Ne’er cast a clout ’til May is out – too true
Last night’s mooring was great, very quiet and peaceful. When we awoke this morning it was raining again but according to the BBC the rain would give way to white cloud by eight o’clock and that would last until evening time. We decided to get up and go, destination Cropredy. We were on our way by 9:15am and heading for Claydon top lock. The rain drizzled down on us all of the way down the hill, it didn’t get too heavy but it didn’t go away either. The locks on this side of the summit leak badly so even when we had passed boats coming up, we usually had to fill each chamber. We were fortunate in meeting boats at a couple of locks which made life easier but generally we were on our own.
The Cropredy area was much easier to deal with by comparison to last August when we passed through and the music festival was on. The village moorings were mostly empty when we arrived and we easily found a space for Caxton. Sue quickly produced a couple of steaming bowls of home made vegetable soup – how does she manage this while we are travelling and locking???
After lunch, the rain eased off so we went for a walk around the village. We popped into the Red Lion and then the Brasenose Arms, both establishments passing muster. After calling into the canalside shop for a few essentials we walked back up the towpath and returned to Caxton.
Prior to leaving the boat I had lit the fire because there was just a feeling of dampness creeping in. On our return the cabin was lovely, warm and most importantly, dry feeling.
The soup had done its trick and kept us feeling full so we just had a sandwich each for dinner and called it a day.
Napton to Claydon
As expected it rained all day on Wednesday, well until 6:30pm anyway. In contrast, we awoke to a bright sunlit morning this morning – oh how quickly the sunshine lifts the spirits. At 7am I walked to the village shop to buy some potatoes and butter and when I returned, there was already some activity around the bottom lock. NB Oakapple had just entered the chamber from above. We haven’t seen Richard & Sharon since we passed them near Hawkesbury in September 2014 . I had a brief chat with them both before once again, we went in opposite directions.
After returning to Caxton, we made our final preparations and set off. It was a glorious morning and ideal for locking, we just took our time and two hours later we had ascended the eight locks and tied up at Marson Doles for water. We had to tie on the lock landing because there was a CaRT boat tied on the water point but with so little traffic it wasn’t a problem.
As we were filling with water, nb Aileen Rose approached so I grabbed a windlass and helped them into the lock at Marston Doles. We were lock buddies in 2013 so it was good to see them again too.
Once we had filled with water, we were on our way across the lonely summit once again. We passed a few boats along the way but generally it was a quiet passage.
The sun continued to shine as we made our way towards Fenny Compton and we had hoped to find a mooring space there, however it was not to be and we had to pass through. An hour later and we found a place to tie up just above Claydon top lock. Sue had been preparing dinner along the way as well as baking oatcakes and making mackerel pate (how does she do that and still manage eight locks?) . So when we tied up, we ate and afterwards went for a walk into Claydon village. There’s nothing there except the church, the bygones museum closed a few years ago so it appears to be yet another “dormitory ” village in rural England.
We returned to Caxton after our circular walk of around three miles. Rain started falling about 7pm and it has continued ever since. Tomorrow’s forecast is for yet more rain so we’ll decide on our course of action ( or in-action) in the morning.
Now the real journey begins
This is just a quick catch up on what we have been doing over the last week since our last post. We remained moored at the top of Hillmorton and caught the bus into Rugby where we did a bit of shopping and had a birthday lunch at Prezzo, courtesy of Rebecca, Don and the children. Thank you very much, it was delicious!
Caxton safely tucked up in Braunston marina.
On Wednesday we untied and made our way to Braunston, blue skies had returned and with the very gentle winds to accompany us, our journey was very enjoyable. It was around one o’clock when we arrived at Braunston marina where had arranged to leave Caxton for a few days while we travelled to Hampshire for my retirement party. We found our temporary berth which was on the adjacent pier to the one that we used when we moored here permanently a few years ago. After wiggling our way into position with only inches to spare, we tied up and then went for a walk along the towpath to the tunnel. After a quick refreshment stop at the Admiral Nelson, we returned to the marina and paid our fees.
