New nb launched 12th October 2013

[mrsmelly]

I waved to you today. Lovely ont river today.

 

Tim

[deckhand]

I waved to you today. Lovely ont river today.

 

Tim

Thanks Tim, )

 

Will see you out there and give a wave back )

[mrsmelly]

Thanks Tim, )

 

Will see you out there and give a wave back )

 

You did wave back, I was driving the white boat with the passengers on

 

Tim

[Suzie_q]

 

You did wave back, I was driving the white boat with the passengers on

 

Tim

Was going to say you can't really miss the Princess when she goes by.

 

Nice looking boat. Findley has been busy. Suzie_Q is one of his as well. Over a year old now and no complaints.

 

As Beaker said we will keep an eye out for you on the T&M.

[srthomas1957]

Hi

You will find that our boat is moored up to yours at present as ESSENDEE needs a little bit of work , best of luck in your boating

[deckhand]

Hi

You will find that our boat is moored up to yours at present as ESSENDEE needs a little bit of work , best of luck in your boating

Will see ESSENDEE tomorrow then. Snagging week over, looking forward to proper maiden voyage. Is Findlay doing your boat for you?

[chris roscoe]

Very nice boat enjoy .......

[deckhand]

Thanks Chris.

 

By way of an update, had a few issues over the past few days. Driveshaft came off on first weekend. Lost power and drifted whilst on the River Trent ( fuel part blew ) , and today, the starter motor packed up. Barrus, are asking to come and take a look at engine ( which is brand new) because , we are told, that they have never had the fuel Thingy blow before and they want to look at starter motor as only been in use for 17 hours.

 

Still, apart from hours sitting waiting for our wonderful engineer ( who I might add has been brilliant) we have actually enjoyed the torrential rain day after day, the "orrible" deep locks and being rescued by some great people "The Trentsiders" of Barton Fabis. Without their wonderful rescue, who knows where we would be.

 

I don't like travelling on the river Trent, but the Few hours we have had on Trent and Mersey so far have been brilliant.

 

Didn't care much for the one boater who went past creating such a wash that he almost created a tsunami. Liked the others who went by on tick over,

 

Will hopefully get new starter motor tomorrow and get up to our Marina. Only taken us 72 hours so far to do approximately 17 miles!!

 

Oh the joys of boating eh?

[Alanji]

Looking great Kim and a bit different from when I saw her! Enjoy.

[Suzie_q]

 

Driveshaft came off on first weekend.

Don't want to cast aspersions but we had two bolts come out of the drive plate the first weekend.

 

Maybe Findley needs a new torque wrench.

 

:-)

[mrsmelly]

Thanks Chris.

 

By way of an update, had a few issues over the past few days. Driveshaft came off on first weekend. Lost power and drifted whilst on the River Trent ( fuel part blew ) , and today, the starter motor packed up. Barrus, are asking to come and take a look at engine ( which is brand new) because , we are told, that they have never had the fuel Thingy blow before and they want to look at starter motor as only been in use for 17 hours.

 

Still, apart from hours sitting waiting for our wonderful engineer ( who I might add has been brilliant) we have actually enjoyed the torrential rain day after day, the "orrible" deep locks and being rescued by some great people "The Trentsiders" of Barton Fabis. Without their wonderful rescue, who knows where we would be.

 

I don't like travelling on the river Trent, but the Few hours we have had on Trent and Mersey so far have been brilliant.

 

Didn't care much for the one boater who went past creating such a wash that he almost created a tsunami. Liked the others who went by on tick over,

 

Will hopefully get new starter motor tomorrow and get up to our Marina. Only taken us 72 hours so far to do approximately 17 miles!!

 

Oh the joys of boating eh?

 

The river Trent is great. Its got a bit of a flow on today making it even more enjoyable. The run from Holme to Cromwell is one of the best bits of waterway in the country. If you want to see some Proper locks go and meet the Dog house on the A and C and take a trip up as far as Leeds, fantastic deep water and proper deep locks

 

Tim

[deckhand]

Finally, finally arrived at Mercia Marina. set off sunday 10am, arrived 5pm Wednesday. Apart from some of the issues that we have had above, Jim today slipped off the boat into Stenson Lock. I cant thank the guy that came to help us enough. Jim is okay, shocked but okay.

Arrived at the Marina to be blown around all over the place by the crosswind making reversing into our new spot a challenge and a half. Again, my thanks to the 2 guys who came and helped me basically pull the boat in by ropes in the end.

 

I am sure that boating is supposed to be a pleasure. not without its challenges but a pleasure. We did not realise that we would get all the challenges in the first few days.

[Alanji]

You have had such a tough start. There is always help available on the cut - that is part of what makes it such a great life.

At least starting with bad experiences means it can only get better but such a shame when you were so excited and looking forward to - I feel for you.

[Peter Reed]

Hi Deckhand, glad you got there in one piece. Are you gonna be living aboard for the winter?

[John Holden]

You have had such a tough start. There is always help available on the cut - that is part of what makes it such a great life.

At least starting with bad experiences means it can only get better but such a shame when you were so excited and looking forward to - I feel for you.

