It's the Wrong Pitch

Now all you cricket, rugby and football fans may rabbit on about the state of pitches but for the serious boater if we are talking pitches we are talking propellers. Pitch is the theoretical distance in inches that one complete revolution of the propeller will move the boat through the water. Sizes of propellers are designated by diameter and pitch. The combination of boat length/weight, engine and gearbox determines the ideal propeller. Now after we had the Perkins replaced with the new Isuzu engine things were different. Just put her into gear and she surges forward. It's like driving your car in top gear all the time. With the engine just at tick-over she's off like a rocket - well a 2mph rocket to be precise. Which was manageable but not ideal, coming in to moor and following other boats could at times be...... interesting? So himself gets smurfing on the internet and declares,"It's the wrong pitch!" Herself looks at him blankly; “What is he on about now?”

Well, those who have been paying attention will now see the connection with where we left our story. Boat coming out of the water for blacking, let’s get the propeller looked at. The received wisdom is that the ideal for our current set up is an 18 inch with a 14 inch pitch and it turns out what we have is a 19 inch by 19 inch. So off we trot, old prop in hand, to see the nice man at Midland Chandlers down the cut to see if we can do a trade. “Haven’t got an 18 by 14 in stock; can’t get one till the middle of next week.”
“Anything second hand?” A search out the back and a 19 by 13 is found. “We’ll take it.” A hundred pounds for our old prop and we have a deal. And on re-launch? Fantastic, just as it should be, drives us well through the water and glide nicely at tick over.
To get us out of the water, two trolleys running on rails in the slip way were let down into the canal and the boat floated onto them. A JCB then pulls us up the slipway, a set of stairs is placed alongside the bows and we live in a house in the clouds, an interesting experience. As the centre of the boat is now unsupported it’s like walking on a scaffold plank. The steel flexes a bit and sitting in my chair as herself walks past I perceptibly bounce up and down ever so slightly; very odd.

Pressure wash and two coats of Premium Protection, lovely. Nice sunny weather, the perfect time for us to tidy up the rest of the paintwork on the hull, the red and white flashes on the stern and the bow decoration. Also very convenient for installing the new bow and stern fenders that we bought from Fenderman in Bath and that have until now been stacked in the cockpit. Herself has always said, “That red is too red!” A somewhat darker tone was thus also applied to bow , cratch board, cabin front and the counter. We have to say she is a very smart looking boat.

With one thing and another there has been a lot of hanging about of late. It’s time to do some boating. We head back to Rugby to meet some old friends as they start a week’s holiday on a hire boat from Viking Marine. It was lovely to see them and catch up with all the family news. With old friends you just seem to pick up where you left off, almost as though you had never been apart. So back to Braunston for church on Sunday and then the two boats, Harald and Avon Rose, work up the Braunston flight as we head for the Leicester Arm of the Grand Union Canal and Foxton Locks, the busiest piece of waterway on the system.

A pleasant interlude but not without incident. Himself at the tiller guiding the boat gently towards the bank to moor above bridge 60. Herself walking confidently along the tow-path side gunwale towards the bow where she bends down and disappears from his view to pick up the bow rope he assumes. A pause....... was that the sound of a large fish leaping ? He leans over to peer over the side to espy herself doing a very elegant back-stoke towards the stern! She had no idea how she got there; perhaps the nice glass of white wine had something to do with it? A rapidly removed mobile phone battery, careful drying and a night in the airing cupboard and thankfully her phone is still OK but unfortunately another pair of glasses sacrificed to the water nymphs abiding in the silt of the cut! Thank goodness for a spare pair, she’s hopeless without them. All is forgotten with a good meal in the Boat Inn.

Next day we say goodbye to our friends as they start on the return journey to Rugby. We have to wait for an hour for our turn to head down the two sets of five staircase locks, the place heaving with school parties learning about the waterways. So on to the Market Harborough branch and a night at Market Harborough Wharf where we replenish supplies, make use of the Post Office and replenish our supply of reading material. At the Foxton Junction we turn northward towards Leicester, this is new water for us. Very rural, the canal seems to shun all signs of habitation. It’s back to broad locks again and we are told vandalism means paddle gear in the approaches to Leicester will be padlocked. Serious boating now as we aim for the Leeds and Liverpool.

