Vlog 335: Nimble Boating

There are some aspects of the boat’s refurbishment that simply can’t be achieved (or are difficult to do) while it’s in the water so in this video I took the boat from its mooring at Stourport a little way down the river to a wharf where it’s been hauled out so that I can work on it on dry land.

Having not started the engine for at least five months while the boat was unused over winter, I was mildly concerned that it might prove difficult or that the petrol which remained in the tank (and there was quite a lot of it) would have gone off. Rather splendidly, it took only a handful of pulls on the starter cable, along with a bit of swearing, for the ancient Honda outboard to splutter into life.

It does rather spew a little fuel out onto the water upon start up but I have been told by several folk that this is due to a maladjusted carburetor. That said, I intend to change the outboard to one with an electric start (having examined the current unit after bringing Twiggy ashore, it seems there is not sufficient space or gearing mechanism to retro-fit an electric starter unit).

Unfortunately, the weather was against me on this short trip with plenty of rain hammering down which made operating the four locks (two, two-lock staircases out of Stourport basin onto the River Severn) a bit of a soggy affair though I was fortunate to be able to keep the boat’s canvas canopy up throughout the trip with sufficient height available under the marina bridges. Steering down the Severn was then largely done by poking my head out of the side of the canopy and there was fortunately no other boat traffic to be seen that day.

The lift up onto dry land went swimmingly with thanks to the chaps at the yard and Twiggy was lowered onto a rather ancient and not entirely suitable trailer but this was a temporary measure until a more permanent spot could be found (update from the future: it has!)