Jump to content

Tonic required. Send in your photos of what is nice on the waterways now.


DandV

Featured Posts

4 minutes ago, Richard T said:

On this day 2019 - Oxford canal Cropredy area.

 

1656396334_Bridge148Oxfordcanal.JPG.9bafaf362aa1504f32389b49cec6f723.JPG

 

Bridge 148 Oxford canal

 

1903348347_Cropredylockcottage.JPG.2fc093f21b4481093b340d32e6cc5410.JPG

 

Cropredy lock cottage

 

620280333_Cropredyhouse4.JPG.d3106d7c5c3d10e7263275c06dced81c.JPG

 

New house canal side at Cropredy. I quite like this modern house - it would be interesting to see the plans for it.

 

If its the house I think it is the residents blogged about it's construction:

Willowbank

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

L1327_20070625_0001.JPG.69574a0077787ec3ab1a56dd9ccca557.JPGOn this day in 2007

 

We had moored the previous (Sunday) evening #2026 at the Railway Bridge above Ickles Lock (S&SYN) and planned to meet BW this morning, to be escorted up Jordan's Holmes and Tinsley locks and then on to Sheffield Basin. It had been raining all Sunday afternoon, and it continued through the night and breakfast this Monday morning.

 

We phoned BW to confirm when they were meeting us, and as they had recommended mooring (another hour-or-so away) at Eastwood, there was some grumpiness that we were at Ickles. In any case, they considered there to be too much water to contemplate the trip that day.

 

To check whether that was just unnecessary caution on a damp morning, I walked the mile to Jordan's weir, and it was indeed very wet (photo). In the river section I couldn't keep up with the flow at a fast walk/run. Video here.

 

We settled down for an afternoon of crosswords and sudoku. ...

Edited by PeterScott
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Richard T said:

On this day 2019 - Oxford canal Cropredy area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

620280333_Cropredyhouse4.JPG.d3106d7c5c3d10e7263275c06dced81c.JPG

 

New house canal side at Cropredy. I quite like this modern house - it would be interesting to see the plans for it.

 

We think of it as Cropredy United Reformed Chapel.

It has a unique view across the canal - of the blank back wall of a car repair shop.

But at least it's in Cropredy and has a pleasant address: the road is called Roundbottom. (Other euphonious local road names include Creampot Lane and Cup And Saucer).

Edited by Athy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 19/03/2020 at 12:01, robtheplod said:

20200316_111535.jpg

On 19/03/2020 at 14:56, doratheexplorer said:

where's that?

On 20/05/2020 at 09:36, matty40s said:

On the Buckby flight, just above the 2nd lock. The far end house has a shop full of stuff you absolutely need on the canals like wooden ducks, painted canal ware, grasses, lamps......and ice creams. (But it was shut 2 days ago)

On this day in 2018

L2781_20180625_0006s.jpg.a2070135aa08619676cf33d5dacfebaf.jpg

 

It was open that day ?

L2781_20180625_0004s.jpg.2ebcda75eefcd6ae145115e4978bae76.jpgL2781_20180625_0005s.jpg.860f76a7361f6b2ff9397cc8165c0f33.jpg

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On this day in 2007

74-154b.jpg.876302c46fdbda99b3adbd0f08976318.jpg

... (from #2053) ... we were moored in the rain all afternoon above Ickles Lock (S&SYN) because the River Don was running so quickly over Jordan's weir. The crew was Peter and Elaine, and Peggy and Alastair who were in their eighties. When we weren't doing crosswords we discussed whether BW were being over-cautious in not letting us cross the river section. Copperkins has a decent amount of oomph, but the (Thank You Mr Google) map shows the problem. The side-weir normally has a trickle of water running over all its 150 metres. Maybe the boat engine could make progress against the full flow of water, in which case we might have reached the safety of Sheffield Basin ...

 

... but if there was a problem of making progress, the speed of the water in the channel over a side-weir is not consistent: there is a gradient along the weir: the water is at its fastest at the far end of the weir. And if the steerer finds out that all the oomph is used up halfway along, it's at that point forward progress stops and sideways movement takes over. Given the speed of the water earlier that morning, and the continuing downpour we were pleased to be inside a warm boat moored on a canal ...

