Captain Beeky wrote: > On 18 Dec 2009, at 17:24, Martin Phillips wrote: > >> Our late Raaske & van der Meyer bog used to quite regularly seize on a >> solid jobbie (usually one of the . . . etc > > Too much information. And you have mentioned this phenomenon here > before. > > What about finishing the other little jobbie - the report on the last > leg of your trip back to Sharpness. Or did I miss that in the recent > crossfire ?
No, just been to busy. Here it is, with complete thread drift: Martin Phillips wrote some while ago: " We breasted up on the end of one of the pontoons, and I was relieved of £25 for a night in the marina." Portishead Marina is very well equipped, and most pleasant, but seriously expensive. So are most of the boats there. The water is gin-clear. Topped up the tank with diesel (not outrageously expensive) and ambled into town to find the wife and son who were arriving by train and bus from home. (Girl-child had gone off on a girl guides' weekend). I had made a provisional booking with a Gloucester Harbour Trustees pilot for the next day. He rang me in the afternoon to say that he and the other duty pilot had to attend to large commercial vessels. Agreed with the other narrowboat that had followed us from Bristol that we'd accompany him and his pilot, a local bloke with a few years of experience. They were both going home that night, so arranged to meet them for a 0930 locking the next morning (the marina locking boats out every hour). This would give us 3 hours 15 minutes to get to Sharpness before the gates were closed on us. We decided to dine at the Lock Side restaurant, which is at the side of the lock. What a coincidence. Fairly expensive, but thought that if we were to drown the next day we might as well have a decent meal. I was most impressed with the service and the grub, and it was all washed down with a nice bottle of pinotage, some decaf and a large armagnac. A colleague had told me that he'd taken several girls there, but hadn't scored. Had to tell him later that the restaurant was good enough that if I were a girl and he'd taken me there, he would have been pretty much guaranteed a good seeing-to. (Unless it was our first date, I'm not a slag). Up early. Frank and I put on the auto-inflating life jackets, Kate as the smallest of us got one of the old ones which the kids used to use. A perfectly snug fit! We were called on VHF by the marina at just before nine to get us into the lock first, ready for 09:30. Had to tell them that the pilot and the bloke on the next door boat hadn't arrived yet. We were getting a bit twitchy, when they eventually ambled up at 0925. Told the lock we were on our way, untied and zoomed in behind a lot of expensive plastic jobbies and nervous looking skippers We were soon down at river level and out into hazy sunshine. Sea flat calm. Pointed at the centre arch of the second Severn Crossing and settled down at a lazy 1600 rpm. The current was quite slow, and we were only doing around ten km/h over the ground. The new Severn Bridge looks absolutely huge from underneath, with the arches stretching off for what looks like miles in both directions. As we passed it, the two duty Gloucester pilots were coming up on either side in bulk carriers, but not much wash to get excited about. Between the two Severn Bridges, the boat we were accompanying stopped and called over that he need to pause for a minute. Heads were down the engine 'ole, and after a few seconds Phil the owner came back up with the alternator drive belt. The lack of key holding the fan in place had led to some nasty noises and hot electrical smells. I think he becomes an automatic member of the rufty-tufty boat club for that. Lucky the drive belt is not an essential part of an air cooled engine! Soon under way again, and we picked up some current in the Shoots near the old Severn Bridge. Our speed over the ground rose to just over 15 km/h, pretty slow due to the neap tides. The river was still completely flat. The old Severn Bridge looks even bigger than the new one from underneath, with the vast span receding into the haze at either bank. Noted that it was quite hard to pick out the navigational buoys and lights marked on the Admiralty chart. A good pair of binoculars is really essential for this trip. The GPS with the OSGB map loaded showed that we were very closely following the England / Wales border for most of the trip up river. Once the required markers were aligned, we swung across from Slime Road towards Oldbury Power Station on the E bank. The size of the river really hit home here, when twenty minutes later we were still heading across river towards the buoy marking the tidal lagoon and the bank still looked a long way off. Eventually the navigation lights outside Oldbury lined up and we turned back up river, aiming for a buoy in the far distance. Once reached, and the navigation lights outside Berkeley Power Station were lined up, we headed for the bank again. The time for getting into Sharpness Dock before high water was fast approaching, unlike the dock, so knowing the route from here fairly well (having worked next to Berkeley Power Station for some 25 years) I opened up the speed control and left the other narrowboat and the pilot behind. Got to Sharpness Dock two minutes before high water was due and pulled into the outer basin with some relief. The other boat arrived six minutes later, with audible fretting from the lock-keeper on VHF. As soon as he was in, the outer gates closed and we roped onto a buttress waiting for the second of the big commercials in front of us to lock up onto the canal. Eventually we were into the main lock and passed our long lines up to the jolly BW chaps. With the neap tides, the lock was very deep - probably 25 feet to go up. Soon we two narrowboats and a cruiser which had passed us on the way up river were at canal level in the main Sharpness Dock. Off through the docks, and waited at the High Level bridge for the two BW blokes to swing it. This is an interesting mechanism: a length of scaffold pole through a very large winding mechanism, and they walk round, and round, and round until the bridge is fully open. This is a scene which could have come from the good old days of cholera, rickets and sixpence a week wages. Soon back at the mooring. 500+ miles covered and over 400 locks. A great time had by all. Wassail! -- Martin Phillips [email protected]
