The Journey -
Moving On with Rosy

Chaumont, Thursday 30 October.

In the UK Ian Duncan Smith, aka I-D-S, the wannabe prime minister, is no longer leader of the opposition.  His place may be taken by the spelfech impelfedimented (for those who speak the L-F language) Michael Howard.  Meanwhile, somewhere in France ...

Further to the mystery of the overly thirsty Kabola stove, and the 'running out of fuel' situation: the problem hasn't yet been solved, but at least it has been identified (skip the next paragraph if you don't like engines!!)

Rosy has a main fuel tank, and a rather old fashioned 'day tank' aka 'header tank'.  Each morning, I pump fuel up from the main tank to the header tank - it holds about 16 litres, plenty for a day's cruising with the old Kelvin.  Fuel arrived at the Kelvin high-pressure diesel pump courtesy of Mr Gravity, so there was very little excess fuel having to be led back to the fuel tank - for convenience it led back to the main tank.  Enter the new Perkins which comes armed with a fuel pump, and which pumps more fuel than is needed.  Hence a considerable portion (at high speed, up to 70%!) of the fuel arriving at the engine feeds back to the fuel tank.  Indeed, even with the engine not running, fuel bleeds away by gravity from the header tank, through the engine fuel pump, to the fuel filter and eventually back to the main fuel tank.  So the Kabola wasn't being thirsty and, at present, I have to pump fuel up to the day tank every hour or so whilst the engine is running - and turn the fuel off at the day tank when the engine isn't running AND remember to turn it on again when I start the engine.  Needless to say, I'm getting pretty nifty at bleeding the system.  Getting the returning fuel back up to the header tank is a high priority job (I prefer this solution, rather than making the header tank redundant, and taking the feed directly from the main tank).

The trip down to the Soane brought a realisation of the nature of the problem, so once on the river, we managed pretty well.  The voyage up the river went far better than I had feared - I tend to fear the worst.  The engine works fine, though the stern gland, which hasn't dripped a drop in the 3 or 4 years I've owned Rosy, now drips about 0.25 to 0.5 litres a day.

There are still bits of the installation needing to be tidied up, which explains why I'm suffering from an exhausted hand.  No - its not tired, but it grasped the exhaust pipe thinking it was a convenient hand hold - which it was, but it was also very hot!!  I still have to change one or two segments in the exhaust system, so it is not yet fully insulated.

I have enough faith in the engine to indulge in ropeless locking.  Going downhill, I've not yet come across a lock that empties turbulently.  Occasionally one drifts forwards a bit, but a touch of reverse engine stops it.  I've not used ropes going downhill for the last couple of years, except twice when requested to use one by the lock-keepers.

Going uphill is a different proposition, though, in general, if one lurks at the tail of the lock (the French locks are bigger than most UK ones) the ride up is not too bad - BUT it's almost impossible to predict when it WILL be bad, so it is sensible to use a rope.  However, the locks on the Canal de Marne à Saône fill exceedingly gently, via upwellings that occur along the length of the lock.  These are (generally) on each side of it, so that an unroped boat drifts out to the centre of the lock (if the upwellings are on either side) OR is pushed to one side if the upwelling is on one side only.

The journey through the summit tunnel (nearly 5km long) took over an hour and a half, as we were stuck behind a loaded peniche, and our descent down the two locks into Langres was completed in the dark.  It was my second experience of narrowboating in the dark (the first was in winter, heading north at the Napton end of the Southern Oxford) and I can't say that I enjoyed either of them, and hope not to have a repeat experience.

The following morning I set out to find bread.  "It is in the village," said a man pointing up a hill.  So I walked up the hill, and there were acres of empty fields.  "It comes on a truck - it will be here in half an hour," said another man who went off to be replaced by yet another man who said that it had left half an hour ago.  So we had a breadless day.

Then I met my first French vandals - the youths and youthesses of Rolampont take over the Port de Plaisance on Wednesday afternoons (when there is no school in France), drink lots of beer, and drive off all comers with stones and empty bottles.  I'm assured that "the problem is known".  So I didn't moor there.

This canal uses a system where-by a travelling éclusier (lock keeper) potters along the towing path in a car, working all the locks for you - even the automatic ones!!  Madame today had THAT look - the one that suggests that she came from a very small village consisting of just one family who had all been marrying one another for the past few generations.  She hadn't got a car licence, and wanted to take good care of herself and it was cold - so she looked very good - perched on her moped, swaddled up in 'keep warm' gear, partially hidden by her life-jacket, the whole topped off by a crash helmet.  She worked us through 13 locks.

Toodle pip!!

Bill