And we're home!

Finally having returned to the boat this afternoon she has made it to anderton from the winter!

Also of note, last weekend was the YWBS christmas meet at stone staffordshire, with tug boat and narrowgauge railway.

Update

Update, the boats not moved much recently, but it may attend the Norbury Jn meeting with myself (or i'll go without the boat). I also attended the black country meeting a fortnight ago with a number of others and spent time towing joeys with sickle and premoting the young working boat society (YWBS.co.uk)  and generally having around.

Im now back uni for my final year, and full of head cold and freshers flu.

Daniel

IWA National and Shackerstone.

Although the boat did not attend, spent a day at the national and was at Shackerstone for the weekend camping.

The National was blessed with dry weather and a good location, i bought a few bits and a coat and had a look at the pinder boat and the other craft on the water. The site seemed a little empty but prehaps this was just the larger ground?

Shackerstone was great after last years was rained off, i spend the weekend with the Parrots, Fullers and Phillips during the day who where the with Sickle, Ilford and Aquarious. There was a fantastic amount to do on the site on saturday with the stalls having little to offer and the large inflatable slide being for children only (apprently at 6ft2 and 22years of age i didnt qualify) although there was a good range of boats and promiss of the Red Arrows on Sunday drew in plenty of crowds, plenty of extra classic cars as well as a fair organ and of cause a cracking display by the team of red white and blue. My second, having seen them for the first time earlier in the year at Salcombe.

Photos to follow no doubt.... :S

Boiler Test

Boilertest Passed!

On Tuesday we had our annual boiler test.  A well maintained and operated boiler is a safe as any other peice of equipment on a narrowboat, but like all of these things if neglected can turn into a lethal weapon. So like MOTs for cars (which mine just passed today after a new exhast section)

 our boiler has to have an annual inspect where its condition and state are checked and tested along with the  feed water system and valves.

The first part of the boiler test is always to spend a day taking apart and cleaning the boiler ready for inspection. It was felt the boiler was a little oily inside so in addition to cleaning the tubes and firebox the inside was cleaned by filling the boiler with washing soda and boiling what oil the was off the heating surfaces with the boiler vented to atmopher through the whistle pipe (whistle removed).

 A photo looking into the boiler at the boiler crown.

[What you can see in the lower half of the image is the water side of the firebox and in the upper half the bottom of firetubes where the meet the bottom tube plate which runs along athe middle of the photograph.]

The oily discharge from the whistle pipe exit.

Cleaning the tubes.

With the smoke dome and flue removed a mechanical wire brush is run down each of the tubes, starting with the 25 stay tubes as seen here.

Fueled by digestives, powered by honda!

The mighty boiler inspector at work!

Trent Rally, the River Sour Trip and the Leicester Section!

Emilyanne took part in the SBA TrentLock rally and TVSC last weekend which was a great success. 

She was then moved south through Loughborough and Leicester on the River Sour with myself an a number of freinds from university who where graduating this year to the foot of Foxton Locks. (i will graduate next year, having compleated a masters courses)

Three days later she was the picked up by another group of freinds and I, this time other students who i did my placment with last year at JCB, who moved her through foxton, watford and braunston before mooring near Warwick where she will undergo her annual boiler inspection

Photos to follow.

Working Week on the Boat

For the last fortnight EmilyAnne has been moored at Willington in the new Mercia Marina and over the last week we have been working on the boat and engine.

The first thing we decided to do was try and locate some of the knocks within the engine as while there is nothing wrong with it as such after 20 years service its not quite as smooth as it was when new. There is some slop in some of the valve linkages when the eccentrics couple to the reverse slider and also some play in the big end of the high pressure cylinder. It was therefore decided to take the HP big end apart and measure it for wear with the plan to removed some of the thickness of shims holding it apart. In the end it was decided to remove the 6thou shims and replace them with 3thou shim to reduced the clearance.

