Taking out the pair for the first time in 2 years

My friend Shorty came to visit us, from the Netherlands, this week and has been staying on Christina, I decided that it would be a good excuse to take both boats out for the weekend.

Shorty at the helm of Freyja & Christina

Glenda raising the guillotine at Ringstead Lower lock (photo by Shorty)

The concentration! LOL!
(photo by Glenda)

Shorty steering Christina
(photo by Glenda)

We never normally get any pictures with both of us in! So it was very nice to see this picture.
(photo by Shorty)

Towing Christina to speed things up as it was fast getting dark and Glenda didn't want to moor in the dark. By the time we arrived at Denford it was very dark, Glenda was not impressed!
But after a few red wines in the Denford Cock all was well again.
(photo by Shorty)

We woke the next morning to a herd of curious cows, scratching their necks on our mooring pins.
(photo by Shorty)

Approaching the A14 bridge at Thrapston, far more satisfying to potter under it than it is to drive stressed up on this busy trunk road.
(photo by Shorty)

 

Video by Glenda

(Glenda came close to dropping her phone as she stopped the video)

The disused Thrapston railway bridge and the non-existent Mill Marina. (photo by Shorty)

Approaching the Nine Arch Bridge at Thrapston, on a long line, on our return they went through OK breasted up.
(photo by Shorty)

We moored and winded below Titchmarsh lock

It was a lovely day the next morning

Moored on the 48 hour moorings, that lock landing has been closed for a while now.
(photo by Glenda)

In Tichmarsh lock
(photo by Glenda)

A nice moody shot of Thrapston (closed by Beeching!) railway bridge
(photo by Glenda)

We took it very easy on our way back upstream
(photo by Glenda)

In Denford lock (photo by Glenda)

On Denford lock landing (while I checked out if the continuous moorer NB Dee was still hogging the prime mooring spot at Denford), it was! Grrr!

Moored at Denford, Glenda made bread and had cooked us a 5 bird roast on the move! What a woman! ;o)

We had a great weekend only marred by me almost losing an eye as an unattended fishing rod came along Freyja at eye level, I ducked to avoid the rod and slowed, Christina came down our starboard side and rubbed along the port side of the cruiser with the offending fishing rod.

The tirade that followed as we tried to moor and breast back up (we'd singled up to get under Islip footbridge) meant that

I was very wound up leaving Islip 48 hour moorings. It started pouring with rain and I was more than a little nervous arriving at Titchmarsh and steering, breasted up, between the lines of moored boats.

We decided that the weather was not nice enough to sit outside the Kings in Wadenhoe and decided instead to wind and moor on the 48 hour moorings at Titchmarsh, we had a great night in the very hospitable Titchmarsh Club ;o)

The weather was superb on Sunday morning and  after a nice breakfast we headed back upstream for a very nice, relaxed return journey. We even passed through Thrapston's Nine Arch Bridge and squeezed back into Blackthorn lake breasted up.

An easier weekend

I fitted the new wash basin into Christina and plumbed in the mixer tap. Fitted the new gas regulator / level gauge to Freyja and then returned Christina's regulator, fired up Christina's Morco shower heater, lovely hot water, Great! Then turned on the hot tap on the basin and the Morco started pulsing, the water pulsed and the water pump wheezed, Grrrr! Cold water, bugger!

So I turned on both the shower and the basin tap and then got hot water at the basin, I think that the small bore flexi pipes that attach to the mixer tap are constricting the flow. I'm not a plumber so I need to make enquiries from someone who knows better than me.

Glenda then swung into action undercoating and painting the bathroom and the insides of the boatman's cupboard's etc.

I gave Freyja's starboard side a coat of enamel and re-painted her window frames.

It made a nice change to be doing things that weren't urgent.

Finished off the weekend by giving the tiller another coat of lacquer and made two new larger flanks for the elum, the first was perfect and the second was a complete failure after the long jigsaw blade twisted and left me with a mis-shapen block of firewood and a piece of wood left over that was too short to make a replacement. HoHum!

Fitting a wash basin and taps into Christina

Christina has a bath with a shower and she has a cassette toilet, but she didn't have any washing facilities.

We've set this porcelain bowl into the existing wash-stand and there is a mixer tap ready to be connected, I've already Tee'd off the shower feeds and run the piping under the floor.

 

Gas locker update and we've got a new BSS on Freyja ;o)

The guys at Nene Marine did a sterling job, cutting out the damaged gas locker, and then welding a shallower locker in, incorporating a gas drain that is not right on the waterline!

The bottle still fits fine but does not sit so low, this makes it easier to get in and out and gives more room under the locker so that I could clean, de-rust and paint the top of the counterplate and that is where our newly painted, large chunks of cast iron ballast now reside. I have now painted inside the locker and moved the bubble-tester to the side, unfortunately the regulator valve was leaking so we have used Christina's until our new valve with built in gauge arrives.

I also had to remove the redundant cat-flap and re-instate the air vents and swap two of the fire-extinguishers over to comply with the up and coming BSS. 

It was nice to meet Ian Jennings who did our safety examination and Freyja passed with flying colours ;o)

A replacement tiller for Christina's elum.

