Safely moored in Willington once again, Richard began the dissection of his beloved Gardner engine..
Piston barrels which apparently weren't scored or marked, so keep looking..
Meanwhile the boys blissfully relax through the whole traumatic experience, whilst it had sunk in that the engine would need to be totally removed to find the problem.
And I had a prearranged booking with friends.... I did want to stay and help honestly, but Richard really wanted some peace for an hour and to know that I was doing something else than crying!
Saturday was a quiet day for me, whilst Richard went to work, and I just sat in the butty and painted. Randomly I checked for our savours to arrive later in the day.
And then they did, at about 4pm! Viv and Paul Barber pulled their narrow boat Whitby into the winding hole, waited for the last boat between us to move onto the water point out of harm's way and began individually winding (turning around) our motor and butty in readiness for a long day's towing on Sunday.
Once Richard returned home, we suggested Viv and Paul join us for a pub meal in The Green Man and bloody lovely it was too. We will return!
The next morning, we set off in a long convoy of 3 narrow boats joined by crossed straps to ease the towing experience for little me on the butty on the back and Paul on Whitby right at the front!
Everybody seemed to come out of their boats as we went past them, remarking on this rare sight!
Approaching Stenson and the first lock of the day!
The plan was that we would all pull onto the lock approach, set the lock, disconnect the butty, whereupon Paul would take the motors in. Then the water is dropped, after closing the gates and the process is repeated for the butty all on it's own (unless another boat arrived to share)
This worked really well I thought, compared to the fiddle and faff, I thought it would be!
Snaking a bit, but once around the tree, the boats straightened up beautifully.
Viv takes a turn on the tiller, whilst Paul has a break. Girl power!
A short video of the boats approaching Weston on Trent
Dropping down the lock in the butty. This made Paul's life easier catching me on the opening of the gates, as I could steer the butty a little and he didn't have to fight to get the butty into the side to get me back aboard.
Nearing the end of the day as we snake through Shardlow village
And last 'proper' bendy bit at the road bridge outside the Malt Shovel and New Inn pub (I call it 'carnage corner', as we usually always meet a boater coming the other way!)
Completing the last lock out of Shardlow, we began the short stretch of River Trent to get to Sawley Cut, then dropped down onto the river once again for the last mile, turning left onto the Erewash Canal. I have no pictures as it was pitch black by now, our path being lit by Paul's navigation/tunnel lights and the surrounding buildings.
By 6pm, we had arrived at our destination, to be met by Richard, who helped us back the boats into our mooring in Paul's basin, Sheetstores.
At this point, I would like to publicly thank Viv and Paul for dedicating their ENTIRE weekend to come to our rescue.....
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