Engine Arm, Smethwick

Here I am Rune

Distance 6.1 miles

Total 802 Locks 36 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1221.4miles

The weather held pretty well today but I think it will go down as a sort of ‘bad weed hatch day’! If you include the final check when we got to Engine Arm to ensure that next time we set off we have a clear propeller to start with, I have been down the weed hatch 6 times today, which is something of a record. I expected today to be quite hard work since it was quite a lot of locks along with 6 miles of canal to cover, but it was exceptionally hard work coming up Ryders Green flight of locks. The problems manifested themselves almost immediately since by the time I’d reached the second lock I have already been down the weed hatch twice to clear blockages (one of which was a sari around the prop). At the second lock I had the added problem of being unable to enter the lock as I couldn’t get the boat over the cill, this meant that the pound level was far too low. Since the pound between the first and second locks going up is quite a long one, and the one above the next lock is quite short, trying to fill up the shortfall was always going to fail and eventually the crew had to make her way up to the top lock to start letting more water down the flight. We had set off at 9.30am and I was hoping to clear the Ryder’s Green flight before midday, missed that target by about half an hour.

Once we were off the Walsall Canal and onto the New Main Line we speeded up a little bit but still managed to pick up some plastic around the prop before we reached Spon Lane Locks. Cleared the rubbish from the prop whilst I was in the lock however 30 seconds later we had a mass of weed and bit of wood around the prop as we tried to leave the lock so it was back down the weed hatch. Finally got clear although the wind on the three Spon Lane locks was very strong, fortunately it was behind us but it meant that I was entering the locks a lot faster than I would have chosen to do. The problem with that is the necessity to stop the boat by giving reverse engine revs, normally not a problem but today there was a 70% chance of getting something wrapped around the prop if I put the engine in reverse thereby losing a lot of steerage. The only bit that worked better than I was hoping was the entry into the (narrow) opening into the Engine Arm. Last time here the wind was quite strong but on this occasion the wind had moderated a bit by the entrance so the boat went in quite easily.

I think that tomorrow may well turn out to be a day of rest.