Apologies for no news. The last 3 days have been very difficult. Now that we and understand and are coping with the situation I am able to write it up…..
On Thrsday 3rd I hit a bridge – a very solid hit that knocked a few cups and glasses out of a cupboard but apparently had dcaused no other damage.
So we set off happily on Friday morning reaching Wootton Wawen at lunchtime. When we had moored up Dense stepped down into the cabin to find it an inch deep in water and getting deeper. When I looked in the front hold of the boat I found about 1 foot of water. This area was in theory completely isolated from the rest of the boat.
Fortunately we had a hand pump on board so we spent about 4 hours pumping out perhaps 100 small bucketfulls of water. Oddly there was no evidence of any further water leaking into the boat. There is a boatyard at Wootton Wawen so we asked for help and one of the staff came over and ckecked everything he could think of. But he could find no obvious reason why the boat would leak in so much water which would then stop. At this point Denise’s sister left us as there was no further help she could provide.
On Saturday, after talking on the phone to a local narrowboat engineer we decided to carry on towards Stratford where there were facilities to carry out further investigation. However within a mile water was pouring into the front hold again. It was clear the boat only leaked when travelling at a reasonable speed. So we returned slowly to Wootton Wawen.
Back there Denise found the there was a small hole punched in the front of the hull about 2 inches above the waterline, which suddenly explained everything. At this point we called out River Canal Rescue (RCR) who sent an engineer equipped with a drysuit to get into the canal and patch the hole with tarpaulin and strong sticky tape held in place with large magnets. We were advised that this would enable us to get back to base where the boat could be properly repaired.
We are now on our way back, keeping to a low speed and being very careful when using the locks.
So ends our planned 6 week summer holiday.
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