David Morris – brassedoff.net

The canal trust have recently taken stewardship of an 80-year-old ex British Waterways working boat called Python.

Over a period of a few weeks, she’s been moved from London to up this next of the woods. The last stage of the move before getting to our local canal was a stretch from Torksey to West Stockwith. Torksey is where the Fossdyke canal which runs in to Lincoln joins the Trent. The Fossdyke is attributed to either Henry I or the Romans, but either way, it’s an old waterway and provides a safe stopping off point along the Trent if the tides aren’t in your favour.

It was my first trip out on to the Trent; some of the other Python crew had negotiated the tidal Trent before and we had fellow Trust member Mick Cheshire who’s a Trent veteran riding shotgun in case of mechanical or other problems with Python.

We left Torksey at around slack water (high tide) for the three hour trip, knowing the tide would be in full flow by the time we arrived at West Stockwith.

One thing I’d never realised about the Trent before (I’ve never fished it for instance) was just how much it twists its way through the countryside. It’s not the most visually attractive of rivers, servicing as it does several power stations and industrial wharves around Gainsborough. There’s a fair amount of debris kicking around as well, quite a lot getting washed down from further up stream. The building work going off around West Burton Power Stations as it’s being converted from coal fired to gas powered (just ask now where the gas reserves are coming from!)

The green and red boat in the shots below is Mick’s boat, Phoenix.

The ultimate challenge of the day for me was, along with Arthur, getting Python into the lock, across the tidal flow. Mick had gone in first. We had to cross the stream (”Don’t cross the streams!”) and get into an 8′ space along side Mick without losing any paint work. With Arthur on the throttle and yours truly on the tiller (and both West Stockwith virgins!), it was a tense moment, but we managed it with a great bit of teamwork. Even Mick was complementary!

Once in the lock, things were a little more controlled. Being a “big lock”, the paddles and gates are automated, but it’s deep and there’s a lot of water to flood in. It all went off according to plan though, and Python locked up to the Chesterfield Canal in one piece.

It was an excellent day!

I’ll freely admin I’ve become an intermittent blogger since I discovered Twitter. I’m more likely to tweet several times a day than I am to update my blog which is sad, but some things really need a blog post.

After the car got stolen recently, it was a relatively easy decision to go for another Mini. I know some will probably throw their hands up in horror, but it’s me that’s driving it…

The last Mini was an 06 Cooper S. There’s no doubting that the MCS is a cracking car, fun to drive and goes live the brown stuff off a shovel, but to my cost I’ve also found out it’s quite nickable. After much reflection, I decided that something less nickable was probably in order, so I decided to go for a S Clubman. It’s still fun to drive and being that little bit bigger (it really does have boot space!) it’s a bit more practical.

There wasn’t anything I fancied in the second-hand market so I was nearly ready to bite the bullet and go for a brand new build. Unfortunately, the lead time was two months for a new factory build. As I’ve been driving Mrs Woolforbrain’s car for the last three weeks and she woudl need it once the school holidays were over, I had to come up with an alternative solution. Fortunately, the nice people at Sytner Mini Sheffield had an ex-demonstrator, registered less than four months ago in black. It nearly met my ideal spec, but was missing the bi-xenon headlights that my previous MCS had and were on my shopping list, but did have the MFSW (multi-function steering wheel) which incorporates the cruise control and radio remote which was also on the shopping list. The car also had the sports Chili pack. The dealers kindly agreed to fit the Mini approved iPod interface kit free of charge, so we shook on it. I’m now the proud owner of a 09 plate Cooper Clubman and it’s fun again! The bi-xenon headlights would have been nice, but they’re a £420 option. The iPod interface is around £250 and will probably get used more, so we’ll put it down as a result!

I seem to be getting more and more involved with activities centred around the Canal Trust, but even so, it was a pleasant surprise to receive an email from the Chairman inviting me to become a member of Trust board with pretty much immediate effect. Needless to say, I will be accepting. It’s a great honour to be involved in such a campaign I feel so strongly about. The Trust has brought me into contact with some really nice dedicated people and has given me the opportunity to play with some great toys! After all, I get to play with a nice narrowboat taking people out on trips, and today, I’ve been talking to members of the public about the work that the Trust has put in to an 80-year-old ex British Waterway working boat. It’s great for me as well. Most of the time I spend doing volunteer work for the Trust gets me out in the fresh air which is a major departure from my day job, and I get all the positive vibes that result from being involved with a charitable organisation that does so much for the community and the environment. Plus, I get chance to put something back from an IT perspective.

