Boat Move

[Gra73]

Hi,

new to forum, so go easy!

I need to move my boat from Hawkesbury Junction, Coventry to Devizes next Friday - 11th May.

I have no boating experience, is there anyone willing to join me for the journey? Long trip - 10 days min, or a boat mover at a cost who wouldn’t mind me tagging along!?

You can email me direct at; brightblu@icloud.com

Many thanks in advance 

Graham

[Peter X]

Welcome to the forum; I think there's a good chance you can find someone to help you with this. It's the sort of trip I like, and have done with various forum members, my going rate being just getting fed. A cheap boating holiday!

The bad news is that I'm committed next week, but hopefully someone else can step in, or maybe people to do a bit of the journey each. If you haven't already decided your route, I'd advise you to go via Oxford not Brentford because (1) it's the shorter easier route and (2) it saves the bother of the short stretch of the tidal Thames from Brentford up to Teddington.

Your journey starts off nice and easy with the long lock-free pound down to Hillmorton, but the North Oxford is a busy canal and as a beginner the most important part of your trip to have someone there to help you will be the first day or two. Once you've learnt the basics of steering, getting moored up and entering a lock, all you need is someone who can operate the lock paddles and gates for you. Even another beginner doing that will be easier for you than having to get to grips early in your boating career with single handing the boat through locks, but it's good to learn about lock operation before you do it for the first time; there is a useful general introductory booklet available from CRT, "The Boater's Handbook". It's probably online somewhere.

The Thames down from Oxford to Reading, and the first few miles of the Kennet through Reading, can be a bit more tricky than the canals and having someone aboard who's done it before is a good idea, but it's not scary so long as the river flow is at a normal level, which I expect it will be.

At this time of year with long daylight hours 10 days sounds about right, it depends on various things like the fitness and enthusiasm of you and your crew, and whether you're happy to get up at the crack of dawn or want to take a lazier approach! It helps if someone's running an efficient galley providing food and drink on the go.

 

One more thing, to state the obvious: try to make sure your boat works before you set off; long journeys have a way of revealing any problems.

 

If you're stuck for help and can wait, or you get to Oxford but want help down the Thames, I may be able to do the trip during the first half of June. Good luck!

[Mike Todd]

10 hours ago, Peter X said:

Welcome to the forum; I think there's a good chance you can find someone to help you with this. It's the sort of trip I like, and have done with various forum members, my going rate being just getting fed. A cheap boating holiday!

The bad news is that I'm committed next week, but hopefully someone else can step in, or maybe people to do a bit of the journey each. If you haven't already decided your route, I'd advise you to go via Oxford not Brentford because (1) it's the shorter easier route and (2) it saves the bother of the short stretch of the tidal Thames from Brentford up to Teddington.

Your journey starts off nice and easy with the long lock-free pound down to Hillmorton, but the North Oxford is a busy canal and as a beginner the most important part of your trip to have someone there to help you will be the first day or two. Once you've learnt the basics of steering, getting moored up and entering a lock, all you need is someone who can operate the lock paddles and gates for you. Even another beginner doing that will be easier for you than having to get to grips early in your boating career with single handing the boat through locks, but it's good to learn about lock operation before you do it for the first time; there is a useful general introductory booklet available from CRT, "The Boater's Handbook". It's probably online somewhere.

The Thames down from Oxford to Reading, and the first few miles of the Kennet through Reading, can be a bit more tricky than the canals and having someone aboard who's done it before is a good idea, but it's not scary so long as the river flow is at a normal level, which I expect it will be.

At this time of year with long daylight hours 10 days sounds about right, it depends on various things like the fitness and enthusiasm of you and your crew, and whether you're happy to get up at the crack of dawn or want to take a lazier approach! It helps if someone's running an efficient galley providing food and drink on the go.

 

One more thing, to state the obvious: try to make sure your boat works before you set off; long journeys have a way of revealing any problems.

 

If you're stuck for help and can wait, or you get to Oxford but want help down the Thames, I may be able to do the trip during the first half of June. Good luck!

I'm not sure about your long journey comment. If you travel at 2 hours per day then - assuming all else is equal - it will take five times as long on the calendar to find the same number of problems as if you travel at 10 hours per day - assuming however that you only count problems related to navigating the boat. But the same principle applies to other facilities (eg water pump) but with a different calculation. Most problems relate to actual usage. On the other hand, many (good) mechanical systems like being used so that problems arise in the first short period of use and then settle down so that long journeys might actually be more reliable than a lot of short ones. Certainly, with electrics, especially batteries, lots of short trips have to managed carefully so as not to run down the batteries or otherwise allow them to discharge too much.