Edited by PeterScott
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, jake_crew said:

This fatboat in Peters link 2 posts ago looks like the one featured on last nights "George Clarks Amazing Spaces" on Channel 4.

ACtC-3fgTkGn5O0tTgBOaBDAfgud4blwdgIfeEbr

Wrong boat the one in the programme had an astro turf roof which was a very bright green!! It did have a similar ugly stern,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks to Pluto providing the ;ink ( http://projetbabel.org/fluvial/index.htm ) it was god to look at Charles Berg's website and in particular to read about the 'Aster'. This was a tripping boat run by the local Departement when it gallantly took on the huge expense of running that part of the Nivernais where the locks are shorter.

 

The boat was a 'batard', built in 1951 within the 31 metre limit that those locks allow. At first she was mule-drawn, but later a Beaudoin engine installed, driving, through a flexible coupling to a propellor at the after end of the rudder. Given that the rudder had to be folded flat in the locks she was quiet a handful, but Monsieur Cretier, who skippered, mastered it absolutely. He had a bow rudder to manage as well, by tweaking on a pair of reins.

 

The 'Aster' is pictured here in white, but after an extensive renovation she reappeared in varnish - to almost immediately have her licence withdrawn by the navigation authorities . this happened at the same time as the two berrichons on the Loire at St-Satur were condemned as well. The reason behind such severity was that the inspection and licencing authority at Nevers had been found to be wanting (to use a polite expression covering chicanery with another operator) and felt obliged to show how tough it could be. The 'Aster' survives now on show at St-John-de-Losne. It was Monsieur Cretier, a kindly soul who knew more about boat handling than I ever will, who was in charge on that final voyage to St-Jean

PICT0562.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On this day in 2007  ... (from #2059)

L1327_20070625_0004.JPG.687a3d7465b52be0f0ec260b8e898e9a.JPG

... The crew of four of us had settled to a day of crosswords and soduku, while we listened to the rain. By 4pm the view of the bank opposite changed its angle as water came over Jordans Lock and Holmes Lock into our pound, in effect making us part of the River Don rather than a canal. It flooded the towpath and started vertical rise.

Despite being near a bridge, it became uncomfortable to wade the towingpath to get there. It was also a railway bridge, so no contact there with the outside world. We listened to the radio: Sheffield was suffering serious flooding with major roads clogged up. Public transport was stopped. Despite the long journey from the Midlands with the boat, our house was half a dozen miles away and, the hills of Sheffield being what they are, five hundred feet above the flooding.

We were moored opposite some residential boats, and a shouted conversation invited us to join a clump of boats that were intending to clump together above the lock in the middle of our new river. We were still attached to the bank, and while the water was at the height it was, the hull was still in the canal, rather than floating above the towingpath. The bridge and its graffiti through the train on the window.

And slightly later, behind us a Sheffield Keel was at a crazy angle and straining at its ropes ...

 

L1327_20070625_0010.JPG.f137813330c2bb602544273ff8f5b5f9.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

L1453_20080625_0005.JPG.324e95c9e98df0df63f7ba166e071f88.JPGOn this day in 2008

south of Banbury Southern Oxford

 

A fortnight before, Fulbourne had been moored to the towingpath on a trip planned to end with the Braunston Historic Boat Rally.

 

While moored it sufferered the attentions of the local vandalry, who sought some booty in the engine room but could not circumvent the locks. They opened the flaps of the pigeon box and perhaps thought the engine room was the place we would store our extensive cellar of vintage wines (it wasn't). But they did manage to disengage the pigeon box and cast it into t'cut.

 

They did in the end find some (if-all-else-fails-drink-this-) beer and vented their further frustration by casting us adrift and presumably then went home. We were alerted by a BW call that the boat was adrift, and Martin scurried across the country in the evening to leap aboard, single-hand to a more secure mooring north of Banbury and, in a spare moment this day morning, fashion a temporary plywood cover for the hole now above the engine: he then left for work.

We arrived as the next crew aboard and took the challenge to find where Fulbourne had been moored. Armed with a borrowed boatpole from a boat moored nearby and two seasearcher magnets, we tried a programme of casts to where said pigeon box might be sinking into the mud. The final recovery required a wet arm (Henry) and securing of legs to the bank (Elaine). Said pigeonbox is now even-more securely attached to the upstand of the engine room.

