Nancy and Anne moving in.
She has two double beds, two heads, one shower, a galley, and a sitting area with a dining table and a small TV. There is room on the bow for a couple people to sit outside, and room on the stern for a helmsman and two others. There is full standing headroom throughout for me (196 cm tall). Thin Lizzy can rock along at almost 5 knots, but there aren't many places where you could actually go that fast and not hit the sides.
We laid in a few days stores from a supermarket near Stoke Prior by using the rental car that our crusing partners Anne and Cameron Graham had rented. The store will also deliver to the boat.
Things got interesting immediately after departing the boatyard in Stoke prior. We headed towards Birmingham and straight into the infamous Tardebigge flight of 36 locks in 4 miles. Our guide book called this a "right of passage" for boaters. For the first three locks an engineer from Black Prince Charters came with us to show us the boat and how to get through the locks. Since we were climbing the sequence is like this;
1. If there is any water in the lock let it out by raising the sluices (after making sure the other end is closed),
2. Open the lower lock doors (normally two, always opening into the lock),
3. Drive the boat in (sometimes involves a little bouncing off the walls),
4. Close the doors and sluices and walk to the other end of the lock,
5. Open the sluices, and wait for the water to come up to the height outside the lock,
6. Open the upper doors (opens out) and drive out.
7. Close the sluices and the doors.
Repeat 34 more times.
Nancy squeezing in.
Anne (our best driver) showing us how it's done.
There was no room between the locks to stop for the night, so the flight has to be done at one go. It was a long 4 miles. We did it in about 4 hours.
That evening we noticed a wet spot at the forward end of Thin Lizzy that kept getting bigger. Of course I immediately piped "Emergency Stations" (thanks to my proper Naval training) and the Rapid Response Team (consisting of the entire boat's crew) investigated. We discovered that we had a freshwater leak from the boat's domestic water supply (200 gallons) that was making the carpet damp. We decided over a very nice scotch (Glenglassaugh - non chill filtered, small batch) that we would not sink overnight, and we left it until morning (doing regular rounds of course). The following day we called Black Prince and they had an engineer on the boat right away, and he replaced the water pump and pressure accumulator in a few minutes and we were on our way. Great service!
Day two was lock-free cruising. For lunch we stopped at a canal side pub and enjoyed a mediocre meal and great beer.
The highlights of day two were the tunnels. We went through two short tunnels as trainers (couldn't find the headlight switch until halfway through the first) and the came to the grand-daddy, the Wast Hill Tunnel, 2500 metres long. It is a very odd feeling running a 62 foot boat through over a kilometer of tunnel built in 1794, especially when meeting boats coming the other way. The tunnels are about 15 feet wide leaving about two foot of manouevering room when two boats pass. It seems very narrow.
Lining up for the hole shot.
Meeting other boats in the dark.
Stay tuned....
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