After deciding that we were going to go to Shackerstone via the North Stratford and Braunston, the first day was going to be a nice easy day into Birmingham, nothing too strenuous. All of this changed during the working party that was held the weekend before we were due to set off. It was planned to load 120 bags (3 tons) of coal so that we would be ready for the trip. Unfortunately the coal hadn’t been delivered to the wharf, so it couldn’t be done. It would have to be loaded on the Saturday morning before we set off for Birmingham.

All the coal was loaded and the boat sheeted up. After partaking of the usual excellent fish’n’chips, Kildare was moved alongside President, the bridge raised and we exited the arm breasted up. The bridge was lowered, we singled out and we were off, turning right at the junction to head along the old main line to Birmingham.

All went OK until we ran aground as we left Smethwick bottom lock, but no major delay getting going again. We found ourselves a mooring spot outside the ICC on a short stretch of moorings with the disabled sign on the bollards, meaning we would have had to move again if they were required by a boat with a disabled person on board, but as we were told that there wasn’t a disable access to this side of the canal, we thought we would be OK.

Set off on Sunday morning with Lapworth as the planned destination, but it was not to be. 12 hours after setting off found us at Hockley Heath, so we stayed there. The Birmingham level was approximately 3” off and we found the bottom of virtually every bridge hole, some just slowed us down, and others delayed us for varying amounts of time. The tirfor had to come out twice; the most memorable was on the Hockley Heath side of Shirley drawbridge. We cleared the bridge before running aground. The only place to anchor the tirfor was a conveniently placed British Waterways dredger!! Unfortunately, no pictures were taken.

Sorry to all those that turned up to help the boats down Lapworth, Ann & Nick Oliver, Nick Haynes and family and especially Tony Tibbins. He walked all the way to the Bluebell cider house. We gave him a lift to Hockley Heath, but he still had to walk back to Lapworth to pick up his car.

Monday now meant Lapworth & Hatton flights had to be done to get us back on target and reach our pre-arranged mooring in pole position outside the Cape pub in Warwick. The Oliver’s also had an early start helping us down Lapworth – many thanks.

Lock 38 on the Hatton flight nearly saw an early end to my trip. My method of closing bottom gates on this flight is to pull on the handle to start the gate moving, and then, holding on to the handle, step around the end of the beam so that I can continue closing the gate with my back against the beam. Stepping around the beam on this lock, the handle came out of the beam and I ended up on the concrete 10ft below, luckily not injured.

Tuesday saw another long day getting us to the next pre-arranged mooring, in Braunston Marina. One hour was lost trying to get under the Bridge by Tescos in Leamington.

Ansty was the destination for Wednesday night which we achieved without any problems. It made a nice change after the last couple of days. We had some help going down Hillmorton locks by David Goode, who also turned up on another couple of occasions and even signed a membership form at Shackerstone. Welcome aboard David & Sarah.

Shorter day planned for Thursday with an arranged mooring at Trinity Marina at Hinckley in return for having the boats on display for a couple of hours. When we were about 15 mins away I gave them a call but they didn’t know anything about the arrangement, the person I had arranged it with was on holiday. We still stayed there after breasting up one of their brokerage boats, and took up half of their diesel mooring. After an hour or so, the owners of the boat that we had moved turned up to remove a sofa from their boat, so as the marina shop had now closed we took over the whole diesel mooring and put the other boat back where it was, we even helped move the sofa.

Friday took us from Hinkley, through the festival site to the head of navigation, and back to the festival to find our allotted mooring. The car shuffling that took place on the Friday evening nearly ended up with two of the crew missing their meal in the pub.

Various crew changes took place over the weekend, with people leaving and arriving each day. Shackerstone had a lot of working boats attending this year, they were moored three abreast along the canal.

Many thanks to all involved for making this another memorable week, despite the problems.

 

Neil Ratcliffe

Detailed trip schedule