Saturday, October 28, 2006
Maiden voyage completed - with some fraught moments
If you should ever find yourself asking: should a couple with no experience boating attempt to take a Viking 26 narrowbeam cruiser down the Oxford Canal and a large section of the Thames in the last week of October - the answer is, probably yes, but expect some difficulties.
A day-by-day account of the voyage follows this post, but first some overall impressions.
The Viking 26 narrowbeam may be built narrow enough for British canals, but that doesn't mean she is entirely happy on them - at least, not on the Oxford. Everyone warned us to check that her beam would allow her to pass through even the smallest locks on the canal, which it did. What no one warned us about was the issue of her height above water. One of our guidebooks alerted us to the fact that Yarnton Bridge was bery low - without mentioned that virtually every other bridge was very low as well. We were not helped by the fact that Loki's windscreen lowers by folding outwards, so when you lost height you also gain a couple of inches in width. We did only very slight damage to the windscreen in the end, but every bridge had to be negotiated by pulling the boat very slowly through them by hand - it was hard work.
Because of the height issue, we had to have Loki's canopy down for almost the entire canal stretch of the journey (four days in total). This is no fun when it's raining.
Canals, in general, are built for narrowboats. This includes the provision of certain facilities, particularly fuel. Narrowboats run on diesel inboard engines. If you have a petrol outboard engine, you can expect to run out of fuel eventually with little opportunity to fill up conveniently.
Forget any notions of 'Old Father Thames' being tame and calm. When the water levels are high, the river flows as fiercely as you ought to expect.
Thames lock-keepers are an interesting bunch. Most are very friendly, some less so. We found many of them to be permanently on their mobile phones - Eva thought they were exchanging information about the flow of the river, but I suspected that they were day-trading to relieve the tedium. One thing struck us most of all - all the guidebooks and manuals and instructional videos had given clear advice on using Thames locks: follow the instructions of the lock-keeper. We did not, from Oxford to Staines, encounter a single lock-keeper who ever offered any instructions of any kind - sometimes even when asked for some. I suspect things will be rather different in the summer.
Loki picked up a fair few scratches and bumps along the way, but we're pretty certain that the cost of repairing the damage will still be less than what we would have paid to have her brought down to London by road, and we got plenty of experience along the way. It seems odd, having lived on her for seven nights and eight days, to think that we will not board her again until next April. She is at home, in Penton Hook Marina, right now - and will be lifted out of the water on Wednesday, for the Winter. There's a fair amount of work to be done on her, not least being a complete overhaul of the plumbing - the kitchen sink didn't drain and the shower pump didn't seem to work at all. Some minor repairs to the gel coating on the hull are needed and the windscreen may need some work, too. The engine is fine, as are the canopy and the hull. I'd quite like a new throttle control, as the one that's there at the moment requires a fair amount of effort to work. And, of course, we need to get her re-named.
A day-by-day account of the voyage follows this post, but first some overall impressions.
The Viking 26 narrowbeam may be built narrow enough for British canals, but that doesn't mean she is entirely happy on them - at least, not on the Oxford. Everyone warned us to check that her beam would allow her to pass through even the smallest locks on the canal, which it did. What no one warned us about was the issue of her height above water. One of our guidebooks alerted us to the fact that Yarnton Bridge was bery low - without mentioned that virtually every other bridge was very low as well. We were not helped by the fact that Loki's windscreen lowers by folding outwards, so when you lost height you also gain a couple of inches in width. We did only very slight damage to the windscreen in the end, but every bridge had to be negotiated by pulling the boat very slowly through them by hand - it was hard work.
Because of the height issue, we had to have Loki's canopy down for almost the entire canal stretch of the journey (four days in total). This is no fun when it's raining.
Canals, in general, are built for narrowboats. This includes the provision of certain facilities, particularly fuel. Narrowboats run on diesel inboard engines. If you have a petrol outboard engine, you can expect to run out of fuel eventually with little opportunity to fill up conveniently.
Forget any notions of 'Old Father Thames' being tame and calm. When the water levels are high, the river flows as fiercely as you ought to expect.
Thames lock-keepers are an interesting bunch. Most are very friendly, some less so. We found many of them to be permanently on their mobile phones - Eva thought they were exchanging information about the flow of the river, but I suspected that they were day-trading to relieve the tedium. One thing struck us most of all - all the guidebooks and manuals and instructional videos had given clear advice on using Thames locks: follow the instructions of the lock-keeper. We did not, from Oxford to Staines, encounter a single lock-keeper who ever offered any instructions of any kind - sometimes even when asked for some. I suspect things will be rather different in the summer.
Loki picked up a fair few scratches and bumps along the way, but we're pretty certain that the cost of repairing the damage will still be less than what we would have paid to have her brought down to London by road, and we got plenty of experience along the way. It seems odd, having lived on her for seven nights and eight days, to think that we will not board her again until next April. She is at home, in Penton Hook Marina, right now - and will be lifted out of the water on Wednesday, for the Winter. There's a fair amount of work to be done on her, not least being a complete overhaul of the plumbing - the kitchen sink didn't drain and the shower pump didn't seem to work at all. Some minor repairs to the gel coating on the hull are needed and the windscreen may need some work, too. The engine is fine, as are the canopy and the hull. I'd quite like a new throttle control, as the one that's there at the moment requires a fair amount of effort to work. And, of course, we need to get her re-named.
