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Team Steaming Behind Virtual BCN Challenge 2020 Cruise Log


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Alright you lot...

 

Bouyed from my mid-table finish aboard the good ship Free Spirit i've assembled a crew and found a more robust, less plastic boat for us all to compete on. A fully detailed description of the vessel in question will be published shortly, but in the meantime I can reveal that during a proving run down the River Wreake navigation to stock up on pork pies, stilton and Ruddles beer (Proper Ruddles,not the cheap stuff you get in 'Spoons) we blew the engine up, and a new one is currently being installed. We had to teach the manufacturer a thing or two, but hopefully we'll make it through.  We're also awaiting an Amazon delivery from Ceylon. 

 

Crew comprises of:

@DHutch and his slender dog

Daniel's cousin, Patrick

And me

 

 

See you at the finish! 

 

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So, last night we chugged from Boulton's factory at the end of the Soho branch, around the Soho loop and to Old Turn. While the rowdy youth crew  were powersliding around the canal roundabout, Barney was very excited for a day of locks today, and wanted to do Farmers Bridge. I told him that was a rubbish idea and he slumped in dismay. 

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When we woke up this morning (at 4am to stoke the boiler) there was a thick film of ice on the canal and bitterly cold weather. Oona the gigantic dog-bear was loving it, but no-one else was.  We soon span the whole rig around and soldiered on, around the two loops and up to Smethwick. Absolutely incident free, not even disturbed by the locals of Winson Green! 

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We then headed down Oldbury locks, used our exceptionally low draft to good advantage in Titford pools and explored The Causeway Green and Portway branch arms. Even in 1890 they needed dredging! 

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(Credit Captn Ahab)

 

Back up Oldbury locks and round the Oldbury loop, pausing only for lunch from the cut, making Oona highly jealous.

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Reduced, of course!

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Feeling thoroughly bloated we headed to Factory Junction, and called it a day. Boating is meant to be fun, not a polar expedition!

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I awoke this morning to find the rest of the crew sound asleep. The place seemed dead, not a soul to be seen, not a sound in the air.  Our engine was clearly also feeling the same, and required 3 cans of easy start and a jump from a passing donkey to turn over and fire. 

 

We positioned ourselves at the lower end of the Toll End Communication Canal,  and then discovered due to forces beyond our control  that we wouldn't  score any points if we navigated up it. Aggrieved, I stormed off into the galley and made a sizeable dent in the pork pie supplies. This still didn't wake up my other 2 human crew members, nor surprisingly the 2 dogs. 

 

Seeking another route I steered the whole rig up the Old Main Line and down the Ocker Hill branch, when to my surprise I saw a family of ducklings! (Or "eep eeps" as some call them).  The previous absence of wildlife had abated. The rear end of the Bradley canal was thoroughly investigated, and a swift exit to the Walsall canal.  Upon poking our nose into the Walsall, we were greeted by 2 men walking down the towpath with a large Stihl chainsaw.  This struck me as odd,  as we were in 1894, but I never do like to trouble the locals in those parts. 

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Engaging full throttle and building the revs of the engine to a screaming 3rpm we headed up the Walsall, north towards the Anson branch. In an exceptionally poor piece of boating I clouted the side of the bank with some force, but even this didn't  wake my crew.  

Birmingham Canal Navigations - 4 - BCN Branches

 

(credit Tom Clayton's canal photographs)

Feeling the need for a swift exit,  we headed down the Bentley canal  and  to the safety of the Horseleyfields junction. Time to see what the onboard brewery can provide!

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Well, it seems that talk of beer woke my crew up! We did the necessary boat fettling before departing from Horseleyfields junction bright and early this morning. We headed up the Curly Wyrley towards Sneyd junction, however just outside Holly Bank Basin we felt the engine drop in revs to a languid 0.6 rpm. The usual tricks of calling it nasty things, percussive maintenance and shovelling on 5 Cwt of coal did nothing to improve the situation, so we pulled over to investigate. We found wrapped around our screw drive: 

 

-A propeller

-A shopper bicycle

-A car tyre

-2 bicycle tyres

-A camoflauge net

-A wheelbarrow

-Another bicycle frame

-A builders bag 

-A kayak paddle 

and a saucepan

 

Not wanting to litter we harvested a fair chunk of our tea plantation to make room for it all. We eventually found our way to Sneyd junction, and chose to head up the Wryley branch,  before using our short length to our advantage to wind at the end and return, including a brief excursion up the Essington locks branch on our way back to Sneyd junction.  From Sneyd junction we continued on to Birchills Junction, before turning north to head for Pelsall Junction. We dashed there in the nick of time, and moored up.

 

History of the W & E

 

(Credit Lichfield and Hatherton Canal Restoration Trust) 

 

Time for a well earned pork pie and a cup of freshly harvested tea for everybody! 

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This Sehnsuchtautomat of ours, what does it look like? 

 

Well,of course it needs to be big enough to fit the boat in, and needs to not cause civil unrest when it arrives in the past, so of course it is disguised as a lock. 

