Burgundy when there were very few pleasure barges is superb. It should have put me off but in fact did the opposite. I had no idea he was connected with the hotel boat business.

I lent the book to someone who never returned it and now I can’t remember who it was!

I had no idea that the man who started the Centre for Alternative Technology ( or the Wind and Sh1t centre) was the same man.

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There was Barging into Southern France first I think and then Barging into Burgundy - each of them full of hair-raising cock-ups which only made me more keen to venture Continental-bound as soon as we could.

 

We had one of those peculiar reversed steering craft - Libertas - came to our yard for conversion to pleasure use. Certainly do take quite a bit of getting used to, and we changed that to conventional steering for the new owner.

 

Tam

Edited by Tam & Di
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1 hour ago, Dav and Pen said:

Gerard Morgan Grenville a name from the past. His books about the Adventures with the Elizabeth (I think) in Barging into Burgundy when there were very few pleasure barges is superb. It should have put me off but in fact did the opposite. I had no idea he was connected with the hotel boat business.

I lent the book to someone who never returned it and now I can’t remember who it was!

That man has a lot to answer for. Around 1993 I picked up his three "Barging Into...." books (France, Burgundy, Southern France) from a second-hand bookshop in Sussex. I was enthralled, especially by his account of the Nivernais. That summer Mrs. Athy and I, who had never boated before, hired a cabin cruiser on the Nivernais for a week. Somehow, things just grew from there....

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1 hour ago, Dav and Pen said:

Gerard Morgan Grenville a name from the past. His books about the Adventures with the Elizabeth (I think) in Barging into Burgundy when there were very few pleasure barges is superb. It should have put me off but in fact did the opposite. I had no idea he was connected with the hotel boat business.

I lent the book to someone who never returned it and now I can’t remember who it was!

Gerard's boat was the Virginia Anne, named after his first wife. After using the boat himself, he operated her as a hotel-barge,  first on her own, then as part of the Abercrombie & Kent empire, based in the USA. Of which, for a time, Gerard was vice-president. I'm afraid we fell out at that stage, over commercial differences. Here the boat is at Mailly-la-Ville on the Nivernais. Gerard died some years ago, having pulled out of barging altogether and retiring to Lyme Regis.

 

I came across the Virginia Anne again around that time, after she had been sold into private ownership, and being replated at St-Jean-de-Losne. The welder said , through gritted teeth, that the plates he was trying to attach new ones to were "the thickness of cigarette paper." Still, she made it, and no doubt is floating around somewhere still, a real bundle of memories.

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John. Thanks for the correction I couldn’t think of the barge name. One of the things that has stuck in my mind is the description of the leaking rivet when on the river doubs. Whilst he was trying to fix it a skipper turned up with a ploguer rivet which involved poking a stif wire through the hole and attaching it to the rivet, really a bolt with a slot in the shank and pulling it into the hole! He also left the barge in Roanne for the winter giving the lock keeper some pre stamped post cards to send if necessary. When he returned he gave the chap some marmalade which didn’t impress.

Amazing how some things stick and others disappear.

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3 hours ago, Dav and Pen said:

. Whilst he was trying to fix it a skipper turned up with a ploguer rivet which involved poking a stif wire through the hole and attaching it to the rivet, really a bolt with a slot in the shank and pulling it into the hole!

We bought a 30m Belgian Boom-spitz De Hoop which we worked on the Thames and estuary (until we were blacked by the London Dock Labour Board) and that came with a bag of rubber rivets to plug any hole if any proper revits failed. Never had to try one to see how effective they were thank goodness.

 

Tam

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