Of Testing Weed Mitigation

Of course after spending so much money on the boat I was very keen to try out the new weed mitigation measures I had had fitted. Unfortunately the weather was rough for several days and I did not want to take any chances in case the rope/weed cutter and the weed baffle plates did not perform as hoped. Also I felt I wanted to get used to handling the boat again if the new bits of kit affected the performance. 

Finally I set off in hope on Friday afternoon and took a slow trip to Upwell. I needed to top up the water tank, so Upwell was as good a place as any. It's a pretty mooring with plenty of space for three fifty foot boats to moor. As I approached I saw two boats were already there. One had tied up near the water point and the other was at the opposite end of the mooring. They had left a space in the middle just big enough for me to squeeze into. Happily there was barely any wind, so I could show off my boat handling skills without any risk of the wind putting me to shame. I knew both boats and I had chatted with one of the owners several times. He'd been on this mooring for a while and I'd come to consider him an habitual "overstayer". Boats are only allowed to stay for up to thirty-six hours on Well Creek public moorings. I'd forgotten that the last time we'd talked he had had an engine problem and had been forced to stay in town, where the limit was forty-eight hours, until he could fix the problem. This time he had another problem. His engine room had been filling with water and the engine itself was actually up to its waist in the Old River Nene! Apparently the stern gland was leaking and he was worried about the procedure for replacing the packing in case he made it worse. After all, no one lives on a narrowboat and intentionally turns it into a submarine! He was waiting for the cavalry to arrive. The other boat I had seen many times, but hadn't met the new owner until now. He turned out to be a very cheery and articulate gentleman who was gradually lining up his ducks to move aboard full time. We spent several hours in deep conversation over the next few days whenever we encountered each other. I think we shall become friends.

The following day, Saturday, I decided it was time to conduct the test and headed off towards Outwell, Nordelph and on to Salter's Lode. Obviously testing the anti-weed devices was the main object of the exercise, so rather than stop overnight in Outwell, where I have friends living on both sides of the Basin I went through the village and out towards Nordelph. Because I am still running-in my refurbished engine I was not pushing the engine hard. However, as I closed in on Nordelph I slowed to tickover speed. Received wisdom is that moving as slowly as possible through cott weed is the best course of action. It shouldn't have the opportunity of getting the prop in a stranglehold and a gentle touch of reverse gear is supposed to unwind any weed wrapping the propellor and prop shaft in a slimy embrace. I think my optimism is reflected well in this first video.

My journey didn't actually progress as hoped. A couple of times I became so clogged up with cott I lost all control over the boat and had to stop and access the weed hatch to clear the prop. Still, twice was a vast improvement on the last time I passed this way. I was thinking that the weed cutter and baffle plates were actually making a difference. The journey to Salter's still took a lot longer than it should have done owing to my very slow speed and to the stops to clear the prop. I stayed the night at Salter's Lode and mardled a while with the lockkeeper and her husband (the previous lockie) and it was lovely to see them both again. Of course our conversation could be relaxed because the lock gate mechanism had broken some days previously and no one could get through to the tidal section of the River Great Ouse anyway. Karen was making the very best of her unexpected and extended holiday to plant out a raised bed. 

I had a comfortable night and a late start the following day. I saw Karen and Paul in the garden so went up to bid them farewell. As we were talking a woman walked by and stopped to chat too. She'd been travelling on a widebeam with two friends and with which I'd been playing leapfrog since it first passed me on my home mooring a few days before. We'd done a lot of waving, but this was the first time I had had an opportunity for any kind of conversation. I hadn't noticed the boat moor a couple of boats behind me at Salter's Lode, so I don't know when it had arrived. I turned my boat round where the river was wide enough and set off, but the return journey was anything but peaceful. Thankfully there was still no wind to speak of and it started well enough. I stuck to tickover speed because I was not in any rush and wasn't quite sure where the Sargasso Sea of cott actually began. As it happened the journey towards Nordelph became the stuff of my worst fears. Even before reaching the first of the moored up small GRP cruisers I had to stop and get down into the weed hatch. Once I got to where the boats started to be moored I became very stressed and exhausted as the prop clogged up again and again and again. For the first time ever in my experience the engine stalled twice, stopped by the sheer volume of cott the prop had picked up. It felt like clearing the blockage took much longer as the weed cutter blades seemed to hold on to the slimy threads of cott and I could mostly only pull off tiny amounts at a time. March was definitely too early in the year for the cott to be this thick. Despite that I collected a huge pile of the stuff on my trad stern deck after picking it off the prop. 

