Coastal sailor does Brummy canals and tunnels

[Adios]

So if you’re half way through a long tunnel where there’s no “hard shoulder” and the engine dies - what happens then?

I'd have got lots of sculling practice! If a narrowboat breaks down they could practice legging as it was designed for boats with no engine. I did give the outboard a good service and it was quite a new one but yes could be a problem as it was low season despite the weather and there was hardly anyone else out to tow us. I cut the engine and turned off the lights in the middle of that tunnel to take in the atmosphere, very interesting

 

[Bru]

So if you’re half way through a long tunnel where there’s no “hard shoulder” and the engine dies - what happens then?

You hope like hell somebody comes along and tows you out!

What you definitely don't do is try to leg out in the old way familiar from TV and history books. It takes two people and a legging board of exactly the right length which you won't have. And it's actually quite dangerous if you don't know what your doing not to mention extremely hard work

Better, if the tunnel roof is low enough, to lie on top of the cabin and "walk" along the roof. If it's too high then pole the boat along the same way.

It doesn't happen often, in over twenty years on the cut i can only recall coming across the situation once (we provided the tow)

 

[Mister E]

So if you’re half way through a long tunnel where there’s no “hard shoulder” and the engine dies - what happens then?

You leg It. A term for using your feet on the walls or roof.
This was done before engines where invented.
Not easy and as been said needs planning before hand.

 

[Adios]

Same boat through Gosty Hill Tunnel, reckoned to be the first steamer through there in several decades, we steam cleaned all the bloody great big spiders off the tunnel roof! I was covered in the damn things from head to foot and i most emphatically do NOT do spiders :0

Happy days!

Spare a thought for these people who got stuck in Gosty Hill tunnel for 20 hours. Easy to imagine with the momentum how solidly wedged you could get and how the engine wouldn't have much chance.
Stuck in a tunnel - for nearly a day

Can imagine being with a steam engine in that situation would be quite an issue for ventilation

 

[Bru]

Spare a thought for these people who got stuck in Gosty Hill tunnel for 20 hours. Easy to imagine with the momentum how solidly wedged you could get and how the engine wouldn't have much chance.
Stuck in a tunnel - for nearly a day

Can imagine being with a steam engine in that situation would be quite an issue for ventilation

Ugh! That wouldn't have been much fun!

 

[mjcoon]

Spare a thought for these people who got stuck in Gosty Hill tunnel for 20 hours. Easy to imagine with the momentum how solidly wedged you could get and how the engine wouldn't have much chance.
Stuck in a tunnel - for nearly a day

Can imagine being with a steam engine in that situation would be quite an issue for ventilation

Did the steamers always carry a canary?

 

[Bru]

Did the steamers always carry a canary?

Nope, we just died quietly like true gentlemen

The fumes weren't really a problem for the steerer on the engine. It's the butty steerer that cops the fumes (and the spiders). Guess who usually ended up steering the butty!

Jesting apart, the fumes from the steamer were as nothing compared to the stink of diesel fumes on a bad day. I've coughed and spluttered through Blis'orth tunnel unable to see the bow of the boat seventy feet away for the diesel exhaust fumes on a bad day

It only made things worse if they'd bought Blagrove's sulphorous house coal and banked up the stove before setting off!!

 

[ProDave]

With a boat that small, go and exercise your right of passage through the Dudley No 2 tunnel. It is a smaller gauge than most and not many proper narrowboats can fit through, but if your boat will fit, the boat operators at the Black Country museum are duty bound to give you a tow through using one of their electric boats.

 

[Adios]

With a boat that small, go and exercise your right of passage through the Dudley No 2 tunnel. It is a smaller gauge than most and not many proper narrowboats can fit through, but if your boat will fit, the boat operators at the Black Country museum are duty bound to give you a tow through using one of their electric boats.

I would love to have done that but with 3 kids under 10 with me on my own I had no way to safely go through locks. Spending days on end in an open boat wasn't what my wife married me for it seems. Thinking about it though I could have roped her in for a day at that point.

 

[Bru]

With a boat that small, go and exercise your right of passage through the Dudley No 2 tunnel. It is a smaller gauge than most and not many proper narrowboats can fit through, but if your boat will fit, the boat operators at the Black Country museum are duty bound to give you a tow through using one of their electric boats.

Erm, they're not "duty bound" to do so, the Dudley Canal and Tunnel Trust offer a free conditional tow through and escort service to suitable craft given 24 hours notice as a service to boaters

They're under no actual obligation to do so. There's no right of navigation through the tunnel and they are not responsible for the tunnel in any case

It came about because after the tunnel had been restored the then British Waterways ruled that powered craft could not use it due to the lack of ventilation. Later, after a number of incidents, it was further ruled that all passages had to be escorted.

Initially, in theory, British Waterways staff would supposedly provide this service on request but in practice they had neither the staff nor the interest to do so. DCTT stepped into the breach bless 'em

Trivia alert ...

