This one's for Nev

Blimey. I turn my back for five minutes, and suddenly it's CanalWorld (electrical chapter) here. Talk about lowering the tone. Let's have little interlude, play some soothing music and... that's better.

So, to our first request. Nev would like to hear the latest on poor little Helyn. Well, I'm afraid there isn't much to report; she's still sitting on the drive working on her green patina while we are distracted by other matters.

The most dispiriting thing which has hindered progress has been the steering cable. We had to replace it, because it broke. The old one had an eleven inch throw; these are apparently no longer made. The new one has a nine inch throw. Now you (I) would have thought, no matter, it won't have quite such a tight turning circle, but it'll still work; after all, that's only one inch less movement in each direction. But it seems that the difficulty is getting it lined up centrally to start with, rather than having it turn all the way one way and not at all the other. I have held the bloody thing in my hands and moved the engine and it has been fine, and I said, look, this is fine, all we need to do is make sure that THIS bit is held HERE and it will work. But apparently there are not the means to hold THAT bit THERE rather than where it wants to go. It is the sort of situation I find very frustrating because there's no reason for it not to work; everybody else seems to be able to make theirs work, and I can see with my own eyes and feel with my own hands how it should work.

So we tend to think, hmm, lets go off and do something else and perhaps the answer will magically come to us in our sleep, or the mice will do it. The interior is now pretty much finished. All the flaky paint has been removed and replaced with nice bright proper white paint. The exterior will need another scrub, and maybe a new coat of varnish on the handrails, but all the other jobs are tiny little things. I still want to take the trip up the Sussex Ouse once it's finished and before we sell her, if at all possible, but we really do need to get on. That's one big bit of clutter!

Anyway, while I was in Birmingham I saw one of Helyn's long lost relatives:


Nice wheelhouse! More Birmingham pics to follow... always leave 'em wanting more.

7: Deep and crisp and even

Can you guess what this furrowed snowdrift actually is? At the risk of sounding indelicate, it's the inside of Helyn's bottom. When the day comes to finally sell her, we'll have photos to show how thick and tough and clean it is down there.

Progress on getting Helyn ready to sell has been held up by frustrations over the steering. We had to replace the cable, and it seems that you can now only get them with a maximum 9" throw, whereas our engine is set up for eleven. It has caused much furrowing of my brow, and I refuse to believe that it isn't overcome-able.

A brief history ...

Of how we got into this lark and came to be the proud owners of Warrior.

I'm Sarah, and Jim and I have been together fourteen years - but it was only about four years ago that we realised that we had a shared interest in - even a passion for - boats and inland waterway related things. For Jim it went back to his childhood, where he lived for a while at Berkhamstead and watched the working boats on the GU; for me (some years younger!) happy memories of childhood holidays on the Broads, plus a bit of a thing for gipsy caravans and showman's wagons. Add to that a keen interest in industrial heritage and old engines (yes, both of us!).

So four or five years ago I started noticing waterways magazines appearing in the house, and then Jim suggested we celebrate his birthday by going to the IWA festival, at Pangbourne. After that we decided that we had to have a boat - but a narrowboat was out of the question on the grounds of cost: I was a newly qualified university lecturer just about to start my first full time job and Jim was sharing himself between the paid work, research and jointly looking after my son, who will be known as Lockboy and is now sixteen.


Helyn
So we started looking for a little fibreglass cruiser. We looked at a few Freemans, but in anything like decent condition they seemed disproportionately expensive. Also, boats (Shetlands, Vikings etc) from the 1980s were horrendously expensive, even in dreadful condition. We eventually found Helyn, which was to become our first boat, at Penton Hook Marina at Chertsey, on the Thames. We only dropped in on an impulse as the marina looked really to be out of our league, stuffed with half million pound gin palaces - but there she was, the second cheapest boat there; we took her out, were very satisfied and eventually bought her for £4,000 - guided through the process by a splendid young salesman called Darren for whom nothing was too much trouble. We couldn't have been treated better if we'd been spending a hundred times as much. Helyn - currently sitting on a trailer on our drive - is a Callumcraft, 22 foot, dating from around 1970, and is a great little boat. It is such a different experience from a narrowboat that we're very loath to get rid of her. As there was over a month of mooring paid for, we had some great weekends on the Thames with Helyn, and took her up the River Wey - but there was no way we could afford a permanent Thames mooring so we started to look around the country for alternatives. We settled on the Fens - cheap, remote, peaceful, and just a little bit creepy. Ever since, Helyn has had a berth at a nice marina near March and we have had some great times there.

Andante
My first job was only a one year contract, and in the autumn of 2004 I was job hunting again. One interview took me to Huddersfield, where the Huddersfield Broad (Ramsden's) Canal runs right by the University. During a break in the proceedings I took a walk along the towpath to Aspley Basin and got chatting to one of the liveaboards there. An idea started to develop that if I did get the job there - or anywhere near a waterway - perhaps we wouldn't have to move house and disrupt Lockboy's schooling. I could live part time on a boat and go back home at weekends. Well, I didn't get that job - but another one came up about six weeks later, which I did get! So the detailed plans we'd made for that contingency were put into action. We'd already looked at a lot of narrowboats (with no intention of buying, sorry Whilton Marina!) so had a fair idea of the state of the market. We had also spent many happy hours browsing apolloduck, and that's where we found Andante. The main consideration was to find a boat that would be comfortable and pleasant to spend a lot of time on, at the right price. When we went and saw Andante at Newbury for the first time, in February 2005, it was clear that she would fit the bill. A 31 foor trad style boat, built in 1985 by R&D, she has lovely lines and was in very sound condition. And indeed, she has proven to be a very good billet. Last summer we took her for a cruise along the Broad canal and onto the Calder and Hebble. It felt so different from cruising in Helyn and we knew that it was a narrowboat for us. But, we decided, for extended cruising we would need a bigger boat. Andante has a double dinette and a fixed double in a separate cabin, but isn't really big enough for three on a long term basis.

and finally, Warrior
So, the financial situation having improved a bit, we started looking - just out of casual interest of course! - at bigger boats. We knew we didn't want anything longer that 56 foot as that is the lock size of the very canal Andante is on, but as near to that as we could get for maximum space. We also wanted, ideally, a vintage engine, traditional controls, and, definitely, a traditional back cabin for Lockboy to hide away in. We thought it would be a very long time before we found all this at a reasonable price, and we weren't in any hurry. But you know how it is with these things! We did look at a couple of boats in the meantime, and gave them some thought, but neither was quite right. Then we saw Warrior - again on Apolloduck - and that's the end of the potted history and the start of this story.