MERRY CHRISTMAS

The crew of Blackstone would like to wish everybody a very merry Christmas and happy cruising during 2012.

Lets hope Santa brings you everything you wished for.

Licence time again and praise for BW licence team.

So it is time to renew our boat licences. They run out on 31 December. As we moor on the Bridgewater canal, we have to have a Bridgewater licence. As we do most of our cruising on BW waters, we have to have a BW licence as well. Luckily we get our BW licence at a concessionary price, making the cost of the two licences £60 more than the cost of a full price BW licence. If we had to buy both licences at full price it would cost £1,115.00!!

We could just get short term licences from BW whenever we want to cruise their waters, but in the past we have found that they worked out more expensive. Plus you have got to remember to buy them in advance. It is more convenient to have a full yearly licence – we don’t have to plan in advance.

This year, our Bridgewater licence has gone up by 5%. However our BW licence has gone up by a whopping 44%! Unfortunately the short term prices are only published for the period to 31/03/12, so we cannot work out whether it would be cheaper to use short term licences this year. Who knows how much these will increase from 01/04/12? If we don’t renew our BW licence at the same time as the Bridgewater licence, we don’t get the concessionary rate. We will just have to make sure we get our money’s worth next year.

When I came to send the renewal forms to the Bridgewater Canal Company, I found that I had not received the renewal notice from BW. I telephoned them to ask for a duplicate. I was worried that it would not arrive in time due to the Christmas holidays, so I asked if they could email it to me. The very helpful lady at BW printed the form, scanned it and emailed it to me so that I could print it off and get it in to the Bridgewater Canal Company in time to miss the late payment penalty. I have often read about the problems people have with BW, but in this instance I have to say a big “thank you” to BW.

Back On-Board

Saturday 5th November.

Hooray, we are back on board Blackstone.

We have not cruised for over a year due to personal circumstances and a partial refit of the boat. Everything is now sorted out and we are able to use Blackstone again.

This weekend we had a short cruise to Dunham and back.

We set off from the marina at 9:40. There was plenty of cloud, but at least it was dry. The sun came out just before lunch time and it warmed up a bit. However, by mid afternoon the temperature had dropped considerably.

We saw several bonfires along the way. The one at Ye Olde Number 3 is huge. Unfortunately we could not see their firework display from our mooring.

We stopped twice to check the water trap. We have diesel bug and want to keep the water trap cleaned out so that the muck doesn't get through to the filters and stop the engine. There wasn't as much muck as we expected. Fingers crossed that we are finally getting rid of the bug. We have put enough diesel bug killer in over the last year!

I gave the galley a good scrub out. The work surfaces were covered in dirt, dust and varnish. It looked like they had been used as work benches while the saloon was fitted out.

We cruised past Dunham to turn round and then back to moor on the non towpath side by the underpass at 15:15.

Lit the fire and made a mug of hot chocolate. Had pizza for tea and sat listening to the radio for a while. There were lots of fireworks. We could hear more than we could see, but there were some close enough to see including some actually on the towpath as we were going to bed. We put the TV on at 21:00 to watch Taggart, but we decided not to watch it all and went to bed at 22:00.

View from the side hatch Saturday evening.

Sunday 6/11/11

Carl got up at 6:40 to take Maccs out. It was frosty and foggy. Liz got up about 7:20, when they got back.We lit the fire again and the boat soon warmed up. We had bacon barms for breakfast. Blackstone in the mist

Turned the engine on about 8:30 and set of at 8:45 into the mist. I love this time of year with the frost and the mist in the mornings and the sun trying it's best to break through.

Setting of into the mist

The mist had cleared by 9:30 and the sun was shining. The sky was soon a beautiful shade of blue with hardly a cloud in sight.

Stopped at Thorne Marine to buy coal, peat and diesel bug treatment.

Why are some boaters in such a hurry? Laughing Tam came right up behind us and sat on our tail until we pulled over to let them pass. It's not as if we were going particularly slow. They were travelling so fast that they pulled a Claymore day boat’s pins out when they passed.