[Peter X]

Good point. In October 2016 I helped hackenbush move his boat from March to Denham in a hurry, about 144 miles and 129 locks in 9 days which included four days of working the engine hard going up the Nene. The engine, a Lister (can't remember which model), had hardly been used for years by the previous owner who'd been static in Cambridge, and we had some minor problem with it stalling at low revs at first, but after a day on the Nene it worked fine. No real problem on the journey with his dodgy batteries, but they soon gave trouble after he reached London and was moving a lot less. I remember he had no wiring along the boat for his tunnel light, so we hard wired it onto his very tired old spare battery in the cratch just before we entered Blisworth tunnel, and it lasted long enough to see us through there.

The journey certainly found out the problems with his lines, or rather I found out before we set off. I've never seen a boat with such terrible lines on it, just some glorified bits of string with various awkward knots to boot. At my suggestion, first chandler we reached he bought a proper rope so at least we had a good centre line.

[David Schweizer]

18 hours ago, Gra73 said:

Hi,

new to forum, so go easy!

I need to move my boat from Hawkesbury Junction, Coventry to Devizes next Friday - 11th May.

I have no boating experience, is there anyone willing to join me for the journey? Long trip - 10 days min, or a boat mover at a cost who wouldn’t mind me tagging along!?

You can email me direct at; brightblu@icloud.com

Many thanks in advance 

Graham

Ten hours a day for ten succesive days is pushing it, so unless you are willing to prepare food and drink that you can take on the move, I would work to an eight hour day, expecially when you are on the K&A where there are fewer good mooring locations, and those often get full quite early.

 

Before we moved our boat to the Napton area,  I regularly cruised between Braunston and Bradford on Avon, and kept a log of each days cruising. My log book suggest that it takes about 86 hours to cruise between Braunston and Devizes using the Southern Oxford. and 106 hours via the GU, add to that the ten hours or so it takes between Hawkesbury and Braunston, you are talking about something between 96 and 116 hours cruising, assuming nothing goes wrong.

 

The above  timings are based on arriving at Devizes Marina, if you are going to Foxhangers allow at least another five hours.There are also other timing issues such as the Thames lock operating hours 9am to 6pm with an hour for lunch between 1pm and 2pm, so try an organise yourself to be cruising during the lock keeper's lunchtime.

Edited May 6, 2018 by David Schweizer

[Gra73]

Dear All,

 

Many thanks for all your comments, words of wisdom and caution.

 

I have now found a solution but thank you all for your kind comments.

 

Kind Regards

 

Graham

19 hours ago, Peter X said:

Welcome to the forum; I think there's a good chance you can find someone to help you with this. It's the sort of trip I like, and have done with various forum members, my going rate being just getting fed. A cheap boating holiday!

The bad news is that I'm committed next week, but hopefully someone else can step in, or maybe people to do a bit of the journey each. If you haven't already decided your route, I'd advise you to go via Oxford not Brentford because (1) it's the shorter easier route and (2) it saves the bother of the short stretch of the tidal Thames from Brentford up to Teddington.

Your journey starts off nice and easy with the long lock-free pound down to Hillmorton, but the North Oxford is a busy canal and as a beginner the most important part of your trip to have someone there to help you will be the first day or two. Once you've learnt the basics of steering, getting moored up and entering a lock, all you need is someone who can operate the lock paddles and gates for you. Even another beginner doing that will be easier for you than having to get to grips early in your boating career with single handing the boat through locks, but it's good to learn about lock operation before you do it for the first time; there is a useful general introductory booklet available from CRT, "The Boater's Handbook". It's probably online somewhere.

The Thames down from Oxford to Reading, and the first few miles of the Kennet through Reading, can be a bit more tricky than the canals and having someone aboard who's done it before is a good idea, but it's not scary so long as the river flow is at a normal level, which I expect it will be.

At this time of year with long daylight hours 10 days sounds about right, it depends on various things like the fitness and enthusiasm of you and your crew, and whether you're happy to get up at the crack of dawn or want to take a lazier approach! It helps if someone's running an efficient galley providing food and drink on the go.

 

One more thing, to state the obvious: try to make sure your boat works before you set off; long journeys have a way of revealing any problems.

 

If you're stuck for help and can wait, or you get to Oxford but want help down the Thames, I may be able to do the trip during the first half of June. Good luck!

 

[PaulJ]

Nice one Graham -glad you are sorted now. (We spoke yesterday)