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.In order to operate it one has to wind a special ground paddle. Leaving the windless on the lock paddle spindle in its top position and releasing the stop, drops the paddle at such an insane hyper speed that imbedded coils in the mechanism provide plentiful more than the “1.21 gigawatts of power” required to electrify the lock’s water. This vibrates the molecules of everything in the lock at such a high frequency it warps it straight through the 4th dimension and back/forwards to the preset time period

 
 
If you leave it up, a black hole forms and swallows the world. 

 

Anyway, we used it to travel back to 1910 and cruise from Pelsall Junction to Catsall Junction, down the Rushall to Newton junction and stopped here for a spot of lunch. Unfortunately all food supplies had been expended, so our purple travelling companion was sacrificed to make Chili Con Barney. 

 

We then scooted across the Tame Valley Canal, as ever not seeing a soul and being astounded that it's quite as central as it is in Birmingham. We reached the Tame Valley Junction in plenty of time, so did a little loop around the Danks Branch and back to the junction. 

 

Old Main Line Canal to Walsall Canal: Tipton to Gospel Oak ...

 

Credit Alltrails

Edited by harrybsmith
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Spending any length of time around the lower stretches of the Walsall is never a good idea, so this morning we made a  swift exit from Tame Valley Junction south towards Tipton. We then turned right and headed to Dudley Port Junction, before forking down towards Dudley tunnel Before entering we were reprimanded by a wisened old boatman, who said "ye better be taking all that paraphenalia off yon's roof, we can't have you going into the tunnel looking like Continuous Cruisers now, can we?" 

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Personally I had no clue what he was talking about, for I had polished my mushrooms just days earlier. 

 

Following safe passage through the tunnel we moored up at Parkhead Junction.

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(Credit "brianac37")

7 hours ago, cheshire~rose said:

I can just imagine all the other teams tripping over this lock that has materialised in a place they were not expecting it to be and claiming extra points for working through it :)

Ahh well there's a good reason for reading my log then... 

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I am posting here because the time is now 6pm on Saturday 9th May 2020 and all virtual boating should now cease.  Please ensure you boat is tied up securely and join us in the virtual beer tent for an evening of virtual celebration. We will be announcing the scores tomorrow lunchtime

 

Anything added to the cruise log after this post will not be considered in the judging

 

All the organisers (that is myself, @Capt Ahab and @Postcode) would like to thank this team for all their hard work in managing to virtually navigate around the BCN in these challenging times. We hope the team have learned a bit about the BCN, especially the lost 60 miles and we hope their narrative about their journey this week has instilled an interest in the reader too. We also hope the team and their readers have found the experience fun and I think we have all benefited from the incredibly informative, imaginative, dramatic and sometimes just plain silly posts that the teams have produced throught this week.

 

We sincerely hope that this will lead to some of you heading off (whether by boat or on foot) to explore these amazing locations in real life as soon as the retrictions on travel allow us to do so.

 

I think it is important to remember that this virtual event is taking place because the real BCN challenge could not. The Real BCN Challenge is an important event in the calendar of The BCN Society and, as their event had to be cancelled due to Covid-19 this year they are missing out on the entry fees of a lot of participating boaters and a lot of donations that the event would usually generate.

 

It is also fair to say that without this fine forum tolerating all these teams mucking about with their virtaul cruise diaries we might well struggle to work out how this event could have been hosted. It is free to join this forum and it is free to read it as well but there are costs involved in it's existance and it doesn't hurt to remind people that, if they can afford to do so, bunging the cost of a round of drinks with your mates into the frum coffers may just help it continue to be free for everyone to enjoy

 

 

It is with that in mind that I want to say, if you have enjoyed this event, either from the perspective of a participant, or from the perspective of an onlooker perhaps you would consider making a small donation, either to The BCNS or to the forum.

 

The BCNS do not have a clickable link where you can donate but you can do so via online banking by using these details:

BCN Society
Barclays Bank
Sort Code 20-84-13
Account Number 60176419

Or you may wish to consider becoming a member of their fine organisation and help to ensure that these amazing canals with all their wealth of heritage are looked after and restored where they can be.

To find out more please visit their website here:

 

https://bcnsociety.com/

 

If you wish to donate to the forum you can do so here:

 

https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/store/category/6-make-a-donation-to-canal-world/

 

There have been an incredible (or maybe barmy?) 14 teams of boaters who have been virtually haring around the canals of birmingham this week. Each of their cruise logs has it's own unique style. If you have enjoyed reading this one then why not dip your toe into one of the others - likes to them all are shown here:

 

 

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I'll have you know we've been tied up for ages (and yes, I did get the cruise log and the route planner times in the wrong order...)

 

So long in fact we had a chance to enjoy Afternoon tea, and we  currently have a load of meat on a BBQ borrowed from @Odana

 

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In all seriousness, thank you very much to everyone involved in organising this,it's been a lot of fun. 

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Out of interest, did anyone in your team calculate the total miles and locks you covered during the challenge? If you have already mentioned it in the thread somewhere forgive me, I am asking because I am too lasy to go through 14 threads to find if the information has already been shared

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