Matters continue to deteriorate at the BW water point immediately outside the BW office at Fradley Junction. Somebody (presumably a boater) has made short work of BW’s extensive bagging, taping and tagging, removing it all so as to gain access to the tap.
 310310r.jpg "BW Water Point - Fradley Junction")
A complete collapse of this wall could well be accelerated by those that are prepared to risk using this water point in this condition, orange fence or no orange fence.
Thank you BW – the ground paddle at Woodend Lock (L20) on the Trent & Mersey appears to have been fixed. Well, I am assuming it has been fixed because the tape and the warning notice have gone. I did not have a windlass with me when I passed so I could not check myself to see if it was indeed operating normally.
Time to fix = approximately 2 months.
The water point immediately outside the BW office at Fradley Junction is not yet back in action I am afraid. The Elsan disposal point at the same location is seeing much more action now though. This is because some boaters are opting instead to connect their fresh water hoses to the water tap immediately above the trap!
So OK, BW has fixed a sign at this Elsan disposal point to warn users that the water here is not for drinking. However, are BW management really that naive that they do not expect boaters to take water from here in the circumstances? There is another BW water point located one lock up and around the junction on the Coventry Canal BW has argued.
Most boaters navigating just the Trent & Mersey must surely consider accessing this water point on the Coventry Canal one hell of an inconvenience. Human nature is such that some, due to ignorance or a relatively care-free approach to their health (and that of others), will rank the risk of a dose of Gastroenteritis (or something even worse) as ‘low’. Ergo, they will take water from this Elsan disposal point instead of subjecting themselves to the boating equivalent of a ‘log jam’ that usually occurs at this junction on a daily basis throughout the boating season.
BW has a duty of care regarding the health and safety of the boater and others using the waterways. We all (I propose) know what BW should be doing without further delay , i.e. they should be channelling more effort and resources into repairing the wall that has collapsed so that the proper water point can be put back into use. I wonder if the Health & Safety Executive would hold a similar view whilst enforcing the requirements of the Health & Safety at Work Act and the associated regulations?
One of the new ‘talking’ information posts at Fradley Junction has been ‘bagged and taped’ already! That’s all of two days since it was installed – if bust, is this a record?
On the other hand, if these talking information posts do turn out to be a failure, could it be that the BW staff at the BW information office at Fradley Junction get to keep their jobs for a bit longer?
Whilst out and about over the last few days I have observed the following:
Observation 1) – The ground paddle at Woodend Lock (L20) on the T&M has been suffering from a ’structural malfunction’ since mid-January 2010. I did not add this particular defect to my log – this is because when I first saw it in January the ground paddle gear had already been taped up by BW and a notice applied.
Closer inspection of this notice however has highlighted that, whilst apologetic for any inconveniences caused, BW apparently does not know when it will be carrying out suitable repairs. It would also appear that BW has gone ‘ex-directory’ and would prefer you not to contact them about this particular structural malfunction either. Thankfully there is also a gate paddle at this location, so the lock can still be used. It is already causing inconveniences and is likely to cause even more inconveniences when the volume of boating traffic increases over the next few weeks. Is it really that much of a technical challenge to sort this paddle out?
 160310r.jpg "Ground Paddle - Woodend Lock (L20)")
Observation 2) – Why did the BW patrol officer that applied this notice to a recently sunken boat do so I am wondering? The owner knows that it sank. The ‘BW AWARE’ tape had been applied within a day or so of it sinking, so BW already knows that it sank. Most persons around here and many others that have passed through the area know that it sank. Those that have read this BLOG know that it sank. The boats demise has also been covered on Narrowboatworld, so you can be sure that most of the boaters on the planet now know that it sank.
 170310r.jpg "Flycatcher - Patrol Notice")
Could it be that this boat has been ‘moored’ here for slightly in excess of the 14 day mooring limit? The craft licence is valid, so is this a BW jobsworth in action? I hope that he or she did not waste BW time and effort making a special trip to this location to apply this notice when there are other much more direct ways for formally notifying the owner that the boat must be moved.
