Lapworth (stanking planks and weddings)

After a wild wet and windy Wednesday night, Thursday morning was calm and sunny.  Actually it was still wild and wet when Karen left for work at 5.45 but it was lovely when I got up.

Our new mooring below lock 22 at Lapworth

I know our latest mooring spot looks the same as the last one, below lock 23, but I did move on Wednesday, albeit up one lock, in the wrong direction.  we'll make our third visit to Stratford by boat soon.

It looks like there’s a wedding or some sort of celebration about to happen opposite us.  A marquee is being erected in the field attached to a large house.  We’ll still be here at the weekend so no doubt will find out what’s going on.

Marquee being erected opposite us

For our morning walk I thought we’d go down to lock 30 and see how CRT are getting on with the repairs.  The lock is currently closed and is not due to reopen until 17^th March. This is preventing us from moving any further down towards Stratford.  The next water point is beyond the lock and as we will need to fill up before the reopening I will just reverse back up a couple of locks to Lapworth basin where there is a water point.

Before setting off I rang round local suppliers to find out if any stocked the engine oil I need for the next engine service which I plan to do next week.  I tried several boatyards and motor factors before I was successful – it looks like a quick car trip to Fenny Compton on the Oxford canal.  

It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many different types of engine oil.  I’m not a mechanically minded person but two boatyards said, “Oh, put any 10W40 in, the API rating doesn’t matter”.  We used to have the old boat serviced by boatyards so it makes me wonder what they did.  

Anyway, I decided that with the new boat I would do all the servicing myself.  I was fortunate when I did the first oil change as I called in at a boatyard at Stoke on my way down to the Midlands after picking up the boat in Cheshire and they had the oil I needed.  Little did I know then that it’s like hens’ teeth.

Coincidentally when I spoke with a guy at a yard in Wootton Wawen (further down towards Stratford) we got talking about the stoppages and he too missed the email about lock 30.  Like me, he wrongly assumed it was about another tree that had blown down.

Back to the morning walk and I arrived at lock 30 to find they were steam cleaning the inside to make it easier to check for damage.

CRT workboat in lock 30

Steam cleaning the inside

I had a chat with one of the guys working there and he told me the stanking planks (he called them stop planks as he’s from Dudley) would be going in during the afternoon.  I told him I would return to watch the operation and asked him about the numbering on the planks.  The 97 ½ was obvious as it indicates the length in inches.  The planks for the head (top) of locks are shorter than those at the tail and on the Stratford canal they vary from 95” to 101”.  He couldn’t explain the other numbering which is what I was particularly interested in.  

The stanking planks waiting to be slotted in

The slots where the planks are dropped in

The stanking planks for this canal are stored centrally at Hatton and the CRT guy agreed that it’s a sad sign of the times that they cannot be stored by the locks like they used to be – too many got chopped up for firewood.  The canals with double width locks have to have much wider planks which  consequently weigh a lot more and are therefore less mobile which is why they are still seen at locks and bridge holes.  Some of the narrow canals still have stanking plank stores but, sadly, they are usually chained up.  Click on this link for mystanking plank musings or click the Stanking Plank tab at the top of the page.

Walking back to the boat I passed an old iron structure by a lock that would have been used to store stanking planks in the past.

Old stanking plank store

After lunch we walked back down to lock 30 but unfortunately the gang had got ahead of schedule and the stank was already complete.  Unlike the stank at the head of the lock at Stoke Bruerne that Karen and I visited with Mike and Lesley on a CRT open day recently, the planks weren’t caulked with clay.  Hopefully I can be around to see them lifting the planks out – which will be just as interesting.

The stank (wooden dam)

All drained between the stank and the top gate – the ground paddle is open exposing the entrance to the underground culvert

If you look at the picture above you will see the opening at the bottom where the water flows into the lock when it is being filled.  The winding gear at the top opens the ground paddle which covers the opening, thus letting the water into the lock via an underground culvert.  The winding gear is operated by use of a windlass (usually Karen’s job when we’re locking together).

Lapworth (foiled by changes to the winter stoppages)

The weather promised to be dry and mild on Wednesday so Buddy and I went for a good walk in the morning to work out the different options for mooring over the next few weeks.  I already knew that we can moor at Lowsonford as there are plenty of places to park the car around the village but I wanted to look by Bucket lock at Yarningdale which is three miles south from where we are currently moored.