A narrowboat emerging from the tunnel mouth.
We had arranged to meet some friends who live in the village so after dinner on board, we trotted up to the Wheatsheaf for a couple of hours and had a great time catching up with them.
We were up and ready early on Thursday, despite it being Sue’s birthday. We needed to catch the bus into Rugby so that we could start our train journey to Winchester and that bus leaves the village from The Green so we had to climb the hill from Butchers bridge once again. When we first moored in Braunston, the village was well served by bus services running between Rugby and Daventry with some of them stopping on the A45 outside the marina. That ended and then the nearest stop was outside the Boathouse pub, also on the main road. Today, the hourly service only just touches the top edge of the village, stopping by the village hall. Judging by the small number of passengers on the bus, I wonder just how long even this service will remain in place.
Braunston bus? (Actually in Winchester).
Anyway, after the bus to Rugby we caught a train to Coventry and then boarded the Cross Country service to Winchester. We continued the birthday eating theme with afternoon tea at the hotel and very nice it was too. Winchester is a lovely place to wander around at any time but on warm spring days, as we had on Thursday and Friday, it was glorious. We rounded off the birthday week meal festival with lunch at Rick Stein’s retaurant which was perfect.
Afternoon Tea on Sue’s birthday.
Rick Stein’s Birthday message for Sue.
On Friday evening, I had my retirement bash in a Spanish restaurant in nearby Arlesford with colleagues from work, some of whom I have known for thirty years. We all had a good time and they even presented me with a leaving present – a Nikon DSLR camera. Once I get to grips with that, expect to see a more feature filled blog. There were many messages of good luck and some other personal gifts which will be cherished. All in all they gave me a good send off – thank you everyone.
Saturday dawned and we made the return journey to Braunston, re-tracing our route via Coventry and Rugby. It was after four o’clock when we got back and Sue used the evening and the fact that we were plugged into the mains to catch up with the washing and drying.
Our original intention had been to travel south on the Grand Union and return on the Oxford canal later in the summer. However, by the time we were ready to leave on Sunday morning we had decided to go the other way around. It doesn’t make any real difference to us which way we go but we were slightly concerned that there have been some predictions of drought and figured that we might be better crossing the summit of the Oxford sooner rather than later just in case low water levels start to have an effect on lock operations.
Sitting with an unusually large amount of free space around.
We turned left out of the marina and found a place to moor, halfway between the two bridges that carry the A45 over the canal and close to the two bridges that carry the towpath over the junction of the canal. We were surprised at just how empty the moorings are in Braunston but I suppose that it is still early in the season. The reason that we didn’t go so far was because the weather outlook for Monday was for high winds and lots of heavy showers. Sunday was still fine so we walked up and around the village, calling at the Chandlers and the village shop along the way.
The rain started in the early hours of Monday morning and continued on and off throughout the day. We did manage to get a walk around the village again during a dry period after dinner but the rain came again shortly after we returned to the boat.
And so to today, Tuesday. It was still windy but thankfully no rain, although there is a horrible outlook forecast. We took advantage of the relatively good conditions and set off in the direction of Napton, just after eight o’clock. Normally, this stretch of canal irritates me but today it didn’t because there are very few boats on the move and not many moored up either. What normally happens, usually on sunny, summer, Sunday afternoons is that as boats converge at Wigram’s and Braunston turns, convoys get formed. Lines of moored boats then force everyone down to tickover speed and the convoys become condensed. The real fun starts when two convoys meet at a bridge! Anyway, it wasn’t like that today and three hours after setting off, we were moored just above the bottom lock at Napton. After lunch, we took a walk to the village shop where Sue bought some provisions and then we returned to the canal. The rain started mid afternoon and the forecast is that it isn’t going to stop until Thursday morning so it looks like we will have another day here tomorrow. With a bit of luck, who knows, there might be a tiny break in the rain, a small window of opportunity to nip to the Folly for a pint before then!