 

That reminds me of a time in Birmingham. Whilst cruising through we'd dropped a couple off to go somewhere and arranged to meet them on the other side of town. We arrived but they weren't to be seen so we stuck the pointy end into the bank to wait for them.

Along came a trip boat loaded with fare paying passengers. As they passed they slowed and a voice bellowed out "are you stuck, do you need a pull?"

[deckhand]

Hi Deckhand, glad you got there in one piece. Are you gonna be living aboard for the winter?

Hi Peter, thankyou, we will move on full time once we get our house sold, in the meantime, we will bounce back and forward between the house and the boat. Certainly looking forward to as many days on board as we can.

 

Our poor boat builder, Findlay at Nottingham Boat Sales,has been so helpful and also horrified that we have the issues. We have met with him today and he too is glad to see us settled at the marina, bless him. He has such a good team up there. We said to him today, that despite some of the problems we have had, most of which were not as a result of anything that he has done, we would definitely still go back to him if we wanted a new boat building. We love our boat (even if she has tested us a bit this last week).

[Suzie_q]

Finally, finally arrived at Mercia Marina. set off sunday 10am, arrived 5pm Wednesday. Apart from some of the issues that we have had above, Jim today slipped off the boat into Stenson Lock. I cant thank the guy that came to help us enough. Jim is okay, shocked but okay.

Arrived at the Marina to be blown around all over the place by the crosswind making reversing into our new spot a challenge and a half. Again, my thanks to the 2 guys who came and helped me basically pull the boat in by ropes in the end.

 

I am sure that boating is supposed to be a pleasure. not without its challenges but a pleasure. We did not realise that we would get all the challenges in the first few days.

 

The one advantage of the crosswinds at Mercia is you get to meet your neighbours quiet quickly.

 

It is fun watching the scared faces looking out at you as you wrestle to turn and reverse.

 

Then they all come out to help.

 

But I was congratulated on my last return by the neighbours, so you do get use too it.

 

There will be a lot better trips I'm sure in the future.

[Sade]

Sounds like the adventures have already begun! Just to let you know that you're not alone, we still haven't moved on properly yet but had to move ours yesterday and the wind was a nightmare. Then when we thought we'd found a spot to moor up we seemed to get stuck in the bank so I went to the front to try and take some weight off the back but we still couldn't move and heard some horrible clunking from the prop EEEK!!! It took us almost 4 hours to move about a mile and a half and Dean saying that he can't control the boat or it's not responding properly, so next time we go he will check the weed hatch and we'll go from there.....scary, tiring, stressful and FUN!!!!! Hahahahahaha!!! xxx

[Jim Batty]

That's fantastic. Are you new on board? Must admit, looking forward to Christmas on board (need to be a smaller turkey than normal though )

 

Where'd you get that great electric kitchen roll?

 

Beautiful boat. Have a great life on her!

[deckhand]

LOL, Jim, electric kitchen roll.

 

Thanks for your comments,

 

Kim

Sounds like the adventures have already begun! Just to let you know that you're not alone, we still haven't moved on properly yet but had to move ours yesterday and the wind was a nightmare. Then when we thought we'd found a spot to moor up we seemed to get stuck in the bank so I went to the front to try and take some weight off the back but we still couldn't move and heard some horrible clunking from the prop EEEK!!! It took us almost 4 hours to move about a mile and a half and Dean saying that he can't control the boat or it's not responding properly, so next time we go he will check the weed hatch and we'll go from there.....scary, tiring, stressful and FUN!!!!! Hahahahahaha!!! xxx

 

That's all I heard from Jim - I cannot make it move where I want it to, its not responding properly, lol, Is this what they say are the joys of boating?

 

Glad its not just us ) We have not slept so good as we have since we have been on boat - I think you are right, so stressful, scary, tiring and FUN - (think I would like to get to the point of fun, fun , fun and leave the stress and scary behind somewhere on the canal bank.

 

Let me know how you get on

 

Kim

 

Have great fun

[loubyscooby]

Congratulation Kim. Does sound like you have had a tough learning curve but hopefully its all OK soon.

 

Welcome to Mercia too, I shall look out for someone walking 5 dogs and say hello.

[deckhand]

Congratulation Kim. Does sound like you have had a tough learning curve but hopefully its all OK soon.

 

Welcome to Mercia too, I shall look out for someone walking 5 dogs and say hello.

Thankyou, yes do. I normally walk the old gal (little black terrier) and Jim normally walks the other 4 so do give me a hello if you see me.(or Jim)

[Sade]

Well we took our niece up to see the boat on Tuesday (she's 15) and her words were "it's awesome!" so that in itself has made everything worthwhile.....it did make me laugh when we let her stand at the tiller and she thought that was the front of the boat....when she realised that you steer with the whole 60ft of steel in front of you she was pretty impressed! We'll make a boater out of her yet....lol x

[Alanji]

My cousin's two grandchildren came for a day in the summer - "Mum this is better than Florida"

[Suzie_q]

My 3 year old granddaughter calls it "Pop Pops caravan boat".

 

Not sure about that!