After the fourth stoppage I was aching from the core-withering workout of weed removal and was taking a breather when a family of four passed me in a small electric powered fishing boat. We had exchanged greetings on their way out earlier in the afternoon and they weren't altogether surprised to see me stuck in their village's notorious weed spot as they returned home. Dad called out asking if he could help and I replied that a tow would be handy! To my delight and surprise he agreed. He let his family off at their house and circled back to grab the bow rope I threw out to him. We managed to progress a few yards but his engine battery began to fade. Undaunted he said he had another one on charge so went back to get it. We made a few yards further progress when that battery too began to give out. We wished each other good luck and he set off home. I slipped the boat into gear and am not sure whether I got even as far as two metres when the engine stopped. In that tiny distance I had collected enough cott to stall the engine. I unscrewed the weed hatch AGAIN and and pulled out more threads and clumps of weed. As I stood up to unfold myself and stretch before resuming my bums-up worship at the weed hatch I heard the unmistakable chug of a Lister engine. As my "friends" on the widebeam chugged by I called out requesting a tow to the bridge, which I knew to be the limit of the worst of the cott. If a man on a vastly under-powered electric boat was willing to help why wouldn't a fully-equipped boat with a working diesel engine offer a similar courtesy? I never got the chance to find out because without even looking at me, obviously stuck diagonally across the river, they carried on. As they passed someone called out something, but I didn't catch it over the engine noise. I only know that had the situation been reversed I would not have hesitated to try to help, even if it meant two boats would end up being stuck. I can't be the only person to call out to check that all is well if ever I see a stationary boat that is not obviously moored up! To be honest, I was truly astonished by their lack of concern for a fellow boater. Eventually I cleared the prop (again!) and fired up the engine (again!). Inevitably I ground to yet another halt after another couple of metres, right next to a moored up GRP cruiser! This was nearly the very worst thing that could have happened. The only thing that might have made it worse still was if there had been a wind. Thankfully the weather was kind and the air was still. I was close enough to the cruiser to push against it with my hand to stop my boat touching it. I had to get away from the cruiser and the only thing I could think to do was to see if my barge pole was long enough to reach the bottom of the river so I could propel myself forward and into a space between two moored cruisers. I had the pole on the roof close to me and I deployed it hoping I could punt myself into a safer space. The pole hit the bed of the river and kept on sinking into the silty peat. I feared I was not going to hit anything hard enough to push against, but I had just enough pole to manoeuvre myself away from the fragile cruiser. It stuck in the mud and again I feared losing it, but as I twisted it came loose and I drove it back into the mud to push myself a little further. I had wondered if I could actually reach the bridge in the centre of the village by repeating this action, but there was no chance of that. I came to rest a few metres beyond the endangered cruiser and once again unscrewed the weed hatch and assumed the position. I was still picking out chunks and threads of cott two or three hours later as the light began to fade. Fortunately the boat had barely moved ahead or astern during that time, but I was completely exhausted, very stressed, hungry and thirsty, having not had anything except a biscuit since breakfast, many hours earlier. Although I was untethered I could not do anything about it. I fired off an SOS e-mail to the Middle Level Commissioners explaining my situation and requesting assistance, but they wouldn't see it till Monday morning. There was nothing for it but to drift as I made some food in the galley and ate disconsolately. I lay down on my bed for a very fitful few hours of sleep, waking pretty much every hour to check that I was still at a safe distance from the moored cruisers. It was not a good night. Had there been any wind I would have been in a terrible situation.

The following morning at about 7.30 I phoned the Middle Level Commissioners and got through to the on-call engineer, who said he would get a message to the navigation officer, Kev, a marvellous chap who has got me out of sticky situations a few times over the years. After breakfast I resumed digging out the weed and I was still doing that some hours later when Kev turned up in his 4x4. He'd had to meet some engineers at Salter's Lode to try and work through the situation with the broken guillotine gate mechanism. 

After some discussion he decided he could tow me along the river from the bank until he reached a roadsign that was blocking his way. That would be very useful, even if it did not take me as far as the bridge I wanted to reach. He has towed a few boats along there over the past couple of years and he has actually worked out a system for doing it. I tied another ten metres of rope to my centre line and threw the rope to him. He in turn tied it to the towing strap on his truck. I knew that if I was being towed I needed the engine running and the prop as clear as possible so could make any corrections to my heading as the wind and current risked fishtailing me from side to side. There were still many boats to pass before I was clear of the worst of the weed. Somehow we made it. We retrieved our ropes and I edged very slowly under the bridges at Nordelph and out on to the open creek. I knew there was still the risk of scooping up some cott, but it would not be as risky as it had been for the last mile of the waterway. I managed to get beyond Gladys Dack's before I was forced to stop by the weight of weed reducing my momentum and steering ability. From there I was able to make my way cautiously along Well Creek, slipping the boat into reverse every time the prop wash pattern changed and I made it to Outwell without needing to stop again. It would probably go without saying, but I slept really well that night.

A final thought on this trip is that the jury is still out regarding the efficacy of the weed mitigation alterations I have made to my narrowboat. The boat is due to come out of the water for reblacking at the end of June so I shall persist with the upgrades until then and make a decision as to whether I keep them or not. On the one hand, they seem not to have been remotely successful in coping with the serious inundation of cott at Nordelph - and may even have made its removal more difficult - but I'm not sure yet how effective they are on a waterway having navigable depth and "normal" aquatic flora conditions. It is just possible they do actually help with most types of weed. The blade device is sold as a "rope cutter". When I stopped at Upwell after leaving Outwell I had to unwrap a strip of elasticated fabric and a plastic bag from the prop - annoying, of course, but much easier to deal with than cott weed. A bit further on, emerging from the lock, I acquired a plastic animal feed bag. I suppose once my engine has been properly run-in and serviced I should be able to check whether upping the revs helps, though the thought of shredding plastic in the river is not a happy one.