Tuesday’s mooring at Napton
So now the journey can really begin, we have no timetable to stick to, no set route to follow and very few restrictions to hamper us on our big adventure.
Today’s Trip
Hat and gloves on!
All Oaks wood provided us with a lovely overnight mooring but it was a bit dull and chilly when we got out of bed this morning. We want to be in Braunston sometime on Wednesday so although we have about six hours travelling to do, we have three days to do it in. With no real plans we decided that we may as well move on a bit today and see where ended up. It was almost half past nine by the time we were underway but in contrast to yesterday’s cruising dress code of T-shirt with occasional use of a fleece, today required golf jumper, fleece, hat and gloves. There was plenty of space at Newbold on Avon but the rings were just spaced slightly wrong for us and the ground was a bit soft for pins so we moved on. The Brownsover park moorings were full so we decided to carry on through to Hillmorton. There were hardly any boats on the move, it’s still early in the season I suppose, and this helped us negotiate our passage through Clifton wharf. Quite frankly, they are taking the p*ss by double mooring their boats from the arm right down to the bridge which is already on a blind bend. We didn’t meet anything this time but it would have been a different story over the weekend.
There was plenty of room to moor when we reached the bottom of the Hillmorton flight but we decided to get the locks done and find a space at the top, which we did quite easily. Tomorrow’s forecast is for thick cloud so we think that we’ll stay here and catch a bus into Rugby for the day. With that in mind, I walked into the village to check out the bus stops and times although I did find myself checking out a pint in the Stag & Pheasant too.
Caxton goes home
After yet another peaceful night’s sleep we awoke to blue skies again this morning. We were in no hurry to get going so we took our time and after breakfast we moved Caxton on to the water point just beyond the junction. While the fresh water tank filled, we emptied the cassettes and prepared for the next leg of our journey. It took a while to fill the tank due to the low pressure from the tap but eventually we squeezed the last few drops in and started to reverse back to the iron bridge and the junction with the Oxford canal.
Gongoozlers were already gathering around the bridge and around the Greyhound but we made the turn easily and so were of no interest to any of them. Sue had stayed on the bank and had already prepared the shallow lock by the time I had stuck Caxton’s bow under the cast iron bridge which spans the junction.
The story of Brinklow on the village sign.
nb Dodona was waiting to enter the stop lock as we were leaving so it made for an easy transit for us as we had no gate to close behind us. From there on in we had a very pleasant cruise, the sun shone and the wind only just cooled us slightly as we made our way in a southerly direction. We have passed this way many times before and very little has changed over the years but sometimes familiarity doesn’t breed contempt and this was one of those occasions. It was around three o’clock when we reached the approach to All Oaks Wood and we found a very suitable mooring there.
After sorting ourselves out we locked up and made the three-quarter mile walk into the nearby village of Brinklow. Those who know Caxton will recognise that in a way, Caxton is at home here.
Caxton at home in Brinklow
We found the local church close to the remains of Brinklow castle and climbed to the top of all that remains of the main mound of the Motte and Bailey castle. A full explanation of the construction can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_castle
Brinklow Church
Brinklow Castle
Castle Description
The view from the top was far reaching although too vast to be worth photographing, certainly with a phone at least. Descending the hill was probably trickier than the ascent had been but we managed both without incident and then we made our way back to the towpath where we found our boat awaiting.
A wander into Coventry
After yesterday’s exuberance we decided that we would have a quieter day today. Following a leisurely breakfast we walked along the towpath in the direction of Coventry until we reached the Ricoh arena. We killed a bit of time over a coffee in Starbucks before catching a train from the nearby station and made the six minute trip into Coventry. Sue wanted to visit the nearby Hobbycraft store and while she looked at knitting related items, I checked out the art supplies. In contrast to the day before, this Saturday has been a cloudy and drizzly affair but it wasn’t so bad that we couldn’t walk around the city centre. Lunch was taken at one of our regular haunts, The Establishment and we weren’t disappointed although it was rather busy and noisy today because there were a number of Saracens rugby fans there on their way to the match against Wasps at the Ricoh arena. A little more shopping after lunch followed and then we made our way back to the station and re-traced our steps back to our mooring at Hawkesbury.