While we were bringing Freyja & Christina down from Nantwich, Christina's very rickety plywood tiller gave up and snapped into several pieces. 

Joe had to use the boat hook as a tiller.

I've been trying to get hold of a replacement tiller or an ash bough that I can shave down to a traditional tiller, so far, no luck.

So I decided to make another from laminated marine ply, I'll still make an ash tiller and keep this one as a spare.

The roughed out tiller still needs fettling and a steel strengthening collar fitted over the end that plugs into the elum (butty rudder)

We've started to spruce Christina up a bit, sealing a lot of leaks in her wooden cabin's roof and giving her a coat of enamel. we'll try to paint one side of each boat before we swap them over on our pontoon.

A final sand down

Offering up the metal collar that strengthens the the end that plugs into the elum's socket

Adding roses, diamonds and coloured bands using water-based leather dye

Here I've dyed in some roses, diamonds and added some coloured bands prior to treating it with some Le Tonkinois lacquer

I re-painted the elum, removed and re-painted the metal stays and strengtheners, washed and bleached the decorative ropework and treated the tiller with the first two coats of Tonkinois lacquer. Getting there ;o)

Gnash! Yet another rust problem!

Bruce from Nene Marine came to cut out and repair a small patch on the outside of Freyja's gas locker, I scraped and hoovered loose rust from inside, ready for rust treatment and painting, this was when we found a few small holes in the base of the locker, I poked away at the bottom edge and the scraper went straight through into the wet locker (i.e. the saloon!) a safety certificate fail ;o(

A few of the pinholes that we found in the gas locker floor

Looking from the saloon, through the wet locker, after I'd cut out the inner panels and removed the polystyrene insulation, amazing that the pre-purchase surveyor didn't find such a dangerous fault.

The front and bottom of the locker have been cut out, the replacement will not be as deep, allowing more room to clean and paint the counterplate and meaning that the drain will be higher off the waterline.

Fireworks in the saloon! As seen through the rusty hole, that's big enough to chuck a baby through!

The worst bit has been cut out

Another large pile of rusty scrap appears on the stern ;o(

 I have now managed to rust-proof, undercoat and then paint the counterplate with two pack garage floor paint. Another step forward in the struggle to brighten up my bilge! I never thought something as simple as cleaning out and painting the bilge could possibly become such an uphill battle!

A weekend cruise that started badly

Our neighbours, John & Rita, on narrowboat 'Izzyinn Two' said that they were going to take their grandkids, Libby and Jake on a cruise for a few days, several other boaters said that they'd like to join them, unfortunately Freddie their little dog fell and hurt himself, which ended with him being taken to Newmarket for scans the day before the planned cruise. We thought it would be cancelled but Freddy came back all chipper and John & Rita decided to go ahead with the cruise, everyone else dropped out except for us.

We left a bit later than intended, and we went ahead of John and Rita, as we exited the marina there was a bang and the gear lever went loose, we drifted a few feet from the flow of the river.

I lifted the boards and found that the gearchange teleflex cable was disconnected, the solid tip had been bent back on itself, and a swage on the cable had split. I soon found out why, I had moved the bilge pump while painting the bilge and forgotten to put it back, it was too close to the drive shaft and the outlet pipe and electric cables had become tangled around the shaft, smacking it into the gearchange ;o(

I managed a 'bush repair' in about 15 minutes and we were on our way again ;o)

NB Izzyinn Two catching us up, with Rita at the helm

John, Rita and Freddie

Libby and Jake are lovely kids and were a pleasure to travel with

Libby spotted this beautiful dragonfly, it was tangled up in the undergrowth and seemed to be being attacked by a wasp. We rescued it and I transferred it to Libby's hand, Glenda lined up a lovely picture of the dragonfly on libby's hand with Jake in the background, but it flew of as Glenda went to take the photo. (excuse my dirty 'boater's fingers' LOL!)

 

We moored at Islip the first night and enjoyed a barbeque as thunderclouds and torrential rains wafted past in the near distance, after food we added some logs, got a nice pit fire going, and invited John and Ann from narrowboat 'Cherry Tree' to join us, they were on their way back from a trip to Birmingham. As we sat there our luck ran out and the heavens opened. We braved it and sat huddled around the fire chin-wagging until nearly midnight.

Next day we bid farewell to John and Ann and headed for Wadenhoe, as we moored, the Willy Watts' day hire boat 'Rose of the Nene' arrived but quite a few small cruisers were badly moored with big gaps between them (but not big enough for even a small narrowboat), as the day boat carried on down the millstream we heard a big crack and a crash, as they brought down a large branch, we got the beers in and I was proposing to reverse down the millstream and tow them out but they eventually emerged with half a ton of vegetation on board ;o)

We left John, Rita, Freddie, Libby and Jake and started to head back towards Denford where we wanted to moor for Saturday night. Our local is the excellent 'Cock' in Denford.

On leaving Denford on Sunday morning we spotted Alan Buckle of the fuelboat Bletchley coming towards us, on his way back from a trip to the Thames, he was very quick off the mark and got this great shot of us passing him.