Monday 4th July

Of course I’m writing this with the benefit of knowing how the day turned out but you, dear reader will have to start at the beginning. We left Alvecote at 8am and made our way to Fazeley junction, a journey of two hours, two miles and two locks. After carrying out our chores at BW Tamworth we turned and made our way back to the junction. At this moment I noticed that there was a problem with the transmission, reverse was very poor but forward gear seemed alright. We moored up just around the corner and I surveyed the situation. With oil in the bilge, it was clear that the hydraulic gearbox had developed a problem. We called Streethay Wharf who sent out a marine engineer who checked the box over and decided that we would be safe to carry on if we checked the oil level regularly. Having gained this peace of mind we set off again in the direction of Birmingham. We had no issues at all on our journey towards Curdworth but after waiting for the lock at the bottom of the flight, it was clear that the problem had returned. We emptied the lock and reversed (slowly) out and passing two moored boats, we eventually reached the winding hole where with the assistance of one of the boaters we managed to turn around.

Once we had turned I put some more oil in the gearbox and we were off again, heading back to fazeley. At this stage i had a theory that the oil loss had something to do with engaging reverse gear. We ploughed on unhindered back to the junction and back on to the Coventry canal. When we reached the two locks at Glascote I was careful to keep away from reverse gear, in the event this proved to be a mistake, in actual fact the oil loss was happening when the box was in neutral. Clearing the top lock with an oil top up we ploughed on through the outskirts of Tamworth, heading for the bottom of the Atherstone flight. We reached our intended destination about 7pm and decided to ascend the first six locks to moor near the town.