Unlike yesterday when the blue skies ensured that the solar panels charged the batteries to 100%, today’s thick cloud prevented a repeat so we ran the engine for an hour to keep them topped up.
We’re on our way at last!
Caxton sits quietly waiting to begin the great escape.
Friday 5th May had eventually arrived, it brought with it my 55th birthday and my retirement date. Sue had cleared the apartment of the last few items that we would be taking on our journey and stowed them on board Caxton on Thursday afternoon. After eating in the nearby Marina restaurant, we returned to the boat and settled in for what would be our last night in Hinckley for some time.
When we awoke on Friday morning, the sun was already shining in a clear blue sky, it looked like we were going to have a perfect start to our trip. We made a final trip to the apartment to check that we hadn’t forgotten anything and that everything was switched off. We were back on board by 8.30 and after carrying out the usual startup checks, we untied, engaged forward gear and set off, leaving behind the mooring that had been our home for the last week. The next thing that had to be done was to turn around at Hinckley wharf and return to the marina to fill up with diesel. It was 10 o’clock when we were passing our mooring again but this time we really were on our way at last.
It remained bright and sunny all day but the cool north-easterly wind that accompanied us on our voyage meant that thick fleeces were the order of the day. We didn’t encounter many boats on the move as we made our way along the Ashby canal and it wasn’t any busier after we had turned left on to the Coventry canal at Marston junction. It took the usual three hours for us to reach our destination and we found a good spot to moor near Hawkesbury junction. It was time to start the celebrations and on this occasion we did so by popping the cork on a bottle of vintage champagne which had been provided by Sue’s son Brett and his wife, Kerry.
Sue had booked a table for dinner at the Greyhound so at half past five we took the short walk along the towpath to the iconic pub. As usual, the food and service were excellent and we washed it all down with another bottle of champers. A bit decadent of course but it had been a special day.
Power of the sun
Using solar power to create electricity is a fantastic idea but it’s not very efficient. At work I have investigated the possibility of installing solar panels on warehouse roofs many times over the years and can never manage to justify the expense. Admittedly, the payback time has improved over the years but nevertheless it still stands at around eight years in the best location. The problem is that the payback depends on government subsidies and as the panels become cheaper to buy and their efficiency improves, so the subsidies reduce and quite rightly so. After all, that subsidy is funded by everyone who pays an electricity bill with a feed in tariff applied to it. Most solar panels today have an efficiency rating of around 19% and the best (and most expensive) can achieve 26 – 28% so there is still a long way to go in their development. Whether we like it or not, the most efficient way to make electricity is in a giant gas fired power station.
On a narrowboat, electricity is produced by an alternator bolted to the engine and although it’s a reasonably efficient process when travelling, it’s a costly business to run the engine when just moored up. Until this year, our boating has consisted mainly of weekends and holidays so we would normally be travelling most days and therefore charging the batteries as we went. Now of course we are just about to embark on a six month long journey and travelling every day is not part of our plan. The idea of running the engine every day or two to charge the batteries didn’t really appeal so I decided to investigate the practicalities of a solar installation.
As usual, there seemed to be a lot of information but much of it unclear or contradictory. In the end, I think that I got to where I wanted to be in terms of sourcing the right equipment and installing it. I got a lot of good information from the Bimble Solar website although in the end only bought mounting brackets from there. The brackets are made from stainless steel and allow the panels to be tilted towards the sun if required. They also mean that the panels can go over the top of things like mushroom vents rather than require a roof area completely devoid of obstructions. An added bonus is that the panels get better airflow around them which will keep them a little cooler than they might otherwise become. Solar panels lose efficiency as they heat up which is a bit of a drawback for something which needs to be exposed to the sun to work!
