French canals 2013

we are in Chaumont (pk 110). Nice Halte with all the facilities- busy though! Lots of boats heading south all catching up together following the bad weather delays earlier.

Did stop at Froncles the day before yesterday - highly recomended , top facilties, very helpful Capitaineria and 2 euros all in. 5* rating from me.

Next, 2 days up and 3 days down to St Jean! If anybody gets to St Jean in the next week or so (Cardo ?) can you please advise on a month stop-over berth for us (9.5 metres). Thanks! (can't get a phone or email reply).
 
My (year-round) berth on H2O Pontoon D will be free from Monday 17th...................

I usually find the H2O office pretty responsive (except over lunchtime): 0380392300 or h2o@h2ofrance.com

Maybe see you there: we plan to arrive on Sunday 16th and set off the next day.
 
We arrived at St. Jean de Losne yesterday. Reasonably pleasant around here. There seems to be two distinct marinas. H2O seems to be the more marina type place and looks pretty nice. That's on the right as you enter the basin. On the left is Blanquart, which is a marina/boatyard. We're at Blanquart as we're hopefully getting our steering problem fixed in the next couple of weeks. So, depending on how long parts take to source, we'll be here for around 1 to 2 weeks. Hopefully not longer as that will put serious time constraints on us!

Price wise, Blanquart is €10/night for 9m to 12m or €50/week. Mr Blanquart seems notorious for not reading his emails. Having asked him about this, it seems all his emails go straight into spam and he doesn't read anything! I ended up speaking to him on the phone last week just to give him a heads up about our steering problem. Again, he was rarely available but eventually got hold of him.

As per Saskia's suggestion, it may well be worth getting in touch with H2O, they certainly seem shinier! But failing that, it does appear they have space here also.
 
We are now in Meaux having spent a few days in Lagny. The pontoon at Lagny is tilting a bit and the girls in the office say parts of it are not very safe. We seemed to be Ok though. Mooring is free, €6 for water and electricity, neither of which work on the central bollard. I plugged in to the power though which did work. Large plug though. Fuel just across the bridge only a short distance. Water and electricity work ok in Meaux, try to tie up to the right hand side of the pontoons as the current is quite strong. Thank goodness that the weather has improved.
 
I was just having a play on the dinghy and bumped into this girl...
saskia.jpg


Though she appears to be listing to starboard. Hope nothing's wrong!
saskia2.jpg
 
Hi Cardo,

Great to see that Saskia is still afloat! Always a relief. So many thanks. I think the list may be because we have a full fuel tank on the starboard side and an empty water tank on port side - hopefully nothing more serious.

We plan to arrive Sunday evening, and leave Monday morning, hoping to make it to Paris in two weeks. It sounds as if the Marne is flowing quite fast (thanks to bhangmaster for the update) which should help us along. By the way how was the Saone? back to its usual placid self, or still running quite fast?

Nick
 
saskia said:
Hi Cardo,

Great to see that Saskia is still afloat! Always a relief. So many thanks. I think the list may be because we have a full fuel tank on the starboard side and an empty water tank on port side - hopefully nothing more serious.

We plan to arrive Sunday evening, and leave Monday morning, hoping to make it to Paris in two weeks. It sounds as if the Marne is flowing quite fast (thanks to bhangmaster for the update) which should help us along. By the way how was the Saone? back to its usual placid self, or still running quite fast?

Nick
Click to expand...

We get the same list on Tinkerbell as the water and fuel tanks are on opposite sides.

We were experiencing around 1.5 knots of tide on the Saone down to St Jean. Don't know of that's normal, but it shouldn't be too horrible heading up to the canal!
 
Just a quick post for anyone planning to stop at Chateau Thierry, there is no power or water despite what is written in Fluvicarte. Nice place to stop, also good for a tour round champagne Pannier, about 20mins walk away
 
bhangmaster said:
Just a quick post for anyone planning to stop at Chateau Thierry, there is no power or water despite what is written in Fluvicarte. Nice place to stop, also good for a tour round champagne Pannier, about 20mins walk away
Click to expand...