We moored for lunch at 12:20 just through Walton. Had lunch and set off again at 13:25. Got back into the marina and moored up at 14:40.

Beautiful sunny day on the Bridgewater canal.

Nice shiny paintwork

 26 September to 10 October

Blackstone went into the dry dock at Worsley for two weeks for painting. The painting was done by Bernard Todd from Chorley, with Carl blacking the bottom and helping out with the preparation work. After the stretch she had a big red patch, so everyone knew that she had been stretched. When she came out of dry dock, there was no sign of the stretch! She is looking very pretty now.



Big red patch



After the stretch, Carl intended to paint over the red patch at our berth in the marina.

However, as the weather was so unpredictable he only got as far as undercoating it before we decided it would be quicker and easier to hire the dry dock.

 

 First job was to power wash the bottom ready for blacking

 

Then she was rubbed down and undercoated.

Then two coats of gloss.

 

Next the lines and scrolls...........

 

   

the fancy work on the bow........ 

then the signing..........  

  

 and she is finished.

 

Look - no red patch!

To the dry dock for painting

Since getting Blackstone back from Swanley Carl has been trying to paint the "new" bit. Every time he went to the marina to work on it rain stopped play! In the end he was so fed up with not getting anywhere we decided to book the dry dock at Worsley and have the whole boat re painted.

Carl cruised up to Altrincham to meet Liz on Friday afternoon. We have been having trouble with diesel bug this year and the fuel pump filter regularly needs changing. Carl changed the filter on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, when he put the fuel pump back on the engine a wire sparked and fell off. We were without a fuel pump. It was five o'clock, so we had no way of getting a new one until Monday. We resigned ourselves to missing the dry dock.

Everything related to the stretch seemed to be jinxed. (We broke down on the way to Swanley resulting in a large bill for labour from RCR even though we are members; the washer on the shower tap went, resulting in lots of water in the bilges and the shower being dismantled; there was a problem with the windows fitted at Swanley so we had to order and fit new ones when we got back; the engineer at Swanley dropped our boat keys in the canal and despite fishing with the magnet we could not find them; we broke down twice on the way back from Swanley; we missed our slot with the boat fitter because we were stuck at Swanley for so long; we got the diesel bug; and now we had broken down again!!!)

While Liz was sorting out her dad on Saturday morning, a couple passed on their boat, Ariel, on their way to Castlefields. When Carl told them our problems, they offered to detour to Worsley and give us a tow. They set off before Liz got back, so she had to run along the tow path to catch up with them! We could not believe our luck. It is wonderful how helpful boaters are to each other.

Liam on Ariel towing Blackstone

We got to Worsley for lunch time Saturday and went into the dry dock about 10.00am on Sunday. We are all ready for the painting to start on Monday. Lets hope nothing else goes wrong.

Safely in the dry dock.

Ouch!

Blackstone is still at Swanley Bridge Marina, waiting to be finished off. It's nearly done, but there is a problem with the windows that still needs sorting out. The Boat Safety Certificate needed renewing and we got a nasty shock when we got the bill. We knew that the cost of the certificate had gone up on April 1st, but we were not expecting to pay £140 - this was almost twice the cost of the last one - nasty shock for the wallet. Yet another boating cost that has risen well above inflation.

The Stretch

The saloon all stripped out ready for the stretch, just the floor to take up.

Out of the water, into the workshop.

Windows out, ready for the cut.

The inside sealed up to keep the rest of the inside clean. Strengthening bars in place so that the boat doesn't warp when it is cut.

First cut, through the roof.............

..............and then the sides

Very neat cuts. Staggered to add strength.

The stretch begins.

Getting longer................

.................and longer.....................

.............. almost 3 metres longer!

The base plate and one side in place.

The other side goes into place.

One side of the cabin.

Both cabin sides and the roof supports.

Waiting for the new roof.

Roof on, windows in.

Bottom blacked, primer applied and back in the water.

Blackstone is now almost 52 feet long - I'm not sure we can see that far!

Inside painted. All ready for fitting out. What a lot of extra room!