We have also be struggling to develop any vacuum on the exhaust of the engine recently which was put down to leaks within the system between the engine, condenser, and airpump. Investigation revealed that as expected most of the joints in the system leak to some degree or other, so work set about disassembling each part, cutting gaskets, and reassembling with new gaskets or silicon gasket sealant (or both!). 

Monday then saw the boat leaving Willington for the steamboat association trentlock rally at the trent valley sailing club which also served as a short test run to prove our weeks work.

Im happy to report that although there is still some knocking within the engine, the harsher knock of the big end is now gone, and although we can still only pull around 10 inches of vacuum (not the 2o we need) we do seam to have cured the leaks (vacuum doesn’t leak away when we stop) so all eyes are on the air pump with an aim to now service and improve that!

Long lining with the Fullers

Having moved out of my University digs for summer on Sunday I drove stright over to the Fullers house in Stone  after being at home for about 12 hours (10 of which i was asleep) in order to go boating.

Roger had Ilford (A 1912 ex FMC Braithwaites Butty owned by Roger for the last 5 years) at Great Hayward with Southen Cross and Aquarious loaded the three boats with logs from a logging contract with the National Trust to removed around 100tonnes of logs from the Shugborourgh Estate by water.

After turning Southen X at the jucntion and having BBQ on the boats on the Monday night we left Hayward on Tuesday morning motored through to Alvecote with the three boats and Sweden heading towards Braunston for the Historic Working Boat Rally. The first day went well and saw us moor for the night in the basin at the Samual Barlow pub at Alvevote for Tea with Clover& Fazley (amungst others) alongside.

We left early Wednesday from Alvecote and had a clear run through the locks and another good day making Hawkesbury Jn the following evening where we Moored against the warlf alongside the pub and again took full advantage of the pub for food and beer. Two good days boating had seen us ahead of schdual and we spent the thursday morning moored against the Greyhound to watch the sport, with many boats passing through the junction, including Clover & Fazley as well as Hare and Cactus, who i pleased to say all made the turn as well as we did.

We then left Hawkesbury after lunch and boated down to the moorings at Brinklow where we ate onboard cooking a meal of Potatoes, Carrots and FrayBentos pies cooked on the range using reclaimed coal from the hedgerow and where joined by Hadley. Leaving Brinklow Matt walked up the arm to collect Sickle as we passed by and the boats made Braunston at around 2.30 to take up our mooring by the marina entrance.

Southen X and Ilford made the three locks at Hilmorton in 21 minutes start to finish.

Trent adventures

Got a phone call last night at about 7.

"Emilyanne is currently stuck on the mud 5 miles from Crowell on a falling tide can you think of anything clever to do"

Urrrm, not really! Fortunatly another canalworld forum member had do the same, in a simular of of the trent, just a few days earlier. So i got the low down of how it went for him and how quickly the tide came up and the like. He was luck enough to stuck at around midday so refloated around 5 in the evening on a sunday day. Where emilyanne has gone around on a rainy evening as was due to refloat at around one in the morning.

Anyway, they got off fine (at one, in the dark) and made a mile or so's progress towards Cromwell before sticking again. So are not waiting till two this afternoon to hopfully refloat for a second time and make it into Cromwell lock and on to Newark at last!

Emilyanne surround by Cows and very much on the bottom!

Wet weekend on the Chesterfield.

Locks at the top of the Chesterfeild

Well, ok its wasnt that, better than forcast but compaired to the week before it could have been february again!

After a week fo exams I (daniel) joined the boat just east of Worksop for two days off before my lasy exam. Progress on Saturday was slow, at times the weed was that bad it was faster to walk the boat through it than try and use the prop. Sunday went well untill around midday, when the heavens opened, and clear lock free sections started to show up our current coal and how little steam it seams to make us!

Still, the boat is now at Clayworth, and will progess further tomorrow while i revise for my last exam which is in friday.

Emilyanne on the Chesterfeild.Down the weed hatch...  (note weed on the right, this isnt round the prop as such, its growing there!!)

Sometimes this was the fastest way!The (unfortunatly broken) weed machine.

