Monthly Archive: September 2015

1

The Final Leg: northbound from Milton Keynes

Cleddau had been tied up in Milton Keynes Marina for two weeks, recovering, as it were, from her summer adventures on the Severn, Avon, Wey and Thames. Exhausted, her engine had sounded rough and more often than not it was belching smoke… This was her above Stoke Hammond Lock on September 10th.   So what was the cause of this ill-health? The Beta Marine 43 engine is new, installed and commissioned in April 2014, having now run about 1100 hours. In...

0

Twos – and a downward Three

It’s Numbers Time – end of Phase 6 of the Summer Cruise. When Phase 7 starts it will be a solo operation as Cleddau will spend a fortnight in Milton Keynes, while Tentatrice needs to be heading north again before then. For the record since departure on 22nd May from the Macclesfield Canal home moorings Cleddau has cruised 533 miles and been through 381 locks. It was on Tuesday (8th September) that things first seemed to come in twos: still...

2

Up, up and over the top…

Up the Grand Union – on a mission. 2nd September: “0830 start then.” With so many locks and so many miles (27 of the former and 11 of the latter) to reach Cowroast in two days, there was boat work to be done… So, it was onward, under the M25,     continuing the climb. “Locks come thick and fast – but not fast enough,” the Tentatrice Captain remarked at some point. On a lock flight you don’t consider making a hot drink...

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From the Thames to the M25

The rubbish in the Thames Lock at Brentford on Friday afternoon (28th August) wasn’t such a shock second time round.     First encountered the previous Sunday it had appalled. After the glories of the sparkling Thames this is no picturesque sight… Now though it begins to make sense. Thames Lock at the southernmost end of the Grand Union Canal is some 121 metres / 395 feet below the summit at Tring in Hertfordshire. Water flows downhill, doesn’t it…. As the Grand...