Two Old Codgers

It is becoming increasingly obvious to us both, that bits break more easily and take longer to mend than they used to in young people of our age. Maybe it’s all this global warming; greater exposure to sunshine, like plastic is making us more brittle. Himself seems to have recovered from the back problem. It’s just that he has more permanently numb bits in his legs than he had before. The problem now is that the left thigh muscle has wasted a bit and needs building up. Poor old chap can’t get about as quickly as he used.

With the extra manual labour herself appears to have pulled an intercostal muscle so is very pleased that she is no longer required for blue jobs. Her mild allergy to wheat also seems to be manifesting itself in other ways. Such things ought not to happen to people of such tender years. I blame the government; they seem to be messing everything else up.

So here we are at Braunston, on the eve of the great bottom blacking adventure. Yes you are correct; it has taken us two weeks to travel all of 35 miles. Hilmorton locks successfully negotiated with no ill effects, although we did note that the boatman walked to the top gate to cross to close the bottom mitre gate rather than leap across from the closed one as he used. Perhaps he is learning the caution of age!

But we get ahead of ourselves; chronology never was our strong point. To the north of Rugby lies the lovely village of Brinklow. The Foss Way runs down through the village, although at this point it is today only a minor road and through the centre of the village merely a footpath across an open field where, along side it, rises an earthen mound, once the site of a castle, built to protect the Foss. The canal (the Northern Oxford) passes through a somewhat unstable cutting to the East of the village and thence turns eastward through All Oaks wood where Cathiron Lane from Brinklow runs alongside the canal for about a mile. A delightfully peaceful rural mooring just before the bend, where a picnic spot is conveniently served by a small car park beside the canal. Now the quick witted among you will have realised that canny boaters are not slow in taking advantage of such fortuitous circumstances and we rate ourselves amongst those. Once more we utilise the services of Enterprise Car Rentals, those lovely people who, as part f the service, will come and collect you and bring you back (by taxi this time) when you take out and return your hire car. And with special weekend offers, £55 for a four day hire over the Late May holiday weekend seemed very reasonable to us, especially as for that we got a 2009 Nissan Micra with all the bells and whistles (automatic lights and wipers, reversing sensors, climate control).

“Now,” you say “what are they up to now? What they want a car for this time?” Well the waterways savy will know that the late spring bank holiday is the time of the Crick boat show. Crick is only a few miles from Rugby on the Leicester arm of the Grand Union canal, which runs parallel to the Oxford. Crick is the major narrow boat show of the year, a great place to see the latest boats from all the major builders and suppliers of everything from stoves, to rope, to brass cleaner. The original plan had been to moor at Hilmorton and take the 15 minute bus ride to Crick, but at that stage himself was still only walking with the aid of his trusty laminated walking stick and expecting to walk from the village to the show site and then walk round the show all day was, shall we say, a little foolhardy. So, car hire, problem sorted.

One of the main reasons for going was to look at solar panels. Herself is very fond of using electricity but not so fond of the means of making it. On days when we are not going anywhere, we still need to run the engine for a couple of hours each day to recharge the domestic batteries; keeping the fridge freezer going being the major source of concern. “Can’t you turn that engine off yet?” comes the irritable cry from the armchair in the cratch (the noise has disturbed her mid afternoon snoozelet). So we are looking for a system that, in the summer months, will mean we don’t have to run the engine. And success, the lovely Simon from “Run by the Sun Ltd” has an ideal twin panel 120 watt system to suit our needs, which with the show discount we get a better deal than we have seen elsewhere. Himself will have to find something else to spend hours of surfing to research.....”What you looking at now?!?!!!!”, her dulcet tones drift shrilly across the quiet evening air.

There has also been some creativity in this interlude. Himself has been indulging in a bit of primitive art and done a bit of decoration on the Buckby can, which can now sit proudly on the roof, full of water, ready to water the flower and herb tubs on the roof. With some trepidation, an afternoon with wet and dry paper, we have erased the previous owners name from the starboard cabin side and, using a stencil prepared for us by “Cut-Signs” we have emblazoned our own name. We decided to use stencils rather than just getting vinyl lettering so we could match the colours of the original. We have to say that our colour mixing skills are not bad and the result is very passable. Now for the other side............