Mittersheim (floating my boat)

Buddy in France in May this year...

FRIDAY 6 SEPTEMBER

This wasn’t the first time Alistair and Sabine have used the dry dock in Wittring; the first was 20 years ago and they explained how different it is now that the sides and base have been concreted.  The following picture shows what a difference the improvements have made to working conditions.

2004 and 2024

Friday was another successful day leaving just one more coat on one side to finish before we shift the boats forward on Monday.  I was also able to start getting on with prepping between the top rubbing strake and the gunwale.  A rubbing strake is a sacrificial length of steel that runs along the side of the boat and stands proud in order to take the brunt of knocks and scrapes, hence the use of the term sacrificial.  The gunwale is the top of the hull and provides a narrow walkway for us to walk along the cabin side of the boat.  The tar has been applied up to and including the rubbing strake as most of that section is constantly underwater.  The section I started prepping was originally gloss black which is usually the case on narrowboats.

Prepping underway with three rubbing strakes in view

You may have noticed in the picture above that the large chalkhill blue vinyl has started peeling at the edges – not one of my more successful jobs.  When we had our first boat we had vinyls made from images I provided and they worked perfectly, even though we applied them ourselves.  When we had the current boat built we did the same thing and the company had retained the artwork and were able to send us new vinyls which again have worked perfectly.  Over the years we’ve repainted various sections of the boat and last year it was the dark blue on the sides.  I ordered the same vinyls again and these are the ones that are peeling off.  I believe the mistake I made was to paint over the original vinyls rather than removing them first.  A new task on my job list will be to talk with the company to find out the best approach to rectify the situation.

Peeling butterfly vinyl

SATURDAY 7 SEPTEMBER

Alistair had business to do in Saarbrucken which is an hour’s drive north so I had most of the working day on my own.  This meant I was able to chat away to myself without Alistair thinking I was talking to him.  I put the last coat of tar on the remaining side and glossed the other side between the rubbing strake and the gunwales.

First coat of gloss done

One of the Germans who helped hold our lines as we positioned the boats when we went into the dry dock came by during the morning.  He gave me a bottle of orange flavoured vinaigrette that he was rather proud of.  Because of the language barrier I couldn’t quite understand the provenance other than it came from Spain.  He either made a large canister of it there or he bought it and now decants some for people he meets.  I had some on my lunchtime salad and, as well as having a great aroma, it was indeed rather good.

After packing up for the day and grabbing a shower, good friends John and Heather stopped by.  They’d been travelling around western Europe in their camper and had spent the last week in their place in the Swiss Alps. They’d fully intended reaching Wittring earlier in the day but after getting to the bottom of their mountain they realised they’d left their bikes behind.  Those of you who’ve driven or been driven up those mountains know how long it can take, so going back for their bikes added about 1½ hours to their journey.  It was great to see them and their dog Zoe and have a catch up with them over a couple of beers.  They were just leaving on the next leg of their journey when Sabine arrived from work at the start of six weeks off so we all carried on with more of the same for a while.

SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER

An anode is a lump of metal that electrolysis corrodes quicker than the steel of a narrowboat which is why they are often referred to as sacrificial anodes.  They are usually made from magnesium and fixed to the hull under the water.  Most boats have at least four, two at each end and I brought four more over from the UK to supplement the four original ones before they corrode away.  There seemed to be plenty of metal left on the old ones, which were fitted when we had the boat built in 2016, so they were left on and the new ones welded alongside.  Luckily Alistair keeps welding equipment on his boat so I didn’t have to hire someone to do the work. 

Sunday was put aside for doing the work as Sabine was now with us and she helped Alistair by holding the anodes against the hull while I was on fire watch on the inside of the boat at the point where the anodes were being fixed.  Sabine held each anode tight against the hull using long mooring pins and obviously looked away from the welding as it happened.  

Old and new anodes

As water was being let into the dock at 8am on Monday so we could move the boats forward, we had to remove everything from the bottom of the dock and store it safely.  We also worked out, that once we started floating, we needed to move forwards 1.3 metres.  Knowing this we put up markers so we would know when we were positioned correctly, and the dock could be drained again, letting the boats settle on the supports where we wanted them.

We’ve noticed that crickets keep being attracted to our boats since they've been tarred and later in the afternoon the largest I’ve ever seen landed on my boat.  I believe it was a Great Green Cricket and here it is on my hand for scale.

Great Green Cricket

MONDAY 9 SEPTEMBER

By 7.30am we were ready for VNF to arrive and start flooding the lock so we could reposition the boats to tar the bits that had been resting on the supports.  It was raining but fortunately not too hard when three VNF éclusiers arrived an hour later even though only one of them opened the gate paddle.