Despite the weather being pretty dire this weekend, I decided to go out for a walk yesterday afternoon. It’s the Canal Festival next week and I reckoned there might be a few boats moving up to Kiveton.

There wasn’t an awful lot of traffic, but I managed to pick the best spell of weather over the weekend. It was raining before I went, and it tipped it down as I drove home, but whilst I was out, the sun shone. Something about shining on the righteous?

Needless to say, I’d got my camera with me and put it to good use. There’s a selection of the photos I took here. There are a couple in that set from last year, but the majority are from yesterday.

Vandals have been playing nicely over the last week or so at Pebley Reservoir. They’ve jammed the draw-off valve for the reservoir in the open position. Consequently, most of the water has run out in to Harthill Reservoir immediately below. Seeing as that’s full, the overspill has to run in to the canal at Kiveton.

Whilst Harthill can support the canal for several weeks and British Waterways reckon the repairs will be effected by the end of April (or early May by now I’d guess), unless we get some serious rain to fill up Pebley, it could end up being a curtailed cruising season especially on the higher reaches of the canal above Turnerwood. (Sorry about the first photo!)

Not much to write about other than the fact we’ve had a great weekend.

It started off pretty badly with the prospect of spending the weekend car juggling because a week after its service, the clutch on Mrs Woolforbrain’s car gave up the ghost after 112,000 miles. I’d limped it to the garage last Thursday and ended up cycling all the way home (that’s a different and equally pleasant story), and wasn’t expecting seeing it back for a week because the garage was fuly booked. This is a local indie garage, not a main dealer. The main dealer wanted £560 for the replacement; our local indie was going to be around £250. No contest really.

Anyway, around noon on Saturday, my mobile chirped. It was the garage owner saying the car was done. One of his guys had stopped until 9pm the previous night to get the job done. Above and beyond the call of duty?! So, we were back to being a two car family.

Today, with the sun shining, Daniel and myself paid a visit to the leisure centre in Staveley for a swim. It’s been a few weeks since we last went. I was able to enroll Daniel in the free swimming for U16s programme which Chesterfield have bought in to. NE Derbyshire are also in this scheme, but strangely not Liberal Democrat-run Sheffield. Not that it matters much because we generally only swim at Staveley anyway!

This afternoon, we’ve been out to our favourite ice cream farm at Bothamsall – Thaymar. It’s not the first time we’ve been. It’s a long way to go for an ice cream, but it is nice! I had a double cone – elderlower / gooseberry and mint chocolate chip. Caroline had the elderflower and gooseberry and wild cherry and the young master had a couple of chocolate and toffee-related choices.

When we got back, we hit the garden again. We’ve planted lettuce and mange tout this weekend, and last weekend, I planted a load of onions. Caroline’s also planted some potatoes in planters and we’ve been discussing where to put tomatoes and chillis. It’s going to be a nice harvest if we get the weather.

Back to school for Daniel tomorrow and a busy week for me. I’ve got a meeting with the new Scimitars owners on Wednesday to discuss the web site, a canal festival meeting on Thursday, a band concert on Friday, boating on Saturday (trips for local dignitaries to mark the unveiling of some new interpretation plaques at Kiveton and a trip there and back for Dan’s scout troup), a day off on Sunday and boating again on Monday as we take the boat back home.

No doubt there’ll be ample opportunity for photographs. Watch this space.

On a different issue, I’m still loving the new Macbook. I’m getting to the stage of finding my way around it now, helped in no small part by Chuck Toporek’s Mac OS X Leopard Pocket Guide (O’Reilly).

Easter Sunday. Caroline was spinning. Daniel was playing games and consuming chocolate. I was at a bit of a loose end so I threw threw the mountain bike in the back of the Picasso and set off for Shireoaks. There then followed a change of plan and I went to Kiveton instead, leaving the car at Kiveton Park Station.

I set off down the canal towpath with the intention of cycling to Shireoaks and back, but was enjoying myself so much that I went all the way to the Lock Keeper pub at Rhodesia just outside Worksop. Turning round at the pub and retracing my steps, at Kiveton, I cycled up to the Eastern portal of Norwood tunnel and back to the railway station. The round trip was somewhere around 18km or 11 miles.

It was interesting to see what work has been carried out especially around Kiveton in the last few months bearing in mind the Festival Rally is next month. British Waterways look to have done a great job on the retaining wall below the station car park, and all the way along the towpath where the railway runs alongside, Network Rail have put in a new fence and cleared back a load of trees. Fortunately, the new fence that’s been put in is concrete post and wire, not one of the horrible 3 metre high galvanised post which are something of a blot on the landscape.