Aerial view of Bucket lock - there's a green boat in the lock and the boat by the tennis court is where we like to moor

We have been through Bucket lock several times and often stopped the night or for lunch just south of it next to the tennis courts.  The tennis court belongs to the old lock house which has been greatly extended – you can see the barrel shaped roof of the original lock cottage which is now dwarfed by the main house.  I had noticed cars parked to the right of the lock in the Google earth picture so thought it would be ideal for Karen.

Unfortunately when we got there I found that the entire lane was a private road and, thinking about it, I had realised that before but had forgotten.  The cars belong to the large house and they have to walk across the lock to get access.

Two locks down from where we are currently moored a tree had fallen across the cut.  This must have happened whilst we were on holiday and as so many trees had come down, the contractors had only cut enough back to allow narrowboats to pass.  I assume they will be coming back to remove the rest of the tree when things get quieter.

Partially removed fallen tree a couple of locks down from our current mooring

I mentioned before that I had received a lot of emails from CRT last week telling boaters where stoppages were because of fallen trees.  Stupidly, I didn’t read one of them properly; it was explaining about a lock closure rather than a fallen tree.  The lock in question (lock 30 – Finwod lock) is only about a mile from us and is going to be closed until 18^th March so that has put paid to us travelling anywhere in the next few weeks.

Stanking planks for the works at lock 30

Markings on the planks – I will have to ask the guys working there what the significance of the markings is

During our walk I came across a couple more of the old GWR mile markers and realised that they must have had ¼ mile markers as well as ½ mile markers.  I found one that was equidistant between the modern 15 mile marker and the old 15 ½ mile marker.

15 ¼ miles from Kings Norton (10 ¼ from Stratford junction with the River Avon)

As we are clearly going to be stuck at Lapworth for another three weeks I decided to go for a mini-cruise at 5 o’clock.  It really is a sign of spring when it’s still light enough to go for a cruise at that time.  I decided to reverse back nearer to Lapworth junction so that Karen won’t have so far to walk to and from the car each day.  At least I got to do a lock on the cruise even if it was in reverse.  We are now moored where we were going to leave the boat when we went on holiday as the boats that had been there are now gone.

When I got back indoors I found a lovely message from Wendy, a boaty friend of ours.  She lives near here and said she would look out for the boat if we are in the area and need to leave it again.

Lapworth (back home again – now on the Stratford canal)

We had been moored on the Lapworth link for two weeks by the time we went on holiday so we had to move the boat before we left.  We were arriving back home in the early hours of Tuesday morning and Karen would need hot water for a shower before going off to work.  This meant we would have to run the engine out of hours to heat the water up; our licence conditions restrict engine running when stationary to between 08.00 and 20.00.  So we had to find somewhere quiet and safe with no boats or houses around.  We knew just the spot on the south Stratford canal so went for a walk to check it out on the Saturday morning – unfortunately a boat was already moored there but there was another good spot available through the next lock.

I remember it being nice and mild on that Saturday morning when we had our mini-cruise and both felt really happy to get back on the Stratford canal with its narrow locks and quaint bridges.

Our mooring between two locks whilst we were away on holiday

Whilst we were away we heard about storm Doris and how it was centred on the Midlands.  I received a lot of email alerts from CRT about trees blown down across the navigations but knew we would be OK as there we always try and moor away from large trees when leaving the boat for a few days or so.

It was quite a shock to the system when we got back home as it was frosty and we had been used to night time temperatures in the 20s. Steel boats go cold very quickly without a fire and conversely take a long time to heat through.  We always reckon it takes a good 12 hours to get a boat back up to temperature when it’s been left for a few days in the winter.

Tuesday saw Karen back to work and I went to pick Buddy up from the kennels.  He always seems happy at the kennels but probably doesn’t sleep very well as he crashes out on the boat for the first 24 hours after getting back.  Tuesday was no exception and I must admit I was happy that he didn’t want a long walk as it poured with rain all afternoon.

As soon as I got him back to the canal from the kennels he went straight for a drink of water as if he hadn’t had any for a week.

Buddy back at his watering hole

Even though we had heard about storm Doris there must have been some good days when we were away as many of our spring bulbs had started coming out.

Crocuses emerging

Some daffs budding too