Bimble mount with security chain.
Mounting brackets from Bimble Solar.
The largest components are the panels themselves and I elected to go for two standard size domestic panels which I bought from Edmondson Electrical in Rugby. These panels are approximately 1m by 1.6m so on Caxton, two of them fit end to end in the roof space between the two houdini hatches. My research had led me to believe that mono crystalline panels were better than poly crystalline but I couldn’t really find out why. My first visit to Edmondson’s changed my mind and this is why. Mono crystalline cells are created using a process not to dissimilar to how you grew crystals as a child at school or at home. The silicon grows until it is large enough to be machined but there is a lot of wasted material due to the odd shapes that are created. The process for making poly crystalline cells involves melting the silicon and pouring it into a mould before letting it cool down and then machining it. This is a quicker process and less material is wasted because the solidified silicon is uniform in shape. In the early development of the solar cells, mono crystalline cells were much more efficient than their poly crystalline cousins. Today there is very little, if anything, in it. Cosmetically, the mono crystalline panels are black which makes them more appealing when bolted to the roof of a house. Poly crystalline panels have a bluish hue but that is of no consequence when mounted horizontally on the roof of a brightly painted boat. The panels that I bought are rated at 260 watts each with a voltage of 32v.
The two panels fit neatly on Caxton’s roof.
The next piece of equipment and arguably the most important piece is the controller. This converts the relatively high voltage from the panels into someting that can be used for charging a twelve volt battery bank. There are two types: PWM and MPPT, here there seems to be no doubt or contradiction, MPPT is the way to go. More expensive but it is in effect a three stage intelligent charger. Bimble sell Epever 40 amp units for just over £200 and they seem to be a reputable make. I discovered that they are made in China and that I could buy direct through Aliexpress for £160 so that is what I did. The unit arrived ten days later followed by an invoice from TNT. The covering letter said that they had paid VAT on my behalf for the import and that was £15. Their admin charge was £20 and the VAT on that was £4. All in all I ended up saving around £4 so my advice would be to just buy from Bimble Solar.
The rest of the bits required I bought from various ebay sellers but I’ll cover those in the next section which describes the installation.
Caxton has a full height cupboard which houses the inverter as well as most of the other electrical switch gear and this is just inside the rear of the cabin area. The first part of the installation was to mount the MPPT controller in the bottom of the cupboard which was straightforward enough, four screws hold it in place. I then connected the unit to the battery bank by wiring it through 16mm2 cable to the heavy duty input/output cables on the inverter. I included a 40 amp fuse to protect the cable but since the controller is rated at 40A and the cable is rated at 70A, I don’t expect to change it any time soon. The next thing was to wire the input of the controller to an isolator switch which would be connected to the solar panels. It is important to get an isolator for DC circuits rather than the more common AC circuits. I got mine from ebay rated at 25 amps. The panels have a total maximum rating of 520 W at around 70V when wired in series so the maximum current can only be 520/70 or 7.5A. After that I cut a hole in the wall panel and installed the small monitoring unit which displays the performance of the panels. Finally, I connected the optional temperature sensor before threading it through the bulkhead and into the battery box where it monitors the temperature of the battery bank.
The Epever MPPT controller and the DC isolator for the solar panels sit inside a cupboard.