It being there however does not represent a hazard for other boaters and there are currently lots of other nearby mooring spaces available for other boaters, should they wish to use them. In saying this, my expectation hope is that BW has also found the time to check that significant quantities of diesel fuel or engine oil will not be discharged into the canal and, if there is a risk of either occurring, taken appropriate steps to mitigate these risks.
Observation 3) – On the positive side – there has been a surge in BW towpath grass cutting activity which can only really be viewed as a good thing, both for boaters and other users of the waterway. Well done BW. Unfortunately, reducing the grass and other vegetation around here in a regulation haircut fashion to a height of approximately 15mm has exposed yet more of the collapsing retaining wall problems I blogged about on 27 February 2010 - be sure that these problems will be drawn to BW’s attention quite soon.
Observation 4) – Those boaters being denied usage of the water point immediately in front of the BW office at Fradley Junction may be interested to learn that BW has found the time and money to install a ’talking’ information point there instead. Similar talking information points are still undergoing installation in the same general area. How can BW can find the time, money and resource to install this sort of thing whilst the retaining wall at this water point still awaits repair? I also noticed in a short article on Narrowboatworld yesterday that BW is now looking into providing a temporary water point on-site. Why doesn’t BW just get on with fixing the bloody wall?
I am pretty sure that there will be some more critique offered up about this debacle soon.
Further to my BLOG on 27 February 2010; a page has now been added to this website describing a new British Waterways maintenance log and my plans for updating it. You can access it from the Pages link or from here:
British Waterways Maintenance Log
Feel free to use this as a template for offering up your own survey information to British Waterways.
Cheers, Chris.
Observation 1) – Today saw a stack of BW cash spent on having a contractor apply a multitude of new white and yellow road markings on both of the approach roads to Fradley Junction.
 1r.jpg "Road Markings")
 2r.jpg "Road Markings")
 3r.jpg "Road Markings")
Observation 2) – About six weeks ago the canal retaining wall at the water point immediately in front of the BW office at Fradley Junction collapsed into the canal and whilst doing so injured a boater – you can read about it here on the Narrowboatworld website if you like.
Observation 3) - Since the collapse described in 2) above, the water point has been fenced off, thus compelling boaters to go elsewhere for their water supply.
So, my immediate question is; why the hell has BW left this water point in this condition whilst allowing precious BW money and time to be diverted to having contractors apply totally bloody uneccessary white and yellow road markings?
Feel free to enlighten me if you think that I have missed something here!
Those of you out there that have developed a habit for ‘hanging their dongle out of a nearby porthole’ might be interested in this bit of kit; a ‘3G router’ from a company called Solwise. We installed one of these routers on BELLE a few months back and we are really pleased with it so far - see photograph below.
The 3G router is plugged into a 230v ac 13 amp socket in BELLE’s office. The USB cable you can see coming out of the bottom of the router goes under the gunwale and connects to a nearby Orange 3G dongle. This dongle has been fixed to the underside of the gunwale using double sided foam tape. An aerial lead then connects this dongle to a small magnetic mount 3G aerial on the cabin roof. The lead is hidden behind the side panels and the roof timbers and passes through one of the cabin roof mushroom vents, so no extra holes required. All very neat and tidy and it improves the 3G signal no end. It also obviates the need to keep ‘hanging your dongle out of a nearby porthole’.
We purchased our magnetic mount aerial a couple of years back from Boaters Phone Company. They are available elsewhere of course - we recommend that you shop around to get the best price. Solwise sells some larger and more efficient external aerials suitable for 3G communications. We have not gone that way yet because we get a reliable 3G signal for most of the time using just the little magnetic mount aerial arrangement described above. Solwise also sells a wide variety of aerial lead adaptors and pig-tails, etc.
This set-up enables us to wirelessly use a laptop anywhere on board BELLE. If the laptop is co-located in the office, then the wireless signal strength is of course 100%. This drops to about 75% – 80% when the laptop is in use at either end of the boat. No problem – it all works OK. In theory, others on board could use this wireless network simultaneously, but the 3G bandwidth might not be up to it – if we ever try this out, we will let you know how it goes.