The aforementioned incident when we got President and Kikdare stuck at Earlswood on the North Stafford was en-route back to our home at the Black Country Museum to be on show for the Dudley Tunnel reopening.

We should have been going straight up the Grand Union but the top pound had been contaminated with raw sewage so we tried to get up the North Stafford instead. It hadn't been dredged in living memory and we drew about 4'9" ... not a hope!

And on another occasion my brother and I planned to take our own narrowboat Badger through Dudley tunnel (under our own steam and unescorted cos we knew damn fine well that nobody was looking and at that time nobody actually cared) but she wouldn't quite fit under the gauge

 

[Adios]

Didn't expect to find so many interested in canals but it proves my theory that a boats a boat and if you love one you'll probably love them all.

If you haven't seen this series The Flower of Gloster [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Richard O'Callaghan, Elizabeth Doherty, Mike Doherty, Christopher McMaster, Richard O'Callaghan, Elizabeth Doherty: DVD & Blu-ray I 100% recommend it. Ignore the trailer its really not a kids TV show, more of a docudrama made for kids, showing the canal and the people working around them as it was in the 1960s with a story to tie the bits together. You wouldn't think it was shot in the 60s as the picture quality is so high.

 

[Adios]

As for owning a narrowboat I've seen where people buy a time share in one that is continuously cruising. Wherever it is on your week thats where you'll go, one way and leave it at the next hand over point. Sounds a great way to own one.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Any one remember the TV file called The bargee from 1964

 

[Bru]

Well, in my case i was ditch boating for a lot longer than I've been yachting (over 20 years, to be immodest basically been there, seen that, done the lot!)

Timeshare seems good on the face of it but be very very wary. I've known a lot of people end up very disappointed and sometimes seriously out of pocket due to timeshare schemes (off the top of my head i can only think of one that endured without serious problems and all the shareholders were good friends to start with and stayed good friends!)

"The Bargee" (terrible name, they weren't barges and the people who worked them weren't "bargees" but hey ho) was one of those amusing comedy films of its era now valuable from a canal heritage point of view as its one of the few colour films of working narrowboats effectively at work. It still gets shown at canal rallies and get togethers from time to time. It's frankly a bit rubbish as a film!

 

[Adios]

Any one remember the TV file called The bargee from 1964

The Bargee [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Harry H. Corbett, Hugh Griffith, Eric Sykes, Harry H. Corbett, Hugh Griffith: DVD & Blu-ray looks worth a watch

led to this one Painted Boats [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Jenny Laird, Bill Blewett, Robert Griffith, May Hallatt, Charles Crichton, Jenny Laird, Bill Blewett, Michael Balcon, Louis MacNeice, Michael McCarthy, Stephen Black: DVD & Blu-ray which sounds like a similar thing to the Flower of Glocester

As far as river based comedy drama goes would be hard to beat the classic TV version of Alan Ayckbourn's Way Upstream but I don't think that's available on DVD

 

[Adios]

Timeshare seems good on the face of it but be very very wary. I've known a lot of people end up very disappointed and sometimes seriously out of pocket due to timeshare schemes

It would have to be significantly cheaper than just hiring a boat for those weeks to be of any interest but I guess the idea is you pay a share of the boat purchase price which you can later sell and then a % of annual running costs. Considering most can barely get a few weeks a year on their boats it seems like a great idea. And it takes away the problem of being stuck in the same bit of canal. How can it go wrong? Fraud in inflating maintenance costs? I've noticed insider dealing between boat yards and insurance assessors in other ways so can imagine either fraud or fear of fraud souring relationships. Anything else?

 

[Bru]

Painted Boats is the other canal society film night film

Both it and The Bargee are worth a watch if you're interested in the way life used to be on the cut

 

[Bru]

How can canal timeshares go wrong?

How long have you got?

Top problem is usually that the boat isn't where you wanted and expected when it's your turn to take it over because the previous crew failed to get it there

The other side of that coin is that you yourself are under pressure to get the boat to where it's supposed to be at the end of your time aboard

Next on the list - maintenance obligations (both hands on and financial) not being met by one or more of the owners group

When it comes to commercially operated timeshares, I've known too many people lose their money when operators go bust or simply abscond with the bank balance to ever get involved in that game

I could go on but i won't

 

[Adios]

Painted Boats is the other canal society film night film

Both it and The Bargee are worth a watch if you're interested in the way life used to be on the cut

Certainly interested enough to spend a few hours watching that. When I see this guy make short work of locks I think it looks a good enough way to get about, but I bet he gets frustrated when caught behind a load of hire boats.

 

[Adios]

The only way to do canals IMO would be living aboard a boat with some history, with a lazy sounding classic engine that you walk around and have a constantly tinkering relationship with, and a wood burning stove for company. That's an achievable ambition, something to retire too perhaps. Listening to the storm bending the trees outside and remembering past days on open water