Sunday, 22 May 2011

and a planned 30 mile trip became 19 miles


the first lock in Loughborough with views of the 3M factories

A glorious day
It's the last Saturday before the big trip and Jonathan is happy to do a final long trip with me on the grand union canal. I pick him up 7am. The weather is blue sky with a few clouds and a breezy south-westerly wind. the air-temperature is about 15degC and the water feels warmer.
A return trip from Barrow to Loughborough is 9.5 miles, so the plan is to do this 3 times; thus nearly 30 miles.

Reminder to self - don't drill a hole and forget to plug it
We are in the water at 8am from our regular start at Barrow-on-Soar and get going. After about 30 minutes it feels very wet in the bottom of the kayak, and I complain to Jonathan that he should not splash so much. But the depth of the water seems to be more than should be in the boat just by splashing. So I lift up my splash deck to see what is going on below-deck, and see a decent puddle. There is water leaking into the kayak. I look around and realise that one hole I drilled to fit the new runner in a slightly position, but was not needed, had not been sealed off. Silly mistake #1. The next mistake is that I left all the spares and repair stuff in the car. So a twig of haw-thorn with the bark stripped, and of the right diameter was pushed into the hole. This stopped the leakage such that we could continue the trip.

and 30 becomes 20
It is clear that we are both tired and the trip is going slightly slower than planned. After 10 miles we stop off at the pub for a bite to eat, and Keith, Jonathan's dad has kindly brought some coffee, which goes down nicely. We repair the hole properly with a little bolt and washers, and set off for the next round trip. When we get to the end of Loughborough, we have a can of belgium's finest and make an assessment of the time it has taken thusfar. We are averaging with all the breaks and repair stops 10 miles in 3 hours. Thus that would mean 20 miles in 6 hours. This is slower than anticipated, so we decide, to get back to the start point and finish this trip. So we do 19 miles in the end.

The final back-up solution tested - strings around the feet to move the pedals.
In case the ball-bearing runners break, a back-up solution is tested. Simple bits of plastic tube to rest your feet on, connected by a nylon string to the steel rudder cables. The system works alright. It is not as nice to operate as the plastic footholds, but does the job well. The only thing required is to wear your shoes as the nylon string was digging into my feet.
I will think about a slightly mode ergonomic back-up solution..

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