I managed to throw in a brief stop at Nona’s coffee shop in Shireoaks for coffee and a bun (lunch you understand). There was quite a bit of boat activity as well. It looked like Retford and Worksop Boat Club, based at Clayworth, were having their Easter outing so there were three boats heading up to Kiveton through Thorpe Locks when I got there (plus another one that had moored up at Turnerwood on the two hour moorings). It’s certainly nice to see some boat traffic on that stretch.

All in all, a nice way to spend a couple of hours on the bike. It was just a pity I didn’t have the camera with me.

Engage full gloat mode. I sent the picture I used on the last posting from the walk along the canal last Sunday morning in to the Sheffield Star for consideration for their “Readers Letters” page and it was published today!

It’s late Sunday evening as I write and it’s been a bit of a disappointing weekend in a couple of respects. We put in a poor performance yesterday in Bradford in the Regional Area brass band contest to come 10th out of 12. We should have been higher than this, but for my own part, I didn’t think we did ourselves justice.

The Scimitars got rumbled tonight by Peterborough for a 2-6 scoreline at home which rounded off the series of disappointments.

This morning was  a pleasant experience though. Daniel, Pebble and I went for a walk from Shireoaks up to Turnerwood along the canal towpath. I’ve not seen Daniel’s pictures yet, but I got a couple of nice ones. It was a very clear day (up to around 11:30am at any rate!) but deceptively cold with a chilling wind.

Quarry Lock down towards Cinderhill Lock

This was the view from Quarry Lock looking down towards Oneslide and Cinderhill lock in the distance (where the bridge is). An idyllic setting, but if you’d been on a boat today, you would have needed thermals on and the wind would have been playing havoc with steering.

Whilst up at Turnerwood, I had a chat with a couple of the residents I know to talk to through boating, asking them if they knew we’d be up there around 25th April. We’re taking the boat up to coincide with the unveiling of some new interpretation panels at Dog Kennel Bridge near Kiveton Park railway station on the canal.

…well, almost :)

You may recall that Dan and I provided the seasonal entertainment for the Seth Ellis Santa Special publicity trips last Saturday? It was Dan’s first public outing playing and it went very well indeed. I was indeed the proud Dad.

I’d passed my camera to James, another crew member to get some suitable shots for publicity purposes and he managed to come up with this one as well. Well done James, and well done Daniel!

Well, looking at the scores, I didn’t get my wish for two points last night against Swindon. Ne’er mind…

What has been interesting today has been trying to make sense of the new licensing / qualification rules for small passenger trip boats on inland waterway class A waters. Class A waters effectively means shallow narrow canals. Just like the Chesterfield Canal in fact. Small trip boats means 12 or less seats, i.e. Seth Ellis-sized.

The rules have just changed regarding who can and can’t operate the boat, and there seems to be a bit of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) circulating, so in an effort to find out what’s the Right Thing as far as our trip boat is concerned, I made a few phone calls this morning.

The first one was to the Inland Waterways Association or which I’m a member and the Trust is a corporate member. The IWA have a little bit of their own axe to grind in all this because one of the “approved courses” for boat operation is theirs, and it’s all new and shiney. They confirmed what I’d read in the Small Passenger Boat Code which was that skippers have to be qualified i.e. hold one of four or five approved certificates and have, where appropriate, have the necessary experience, but that’s all. No-one else on the boat (e.g. tea mashers) need to have any formal qualifications.

I thought I’d seek a second opinion, and this time, went to the horses’ mouth, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. This is the Government body that want us all to be qualified in the first place. The first call was to the wrong person, but he was very helpful and put me in touch with one of the Marine Surveyors in the Beverley office who was, again, very helpful and understanding.

With his assistance, we went through the qualification requirements in the Small Passenger Boat Code practically line by line and understand exactly what we need to do to be compliant, and guess what? It’s practically what we thought in the first place before the sudden deluge of FUD referred to earlier.

The long and short of it is, all skippers need (in our case) to hold a Royal Yachting Association Inland Waterways Helmsmans’ Certificate, have 12 months experience and have completed a self-declared medical fitness questionnaire which states that the person is not in imminent danger of dying or being medically incapacititated whilst in charge of the boat.

Ok, it took a couple of phone calls to clarify that lot, but having done so, a few people will probably sleep easier in their beds tonight!

Legal disclaimer bit…

Obviously, what I’ve written about here is our interpretation as it applies to our little operation. Before following any of my advice, you’d be well served to check out for yourself how the new rules and regs apply to your specific operation.