It took about 30 minutes before the boats started floating and we were able to move forwards the 1.3 metres that we needed to.  Once we were sure we were in the right position we gave the éclusier the thumbs up and he closed the gate paddle then opened the drain to start letting the water back out.  It took about two hours to fully empty but Alistair and I were too impatient to wait and started moving our equipment back into position once the water was deep enough to wade in.    The water was lovely and warm, so it felt better to be wading in it rather than standing around in the rain waiting for it to drain completely.

By mid-morning the rain had stopped and was replaced by the occasional sunny spell and the odd spot or two of rain every so often.  I had six sections of the underside to clean with the pressure washer before putting the tar on so it didn’t actually matter to me whether it was raining or not.

One of the sections

I was so eager to get on with the job that I started off by scraping each area while the water was still draining.

Couldn’t wait

Once I cleared the rough stuff off each section I had an early lunch to wait for the water to disappear and as soon as it had I got on with the pressure washing.  It didn’t take too long as each section was only about 1.0 x 0.5 metres. I then spent the rest of the afternoon preparing some of the left-hand side bit under the gunwales that I wanted to paint.  Unfortunately, I’d had a bit of a failure on this section a couple of years ago.  I’d run out of black gloss paint and thought I’d use some black deck paint that I had plenty of.  Deck paint has fine grains of sand mixed in it to give a bit of grip when walking on it.  It looked awful on the side so I’ve been meaning to deal with it ever since.

I tried using a wire brush mounted on a power drill and even looked, unsuccessfully, for our gas kitchen torch to see if I could burn it off.  Eventually I’ve settled on using a blow torch and scraping the layer of sand off.  It’s going to be a long job and won’t have a perfect finish, but it’ll be better than we have now.  Not only that, I can also do it whenever we’re moored against something low so it’s not something that has to be done while I’m in the dry dock.

TUESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER

I finally felt the end of the blacking was in sight as all that was left were the six small sections of the baseplate where the boat had been sat before it was moved the previous day.  Knowing I could do two coats a day, one first thing and then one later in the afternoon meant it would only take two more days and thus I could leave on Thursday.  We contacted VNF first thing and asked if they would flood the lock again to let me out and they agreed to arrive at 8.30am.

Alistair also got on with his unfinished sections on the underside of his boat while Sabine blacked one of the sides.  We had the dock booked until the end of September and as they also wanted to make a good go of repainting their cabin sides they will remain in situ until then.  I also got on with some of the other small jobs that had to be done before leaving on Thursday, such as reattaching the front and rear fenders. 

I mentioned in an earlier blog update that Buddy had been diagnosed with lung and liver cancer recently.  Sadly he started going downhill over the last few days and we said goodbye to him in the evening.  Karen drove him for one final look at the canal as he's been unable to walk the half a mile there for a couple of weeks.  As is his nature he went straight for a drink and she didn't have the heart to stop him.  Karen had me on videophone at the vets so we could say goodbye to our lovely boy together.  He was a wonderful and well-travelled dog who gave us and our family lots of happiness and we like to feel he had a very happy and fulfilled life too.

In his favourite position on the back of the boat

THURSDAY 12 SEPTEMBER

Day one of the first leg back to Flecknoe today.  I probably had four days cruising ahead of me and, if the forecast was to be believed, they would be sunny but not hot like they were when I cruised to Wittring three weeks ago.  VNF turned up dead at 8.30am and started flooding the dock for me to leave.  It was about 1½ hours before the gate was ready to be opened and I could start reversing out.

Nearly time to escape

It was an uneventful day’s cruising which was just as well really because if it had been eventful then it would probably have meant that something had gone wrong.  As can be seen here, there were clouds around but still some sun as expected:

I stopped in Sarralbe to have lunch and do a bit of shopping as I‘d run out of fruit and veg.  It was 1½ miles to the supermarket so at least I got some exercise.  It reminded me that in all the time I was in the dry dock I only went for one decent walk, the rest of the time I was just too knackered after a day working on the boat.

The supermarket was on the other side of Sarralbe and it was good to walk through the town as it brought back memories of when Karen and I followed the town trail with Buddy a few years ago.  I’m not going to flood you with sightseeing pictures as we did that when we stopped here for a few nights before and, anyway, I was on a mission.  I did take a picture of the storks’ nest on the mairie, this is the nest that has a live webcam and microphone which you can just see above and to the left of the nest in this picture.

The town trail was marked with brass plaques of a stork and I didn’t include one of these when I wrote up the trail in the blog so here’s one this time around:

Seeing a lavoir on my way to the supermarket also made me realise that this was the first I’ve seen since being here; usually we probably see an average of one a day!

Small lavoir in Sarralbe

It was good to see the Union Flag was still recognised and being flown:

Here’s all that remains of the town’s defences, one of the gateways:

Sightseers’ picture

After lunch I carried on until just before the locks closed at 6.30pm and found a lovely quiet spot to the north of Mittersheim.

Thursday night’s mooring

On Thursday I cruised 28 km up six locks, saw one hire boat and one private boat.