 

L1453_20080625_0021.JPG.8dd4340f02e7dd710db1b09bb56ca0dd.JPGAfter such entertainment, it was something of an anticlimax to come upon (at lock 26 Slat Mill Lock) a team of bollardiers. They were fulfilling the BW contract to put three square wooden bollards at various points on the offside of each narrow lock on the system. It was a safety measure included in the BW Customer Service Standards. No doubt someone thought it was a good use of a million pounds.

Edited by PeterScott
spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites

L1327_20070625_0013.JPG.4b42505d87bc03364d95f5ddc92b2a00.JPGOn this day in 2007 (from #2067).

 

By about 7pm we were afloat above the towingpath, which once was walkable through the left arch of the picture of the Railway Bridge above Ickles Lock (S&SYN). Phoning to tell the family we were in no immediate danger just found all the cellphone networks (as we called them then) were too overloaded to take calls: all five of our phones on three separate networks were unable to make a call more than once-per-dozen tries.

 

By happenstance, a mistyped BW emergency number connected us to BW’s Mark Jenkinson(?), who was driving somewhere in the Midlands, and much surprised to be talking to discomforted boaters in Sheffield. He helpfully passed on our position to our family, to the proper BW emergency number with a request to ring us, and some hours later checked back personally. We never heard from the BW emergency service.


Nobody would willingly choose to be aboard for this journey: had we known at noon what was to happen, we would have still been able to walk along the towpath, and it would have been a tricky choice whether to stay or go. Evacuation would have required more secure attachment than a mooring spike, an accurate prediction of how slack the lines needed to be and acceptance that Copperkins would find its own resting place as the waters fell, and probably sink.

L1327_20070625_0027.JPG.54b14582f6036d9bb00f73cd903e1072.JPG

 

I had a workable plan and was thinking clearly about it as we rose. Using a rope I always carry for emergencies, I tied to the underside of the railway bridge when its ten-feet-above underside beams were reachable with the hooked boatpole. This became our second line of defence; I trusted the rope to take the snatch when the mooring pin come out, assuming we would swing into the stream from which our bridge pillar had been giving some protection. We were trusting our lives to these ropes, our knots to extend them, and our overall strategy of staying where were; but then we do the same with the front tyre whenever we drive on the motorway. It wasn’t all calmness all evening: I berated the use of the corridor for the frivolous activity of making tea when a furious dash to the tiller might be needed: it was the stress doing the talking, and I was better off with the tea. ...

 

Edited by PeterScott
link
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On this day in 2007 (... from #2069)

4 hours ago, PeterScott said:

 

L1327_20070625_0010.JPG.f137813330c2bb602544273ff8f5b5f9.JPG... behind us a Sheffield Keel was at a crazy angle and straining at its ropes ...

L1327_20070625_0029.JPG.b8f8b278991acf904281380b05a8a99b.JPG... and in  front of Ickles Lock there was a clump of boats roped together in what had become a significant flow on the now-river.

 

The crazy angle became crazier, and even if it would have helped, there was no way to communicate with the boats below. ... The keel's stern rope parted ... The stern swung out into the stream ... and round in a S L O W arc as the hull righted itself into something more like a floating boat ... And it continued to swing (rather than drift sideways in the stream) ... and it swung some more ... and the bow rope HELD. To sighs of relief from us.

 

Not so lucky was the fifteen-foot narrowboat on the opposite side of the now-river to us. It sank as it remained tied to the bank as the waters rose. An incident we didn't see a l little earlier one man was moving the boats to the clump, fell in, was swept past the Ickles lock fittings on to which he couldn't hold, and was more fortunate with the concrete bridge below. He was hauled out with a life ring, and survived. A video from about this time 8.30pm.

 

 

 

L1327_20070625_0032.JPG.513861c845c43466397dc71165575e63.JPG

Helicopters had been brought to help the emergency services.  We decided that (frenzied) waving at it, even if in a friendly and supportive manner, might have been a bad plan. This pic is after the keel had swung around.

 

Edited by PeterScott
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • 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.