New season's maintenance

The weather may be up and down, blowing and snowing followed by warm sunshine, but the general trend is warming and that means time to give Patience an airing.
Today was our second maintenance day of the season, plus we took a couple of walking pals out for a short trip to the end of the Welford Arm and back. With a walk in the morning, the usual excellent lunch at The Wharf and a couple of hours going there and back, the pals proclaimed their delight "with child-like enthusiasm."
But today was scrubbing the roof (pale, non-slip but harbours dark dirt) and treating the fore-deck with red oxide in preparation for a re-paint. The water tank, recently given its annual coat of potable bitumen, was filled a little with chlorine to clear the pipes, and now is half-full, ready for any journey we might take.
It's still cold in the evenings, but we have a beautiful new stove and lots of fuel, so we are ready for anything. Spring has sprung at Welford Marina.

In Praise of Welford

Patience is moored at a marina in Welford, on the border of Northants and Leicestershire. It's on a short arm that leads in a couple of miles to the Grand Union, so very convenient.
Our mooring is quiet and comfortable, not posh but it does the job, with a good pub, The Wharf, access to water and some maintenance and less than an hour away by boat from the chandelry at North Kilworth.

Why boast about it now? Because today was the first warm sunny day in ages and I felt the urge to pop across and tend to Patience, who has been sitting quietly without us for too long.
I drove across and found her happily bobbing at her mooring, few other people around. I gave her an airing, brushed off the inevitable leaves and twigs, started her up without trouble and let her tick over for ten minutes while I checked out any other problems. But, no problems, no damp patches, peeling paint or stains and so, while John plans to clean the plugs and before we re-fill her with water, I took an excellent lunch at The Wharf then went for a stroll around the reservoirs that provide the water for the Welford Arm and thence to the Grand Union.

 This is the causeway between two connected reservoirs that feed the Welford Arm.

 

And this is a narrow channel as an overflow connecting the two.

A path near the reservoirs is part of the Jurassic Way, a long-distance footpath of 88 miles connecting the Oxfordshire town of Banbury with the Lincolnshire town of Stamford. It is mostly in Northamptonshire and follows an ancient Jurassic limestone ridge.

Just three miles away is a monument commemorating the Civil War Battle of Naseby (14th June 1645).
All in all several very good walks to be had around Welford, with details available from the pub or on information boards next to the marina.

Hail Welford!

We cut short our planned expedition because of unpredictable weather and so fortunately missed very heavy rain on Monday. However no sooner had we boarded Patience in Welford than we were hit by sack loads of hail!

 

Yes that's hail, not broken glass ....

 

When we finally left the marina John spotted that the water temperature was shooting up and sure enough, after a bit of a panic about possible perforated hoses and dodgy alternators, we realised there was simply not enough water in the radiator. Why we're not sure, (never happened before or since) but by simply topping it up (with nearly a gallon) we were able to go on without a problem.

And so we enjoyed most of the trip up to Foxton (when not caught in heavy showers) and were able to relax into a fine sunny evening and a good meal at the Foxton Locks Inn.

We moored above the lock staircases and close to the delightful statue of the boy leading a horse along the tow path.

Welford in Winter

John visited Patience the other day and commented how damp it was around Welford basin.
Patience is reasonably dry inside, but all around is dampness, caused obviously by the weather, the season of damp and short dark days followed by darker nights, but also by the fact Welford is sheltered by high and sturdy trees. Normally this is an advantage but in winter what sun there is is shaded out.
Here's a shot I took on a sunny day last November (yes, they exist). Bright it may be, but the shadows are evident and the trees are clear. In summer of course it's a positive advantage, protected from the wind.

John swept the decks of fallen leaves, cleared the drain holes and ran the engine to pep up the batteries. As the bedding has been taken away to dry storage there is nothing else to worry about, lying as she does in a safe haven.
Happy Christmas, Patience ....

Yelvertoft to Welford and home

Friday 26th September.

It is the end of September
Chimneys across the marina breathe again,
Give out smoke
Drifting like morning mist across the canal.
Boats move shyly to their winter moorings
Preparing to rest
And peace descends on the wharf.