You can also expand the network to a wireless printer and webcam, etc. It’s pretty versatile really. I have not tried to use our laptop wirelessly outside the boat yet – my guess is that it will not work very well for the same reasons that dongles don’t work very well when located inside the boat. In any case, I have encrypted our network so that others cannot ‘piggy back’ our 3G connection and access our printer, etc..
Those of you interested in doing something similar may wish to note that not all 3G dongles have an external aerial connection, so best check first. If the user guide that came with the dongle makes no mention of an external aerial connection, have a good look on the outside of the dongle anyway to see if you can see a really small cover that when removed exposes a really tiny socket. Our Orange dongle user guide made no mention of this connection at all. If you ask the staff in the local mobile phone shop about this sort of thing, they will probably just stare back at you with a blank expression. Alternatively, there are aerial adaptor products on the market that slide onto the outside of the dongle – Solwise sells these as well.
We have not knowingly encountered any interference problems and the set up is very stable and easy to configure. Many of the 3G dongles these days are supplied with a software application for your computer. Another point to note is that not all of these software applications allow you to create a set up whereby the 3G mobile connection is automatically re-dialed when dropped. Very bloody irritating indeed when you are out and about and encountering periods of poor signal reception. A very useful feature of this router is that you can set it so that it always automatically dials the 3G mobile connection when dropped – brill!
Cheers, Chris 
PS. The eggs were realy nice!
Well, that’s it then for this mini-cruise as we are now back on our home mooring. All good things must come to an end as they say. Still, we can now look forward to the next cruise can’t we. A really nice time overall and very quiet and relaxing indeed.
Somebody who has not been having a very good time at all whilst we have been away from our home area would be the owner of this boat; “Flycatcher“, spotted today on the bottom of the canal just above Shadehouse Lock (L19) on the T & M. Its a shame when a really old wooden boat like this comes to some serious harm - if the damage is extensive, it might turn out to be Flycatcher’s last cruise.
 060310r.jpg "Flycatcher - Shadehouse (L19)")
Rumour here has it that the wooden hull struck something solid on the bottom of the canal. We sincerely hope that the owner gets Flycatcher floated again and re-worked back to somehing like the condition it was in before it sank. There can’t be many examples left on the canals these days. I wonder if it was one or other of those old wall stones we mentioned in our BLOG on 27 February 2010 that caused the damage? If so, could the owner take BW to task about it with a view to getting them to cough up for the recovery and repair work required?
This brings me back to BW and maintenance performance again – the following photograph shows the cill at the top of MIddle Lock (L18) on the T & M. Not only is the water leaking between the gate and the cill, but it is also leaking through the cill itself in several places. Which will come first do you reckon, the cill bursting or the repair? We know that BW personnel examined this cill on 25 February 2010. Let’s hope that BW effects the necessary repairs before something really serious happens!
 060310r.jpg "Middle Lock (L18)")
Cheers, Chris.
Due to commence our journey home today, we awoke to find the canal frozen over. As such, we opted to delay casting off for a while so as to allow the nutters and the blatently determined amongst us to smash the ice up with their boats. We’d much prefer them to remove their blacking down to bare metal around the waterline instead of ours. My guess is that they have not expereinced a weekend’s worth of hard graft in a dry dock applying the blacking in the first place. Alternatively, they might like painting, or its somebody elses boat that they have been let loose in, or maybe they just don’t give a toss. Still, whatever, it works mostly in our favour, so I shall shut up.
We decided to stop over at Taft Bridge (B69) again this evening. We seized this opportunity to purchase our first lot of hens eggs and ducks eggs from the new small holding here that we mentioned the other day. A couple of each have been scheduled for tomorrows breakfast – we shall let you know how they turn out.
Bound to get busier on the canals this weekend we reckon, so its going to be an early start for us tomorrow.
Cheers, Chris.