With the control end of the installation complete it was time to mount the panels on the roof. Bimble sell a mounting kit comprising of two drills, a tap to thread the holes and some weatherproof mastic. I bought the kit but it was a waste of money. Perhaps the steel used on Caxton is special but I suspect not, the drills were only capable of managing two holes so I ended up buying more from Screwfix. The tap broke in one of the holes so I had to buy a proper tap and die set to complete the job. All in all I drilled ten holes, four brackets with two each and another two into the cupboard for the cables. The mastic provided a seal under the brackets and around the bolts as well as around the plastic box sitting over the cable entry point. Next I drilled the edges of the solar panel frames and then mounted them on to their support brackets. All that remained was to crimp plugs to the ends of the cables that I had bought from ebay and feed the cables through some conduit and into the electrical cuboard before connecting the cables to the isolator switch. The penultimate action was to connect the cables to the panels and then finally to turn the isolator switch on. Electricity flowed immediately and all that remained was to set the controller up to charge the batteries properly. This was done by disconnecting the small monitoring panel and then connecting the controller to my laptop and then running the Epever software. After that I reconnected the monitoring panel and started to observe the activity.
The monitoring panel.
The question is, do they work? In the limited scope of testing, the answer is yes. They managed to keep the batteries at 100% for two weeks when we had mostly overcast days. I then ran the fridge and freezer for a week and still the panels kept the batteries at 99%. I used the laptop to monitor the state of charge over a 24 hour period and saw that after sunset the battery bank eventually dropped to 95% but by early next evening it had recovered to 99%. Bearing in mind that it is still early April, I think that this is an encouraging result. It will be interesting to see how well the system copes once we move aboard full time and increase our power usage.
I reckon that I spent just under £600 installing this system and although the prime motive was that of convenience rather than cost saving, there is a decent payback time. Caxton’s beta 43 engine consumes approximately 1.5 litres of diesel an hour and at today’s price of around £1.00 per litre it’s easy to see that by not having to run the engine for 400 hours we will save the installation cost. We won’t break even in the first year but we will at some point in 2018. This doesn’t take account of the fact that there will be less wear on the engine or the cost of servicing the engine less frequently but those are also beneficial factors. I’m hopeful that when we return to the marina next winter the panels will still produce enough energy to keep the batteries topped up without having to rely on being plugged into the mains supply.
Watch this space for regular updates.
The final preparations are underway
We have entered the final phase before we begin the great escape, next week. I spent last weekend carrying out a few jobs on Caxton. An oil and filter change, fitting a new gas regulator and painting the inside of the gas locker after removing a bit of rust from it first. Sue, meanwhile has been moving stocks and equipment on board before stowing everything away.
On Friday afternoon we paid our final fees to the marina and pulled Caxton out on to the cut. We then cruised the quarter mile or so from Trinity marina to the towpath mooring closest to where we live. We still have a few bits and pieces to carry to the boat but essentially we are now living on board and we will continue to do so until we return from our travels sometime in October.
We had a peaceful night and slept well before we returned home for our morning showers. We’ll continue to shower at home until Thursday and that will conserve our water supply until we set off. The plan is to potter around and continue with our final preparations until Friday morning when we will at last be able to get going. Friday is my fifty-fifth birthday and is the day that I will finish work and retire. At that point we will join the ranks of the liveaboard early retirees and we are both very excited at that prospect.
Hacked Off!!
The blog got hacked. Why do people do this sort of stuff? The blog is a wordpress site on a shared host and has happily ticked over unmolested for the last three years. On Easter Sunday I received an email from the hosting company informing me that dues to unusually high email traffic, the hosting account was being suspended. I was able to get access to the account temporarily and could see that there were emails being generated every few minutes. I disabled all of the wordpress plugins as they seem to be the likely culprits. This stopped the emails but there was another problem, some software was generating referrals and driving traffic to the site and very quickly I exceeded my monthly bandwidth allowance resulting in another suspension. In the end I had to remove the blog from the subdomain caxton.narrowboat.us and create a fresh installation at boating.georgekennedy.co.uk and here it is. So there was no lasting damage done but it has created a lot of work to straighten everything out. There has been no loss for me and I can’t see what the hackers have to gain, maybe I am just missing the point. Anyway, if you had previously bookmarked our blog, you might want to adjust it slightly replacing “caxton” with “www”