A restful day, with heron, squirrels, kingfishers, a buzzard with small prey in its claws and a macabre dead bird hanging from a thorn. The boating is straightforward with only the little lock at Welford and the tight entrance to the marina to negotiate.
Bare ploughed fields have clearly defined furrows in the sharp autumn sun, the texture of the earth rough and granular.
And the watery sun shines through as we head for home.

And soon, after the driest September since records began in 1910, we'll have to prepare Patience for winter, her first at Welford ....

Welford to Crick

Tuesday 23rd September and there is still warmth in the sun and energy in our bones. On a pleasant day for late September we make an uneventful journey from Welford to Crick in 4 1/2 hours.
There is time to reflect (ho ho) on watery things, such as Pink Floyd's new album "The Endless River" and Peter Ackroyd's meandering book "Thames - Sacred River". Of which more later.

We take an evening stroll up the prominent Crack's Hill (a glacial moraine), from which there are extensive views, then on to The Red Lion in Crick. On our last visit the place was crammed and hot, then we were soaked in a deluge while returning to the boat. This time we chose from a good range of food and Adnam's beer in pleasant surroundings, busy though not too much so, puzzled only by their decision to charge Debit as well as Credit card users an extra 50p - and their website which seems to consist of a single page and uses the suffixes eu and pn. Quirky!

Welford to Foxton

Now that Welford Marina is Patience's new home (and very pleased she is with it!), we have planned several trips to explore our new patch. So Duncan and Jenny set out to head north up the Leicester Arm for the short but delightful 9 miles up to Foxton. It was from Foxton that we set off on our very first family narrow boat holiday in 1994.
With only one lock (that on the Welford arm) between the marina and Foxton Top Lock we had an easy time of it with only the Husband's Bosworth tunnel to negotiate and the rest beautiful calm green countryside and harvested fields, the sun beaming down on us all the way to Foxton for about 4 hours.

We approached the Foxton top lock, turned in the side arm that once lead to the inclined plane and came back under Bridge 60 to moor.

Moorings directly above the Top Lock are best kept for those waiting to go down the locks, or filling up with water.

 

Above Bridge 60 there were ample moorings, including one Candy Boat supplying sweets.

On arrival we explored the locks and ended up in the Foxton Locks Inn - good grub, good selection of beers, delightful sitting out in sunshine by the waterfront.

Next day we returned to the locks as gongoozlers and admired the way the locks are planned with side ponds to hold the water and direct it to the next lock in the staircase.
The trick, as a boater, is to open the red paddle followed by the white paddle. This fills one lock and empties the next, while directing the water into the pond for re-use. Much more detail here.

Looking up from just below the central pound which divides the two lock staircases so boats can pass each other half way through the flight.

Again looking up the flight, from a vantage point on top of the museum which was the engine house for the inclined plane. The lock keeper's house is the white building at the top.

Looking down from near the top of the flight. This is gongoozler heaven! The museum is the red brick building on the right

The museum is excellent and well worth seeing. It explains the working of locks and this system in particular, the history and significance of Foxton locks and would be of interest to all ages.
The mechanism for the Inclined Plane, which from 1900 to 1911 moved boats speedily up a steep gradient, avoiding the slow and tiring locks and saving water, was sold off for scrap in the 1920's but enough remains to visualise the engineering achievement and envy the system.

 The Inclined Plane in 1900

One of the pulley wheels around which the cables turned, holding the caissons in which the boats sat for their journey up or down the plane.

See The Anderton Lift and The Falkirk Wheel amongst other remarkable boat lifts for ways of moving a boat up or down between water levels.

How wonderful it is that people come from far and wide to be awestruck by engineering ingenuity!



Our return trip (another 9 miles with the Welford lock and the Husbands Bosworth tunnel, was equally attractive and enjoyable. Welford to Foxton - a good trip of two short days with overnight stay. And our new fridge worked brilliantly!

Boat Fridge Installation

Although it had been previously successfully repaired (see earlier blog, 24 June 2013),  the 20 year old Electrolux gas fridge was always temperamental and finally gave up the ghost during our trip from Oundle to Welford. This time its decline looked terminal so we investigated our options.  Here it is when we bought Patience in 2009.  Note the shelf space below the fridge, which was not much used.

