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.