12 years ago
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
On the move.
We are finally on the move. Firstly we waited for our coal delivery, before setting off at lunchtime today and are now at Foxton 5.5miles 2hrs 5mins, it is absolutely fantastic to be on the move again having been stuck in Market Harborough since December. After our coal was delivered by Chris and Tom, Keith then started Hadar's engine. It got warmed up and coughed into life, running at first on 1 cylinder, but then eventually she coughed some more and was soon running on 2 cylinders, she then ran perfectly all the way to Foxton. We then said our goodbyes to friends and set off yippee.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
5.5 miles in 2 hrs.????? That is slower than a sail boat. Steadfast cruises at 15 - 17 knots, but then we are not doing rivers, with bridges and no wake zones. So glad you are underway again. Have an adventure for me. Rosemary
Vrroooom! Happy Travels xxx
Crew of Steadfast. The maximum speed allowable on UK canals is 4mph, but very rare to actually reach that, due to silting up which reduces the canal depth, poor bank quality, which gets washed into the canal and silts it up further. We have a draught of 29 inches and very often we are scrapping the bottom, and have to know where the deep water moorings are which we can moor at. At 30 tonnes with a full load of coal on, 70ft long and 29inch draught we displace a lot of water which has to move past us from bow to stern, and if it is too shallow it slows us down a lot. UK canals are on also very narrow, general between 30-40ft wide only. Regards Keith.
P.S. I should have also mentioned that the 29 inches is across the full width of the boat, which is 6ft 10inch beam, as the bottom of the boat is flat and the sides vertical, and she is 29 inch draught from bow to stern when we are fully loaded, which is for all the summer, and most of the winter, we usually get down to 4tonnes of coal and then we refill, so bow usually comes up by about 6inches during that time. The original Working boats had a draught of 39inches and more, and used to dredge the canals themselves, but with the modern day holiday type boats with shallow draughts of 18-21inches and shorter in length, they actually cause more damage as they can go through the water faster and damage the banks more, but leave the struggle to us deep draughted boats. Apart from that we love it. Regards Keith
Post a Comment