The latest boat safety regs make it almost impossible to fit a new gas fridge (see, for example, Waterways World) and, as electric fridges using the new Danfoss DC compressors are very efficient, we took the opportunity to go to electric power.  We carefully removed the old fridge and capped off and leak tested the gas supply pipe.  We discovered some thermal insulation panels, which looked as if they might contain asbestos, see photo below.

These were sprayed with a fine water mist and very carefully unscrewed, wearing an approved disposable face mask and disposable overalls.  The panels were immediately double bagged and sealed, prior to disposal at an approved local authority asbestos disposal site. The cavity was carefully wiped down with water to remove any residual dust.

The next task was to choose a new fridge.  Three manufacturers were investigated: Isotherm (made in the US), Waeco (made in Germany) and Shoreline (made in the UK).  All use the same Danfoss BD35F compressor, so there isn't much to choose between them on the basis of power consumption.  We did realise that by removing the bottom shelf in the cavity, we could fit a larger fridge than the old 60 litre Electrolux fridge that we were replacing.  In fact our friends at the Oundle marina chandlery had a Shoreline RR102W in stock that would just fit the space and give us an increased capacity of 98 litres.  It was also about £100 cheaper than the smaller Isotherm and Waeco 65 litre fridges.

Before finally committing to this, we did some sums to check that we had adequate domestic battery capacity to run the fridge while moored.  The Shoreline fridge is claimed to have an average energy consumption of 0.95 Ah/h. We rarely moor up for more than an overnight stay, so if we assume a period of 18 hours, the fridge would consume a nominal 17 Ah of battery charge.  We have 2 x 110 Ah domestic batteries and no other large current consuming appliances, so this seems well within their capacity, even allowing for only accessing 50% of the nominal energy from the batteries.

The next task was to check the routing of the cable back to the main switch board, where fortunately we had a spare 15 A switch and circuit breaker. It was not easy to find a route for the cable and we discovered that we would need a 10 m run each way.

All the fridge manufacturers recommend cables whose cross sectional area must be increased in proportion to their length.  Shoreline recommend 10 sq mm cable if the fridge is 10 m from the supply and Isotherm and Waeco specify even larger cables than this. 10 sq mm cables are not only very expensive, but also more difficult to route through the boat.  At this point we went back to the theory.

It seemed that the objective is to reduce the voltage drop along the cables to acceptable limits rather than keep the resistance of the cables constant, which is implied by the manufacturers' recommendations that their cross sectional area should increase in proportion to their length.  There is a very useful formula for the voltage drop along copper cables on the SmartGauge website, which gives the required copper cable size in sq mm as: (18 x length of cable in m x current in amps)/(voltage drop x 1000).  Our installation has 20 m (allowing for both live and neutral).  The current draw of the Danfoss compressor was measured at 4.2 A. In fact their data sheet gives a range of 4 A (at 0 deg C evaporator temperature) to 4.45 A (at 5 deg C evaporator temperature) when running at 2000 rpm.  The current is likely to be lower as the freezer compartment (which determines the evaporator temperature rather than the chiller compartment) will be below zero once the fridge has reached its normal operating condition. If we take a cable length of 20 m, a current of 4.25 A and a voltage drop of 0.34 V, the formula gives us a cable cross section of 4.5 sq mm, which is a commercially available option.  Quite independently of this, Nick Billingham's book on Narrow Boat Care and Maintenance (1995, The Crowood Press) suggests a 4 sq mm cable for a 4 A current draw with up to 10 m between the device and the battery, which fits in with the theory of limiting the voltage drop to about a third of a volt.  The 10 sq mm cable recommended by Shoreline would only reduce the voltage drop from 0.34 V to 0.15 V, a reduction of just 0.19 V.  In the context of the significant variation in supply voltage from a battery depending on its state of charge and the fact that the fridge cut-out is set as low as 10.4 V, it seemed a reasonable risk to go with 4.5 sq mm cables and monitor the situation. Of course, we may be proved wrong and find that the fridge cuts out when moored up for a few hours.  If this proves to be the case, we will simply double up the supply cables.