Ah, yes! One of the great disappointments during our trip so far. I couldn't wait to get out of there! We did manage to get water, though. If the old barge is on his mooring slightly upstream of the plaisance mooring wall, he is very friendly (even if his English is practically non-existent) and will let you tap into his water supply, if you're close enough. We ended up using his hose extended onto another plasiancer's hose and then extended onto our hose in order to top up our tanks.

Update from us - Little to say! Still at Blanquart's at St. Jean. However, we're now on the canal side. BEWARE of the first lock into the Canal de Borgogne if you do enter through there. The lock is a manual one and if the lock keeper with the long hair and moustache is on duty, it appears he's a bit on the lazy side and opens up all the sluice gates at the same time. We were at the front of the lock as there was a boat behind us and had a veritable torrent of water flowing in just ahead of our bow. Our bow was pushed one way, I managed to correct for this and then we were pushed quite harshly the other way. I had to run up to the bow on the other side to push away so our mast wouldn't smash into the wall. Unfortunately, our stern on the other side did connect. Our outboard took the brunt of the impact, fortunately only causing some scrapes to the casing, however our bracket (which was old and probably on its way out) snapped in half. We're now on the market for a new outboard bracket! So, lesson learned, be careful going through manual locks! Even though we've been through well over a hundred locks so far that have caused us no grief at all, this one was just nasty and caught us by surprise.

As for the progress on our repairs - slow. Having been here for a week, Mr Blanquart has now properly looked our our steering with an engineer and decided the part that was ordered wasn't suitable. In fact, they're not happy about doing the changes I had asked for and they're simply going to try and patch up our existing ram to get us on our way. Personally, I have lost confidence in this place and just want to get going, so hopefully they can get the ram patched up so we can head off and I'll get the system sorted properly somewhere where the boss isn't quite so dismissive of his customers!

At least the weather has improved! Huge rainstorm yesterday evening, but it's generally been very pleasant, if a little on the warm side!
 
French canals

Years ago there used to be a chef's training school there, and you could go and eat their food for a few cents. Don't know if it is still there.
 
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bhangmaster said:
Just a quick post for anyone planning to stop at Chateau Thierry, there is no power or water despite what is written in Fluvicarte. Nice place to stop, also good for a tour round champagne Pannier, about 20mins walk away
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Chateau-Thierry has been a disappointment for years, it's a shame. We must have been just about the last boat to get some electricity when we passed through for the first time in autumn 2003 - and we had to lash up a connection into a dodgy broken borne.
As I say . . .
http://www.french-waterways.com/waterways/marne.html
PK51 Chateau-Thierry
A small town with a full range of facilities. Service station nearby. The hire boat base has closed. Mooring is to a quay alongside a narrow park, north bank, west of the bridge. The quay has room for many boats, but no water or electricity or other facilities which for a town of this size is short-sighted. The park is popular and can become lively and noisy at weekends. The last time we tied up there we lasted half-an-hour, then moved on (to Azy).
 
Grehan,

A suggested correction for your CHAUMONT comments. The supermarket is not up the hill. Cross the river, keep right, past the cemetary and the hypermarche complex, brico, service station etc is there. About a 15 min walk. The town of CHAUMONT is up the hill, SNCF etc. which is a 45 min walk.
 
Crikey Cardo! Just a suggestion, why not try an auto engineer or a machine shop? I bet the local old boys garage could help you with your problem and for a darn sight less too. Had a look at your website also, hopefully that will be me in a couple of years when the old girl's ready! Best of luck! Ian
 
Fred Drift -
Apologies for the rant I posted yesterday. Just been getting frustrated by all the delays and the somewhat dismissive attitude we have encountered around here. Interestingly enough, Mr Blanquart came up to me this morning, said "bonjour" and shook my hand, before saying they are collecting the seals this morning and should hopefully have the ram back on this afternoon. Progress!
 
Grehan said:
ah could be a change there. Was def. up the hill when we were there last. I remember lugging some gas bottles . . . :) Will make the update. Thanks AndyLyn
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5 mins on the bike - a particularly good Brico (think its Mr Brico) and service station for diesel etc. plus the supermarche all in a new "out of town" development. - next over the top, tunnel and down to St Jean; might stop there a while.
 
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