A collection of photographs of High Line moorings at Northolt, and my boat Shoestring.

There is a log of my first solo trip below...

23 March - Friday

I decided to get some shopping by boat for a change. The nearest place was Bulls Bridge’s Tesco – well I was pointing in the right direction at least! I woke up to the sun warming up the boat, and causing the lining to creak, a great day for a cruise!

The night before, I had tried to start the engine, but there was nothing but a little humph from the starter motor. Ah, I thought, my new battery charger isn’t charging the battery and it’s gone flat over the winter. Fine, I thought, I’ll put the old battery charger on it over night.

Well, boating is never simple (or easy), the engine still will not start, I tried turning the engine by hand, thinking maybe the engine had seized but it turned OK. A closer look at the battery found a corroded terminal, and an even closer look found a lack of water in the cells. I decided it was not worth the risk or time in trying to recover it, so after asking a few nice people on the moorings, the Car Shop, on Northolt high street was suggested.

Since it was less than 5 minutes away I had brought back a shiney new Varta battery for about 60 quid and back in no time. After removing half the wiring around the battery to remove it, I forgot a wire when putting it all back, and so more annoyance!

Finally got the engine going by about 11:30, a quick pit stop at the facilities block, and I was off at 12:00. The sun was beating down, but I didn’t have any sun block, so I had to weather it.

Flat out, Shoestring managed 4.3 mph on the canal. It would probably go a little quicker on open water, but not much. I noticed that there was a large amount of oil vapour coming off the engine at really high revs, I thought it was just some spilt oil. I waved at the kids in the Blair Peach Primary school in Southall, they seemed really happy to see a boat – it won’t take long for them to be throwing stones at them though!

The moorings were full at Bulls Bridge, and I asked nicely if I could moor along side. Some nice people said I could, and so I was off shopping at 1pm.

40 odd quid later, I came back with half a ton of shopping. I pulled the trolley kicking and screaming down to the canal. The brakes had come on before I had reached the edge of the car park! There was now a space on the wall, so I untied, and pulled by hand the boat into the mooring. I don’t know if my neighbours noticed or not!

While I remembered I checked the engine to see if everything was OK, but I could see that oil had been squirting out the top of the engine – a clear pattern could be seen on the bottom of the engine boards that I had cleaned that morning. I noticed that the previous owner had used multigrade oil, so I’m hoping some good monograde will fix the problem, either that or a Lister engine expert (I suspect the later will do more good!).

A quick lunch, and it was already 2:55, so it was time to get back to Northolt. This time with some sun block, and a camera in hand. I had an old Rayburn No 1 stove I had broken up to get out of the boat on the front deck, so I stopped off at a BW rubbish barge moored near Yeading. I could have got a small amount of money from a scrap yard, but the total easiness of just throwing it over board won me over!

Not far from the A40 bridge I came upon a fibreglass cruiser I had passed at Yeading. He was talking to someone on the boat yard bank when I passed. He then passed me when I was unloading but he was going slowly. When I saw him again I thought he was going really slowly, but in fact he had stopped right in the centre of the canal. He asked me to take him over to the bank, but I offered to tow him up to Northolt. Looking at my GPS logs, I was managing 3.5 mph while towing, but that might be due to the light weightness of the other boat rather than any amount of power my engine can produce!

The owner of the boat said he had just been into Yeading marina to get an engine overhaul! I don’t think he was impressed. He was a member of RCR however, and the next day I saw he cruising past quite happily – I’m tempted to join!

I had to continue up to the Black Horse at Greenford to turn around. I noticed one narrowboat with graffiti on it, I’m glad I don’t moor here! Had a good look at Lyons Dock – the factory had just recently been flattened, but a huge mound of rubble had growing in it’s place. I bet no boats are used to move it off the site even though they have their own dock!

Squeezed into my mooring, and collapsed in front of the TV for a bit of relaxation.