Nicely kept lock and lock landing.

IWA Campaign Rally

Rally was a great success, the boat arrived mid afternoon on the Saturday and a fuss was made all weekend with a great number of people coming to have a look at the boat, which was kept insteam throughout the weekend.

I joined the boat breifly for Sunday including and evening in the Beer tent before returning to Loughborough for another week of work.

Then today i had my first of four end of year exams, which i can report went well.

The boat is now in the Worksop area, and will be leaving the Chesterfield on the Friday or Saturday of this week going South up the Trent.

Boats at the Rally.

Rally Grounds in the Sunshine.

Chesterfield

Emilyanne is now on the Chesterfield canal approching Retford. 

Trent crossing went withou mishap with Tom at the wheel with a recently recruited crew who seams to show good promiss.

Tom is now boating on the chesterfield alone this morning and is to be joined shortly by katherine who will crew with him upto the rally site at Kiveton where I will join them for the sunday of the rally. During while time i will hopfully collect the last few weeks photos.

Look forward to the rally, which will be our first campaign rally, if your around, pop in and say hi or else maybe we will see you in the beer tent.

Bingley Five

Quick update: Progress towards the rally is going well.

There was tension in the air friday night when it was realised that the boat didnt have enough coal onboard for the weekends boating and nothing had been done anything about it.
- However after hald a days steaming the boat is now at bingley five having got there an hour after it closed (2hours where spent coaling in the morning) and so by the end of tuesday when the boat should be at or close to Keadby ready to go onto the tidal trent, from where its a few hours cruise to the base of the chesterfeild.

Im still not sure exactly how long i can take off over the week but im expecting to make it to the rally for at lease one of the days.

*Photo from online gallery

Two steam boats meet

The leeds and liverpool is home to the newest steamboat on the canal system, owned by geoff laycock (emilyanne is the second newest) and as she was in the area a meetup seamed in order!

 - Sadly i have still not been able to get to the boat myself, but geoff was kind enough to supply a photo of the event. There is also a short video on youtube.

On another positive note, after four days hard graft and the first proper all nighter i've ever done, today marked the handin date for my 3rd year major project report. A 13th of may i wont forget for a while!

Good progress.

Im still stuck in Loughborough with far to much work and deadlines to be able to consider evern a weekends boating. HOWEVER!

The boat has now passed Burnley and is making good progress toward the river trent on her way to the chesterfeild campaign rally at the end of this month.

Photo to follow once i have had them sent over from her recent crew!

And shes off!

Thursday last fortnight marked emilyannes departure from the marina at anderton on her next summers boating with her heading north onto the leeds and liverpool on her way to the Chesterfeild rally at the end of this month (May 23/24th) and has currently just past fellow steam boat whistle down the wind's mooring at hapton who left in the same direction in the morning. The chase is on!

Few photos from the wigan flight:

Some nice new gates sealing well.

The other end of the spectrum

One low pound.

But otherwise a very good day!

Planning 09

This weekend marks the start of the boating year. We the crew all got together and planned emilyannes movements for the year and began geting her ready for the year ahead.

Tom and Katherine spend friday on the boat cleaning the galley and bathroom and assessing what needs doing on the boat before the off after eater. Joining Me (daniel) at home in the evening to get busy with a sasco wall planner, nicholson canalmap, and nick attys route planner on the laptop!

The two jobs that came out top where to revarnish the upper portion of the engineroom walls to match the recently repainted lower half, and to finally finish the refit of the backcabin start this time last year. Hence Saturday saw Katherine cleaning and rubbing down the engineroom walls and Stephen an Daniel fitting new linning out to the backcabin bulkhead and removing the old sink ready for the replacment.

Katherine cleaned the engineroom wall (can you see where she had go upto?)

Cutting up the wood for the back cabin wall.

Wall, Before (left) and After (right). Its cleaner if nothing else!

The aformentioned 'old sink' ready for removal!

Other activitys at the Marina during the day.