After installation we measured a voltage drop at the fridge of about 0.7V going from no load (12.5V) to when the compressor cut in (11.8V). However, in addition to the voltage drop in the cables between the switchboard to the fridge, estimated at about 0.34V, the balance is presumably due to the voltage drop between the battery and the switchboard, as well as the voltage drop in the battery itself when current is drawn from it.

A second requirement when sizing cables is to ensure that they are capable of carrying the current without overheating, although in low voltage DC systems, this is not likely to be a problem if they are correctly sized to manage the voltage drop, as described above.  The total heat generated (in Watts) in 20 m of cable is the current (4.25 A) x the voltage drop (0.34 V), which is about 1.5 W along the whole length, or 0.075 W/m of cable, which is negligible. For example, a smaller cable (2.5 sq mm) than we are using here is typically rated as being safe for up to 20 A, see for example the SmartGauge website.

Anyway, after all this theory and practice, the new fridge looks good and, at the time of writing, seems to be working fine, see the photo below.  The final task was to reverse the door hinge so that it opens more conveniently towards the galley area. This was achieved by removing the top panel of the fridge and swapping the upper hinge from the right to the left hand side and similarly switching the lower hinge plate on the base of the fridge.

We will of course have to be even more careful that we remember to switch over to the domestic batteries when we moor up to protect the charge in the starter motor battery.  

Finally, don't attempt any of these tasks unless you are competent to do so!

Crick to Welford - our new home

Day 5: Crick to Welford
We deserve a leisurely day and this is it. 12 miles and one lock to go, turning off the Leicester arm to go just 1.5 miles to the end of the Welford arm and our new home.
Though drizzle and worse comes over us, and our mooring isn't quite ready, we nevertheless moor up comfortably and temporarily and celebrate with an excellent pie at The Wharf, our new local.

And so Patience is at peace again as we drive back to Cambridge, pretty tired but pleased with our work - 36 travelling hours, over 5 days, 70 miles of river and canal and a massive 58 locks.

When planning, we have estimated journey times by adding the number of locks to the number of miles and dividing the total by 3.  This assumes an average speed of 3 mph and an average of 20 minutes to get through each lock. In practice we have tended to do a lock in nearer 15 minutes. We've also compared our efforts with the invaluable Canal Planner and find we are about 10% longer in time than their estimate. However over all it's pretty predictable unless you're stuck in a long queue for a lock at busy times.

There's much to be done now at our new pontoon. John will tinker with his 15/16th spanners and we'll install a new, electric, fridge. Then we can explore the region, ideally placed as we are to go up and down the Leicester line and back into the Grand Union, from which the world is at our feet. We might even create a plan to visit all the traditional English (and Welsh) counties that have canal access, as we have done - walking - with The Walking Boys. Once our knees have recovered.

Today: 12 miles, 1 lock, 5 hours. Knackered.

Autumn in Welford

A bright autumnal day, and though the mellow fruitfulness may have gone the leaves are still on the trees and filtering the sun in golden shafts. A good day for boating, except that Patience is currently having her bottom blacked in Oundle.
So, reluctant to miss the a boat-flavoured visit, I headed further west along the A14 to spy out some other marinas. Despite some confusion in my mind between Walton, Whilton, Welton and Welford I ended up in the latter and found it a very attractive spot.

Welford is mid-way along the route of the Leicester to Northampton turnpike, at a point where there was a ford on the river Avon. There is a neat, if packed, wharf, a  marina a few hundred yards further up, and boats moored along the canal between the two. The pub, The Wharf, was packed with locals and walkers (its website briefly describes local walks too) and it all had a busy and sociable feel to it.

A detailed set of information boards suggest walking routes and gives local history, and evidently it is popular with walkers.
I took the simplest route from the wharf, around the marina, past the lock and along the tow path to the junction with the Leicester Line of the Grand Union, returning the same way, a distance of 4 miles or so.

I couldn't find any contact details for the marina while I was there. They seem not to have a website, but I found one phone number: 01858 575995 which might be a contact for Les, the man in charge.
Welford: A bit off the beaten track, and all the better for it!