Another Change of Plan

The day dawned bright and cheery. We said ‘au revoir’ to all the other boaters at our moorings in Toul, and set off to meander up to Chalons en Champagne and back over the next six weeks or so. Or so we thought!

As we entered the first lock, Alex put the boat into reverse and opened the throttle a bit for some power braking. NO response! Well not for three or four seconds, then at last the engine revs responded and we started to slow down.

This delay on the throttle response had been apparent last year, but only once at the start of each day.

As we motored on through the lift bridge and next lock we found the same thing happening every time we let the engine tick over for a few minutes: a delay in the throttle response.

We stopped above the lock out of the Port de France and Alex went into the engine room to see what might be done to effect some sort of repair. Nothing appeared to be sticking: all the relevant parts of the throttle control seemed to be OK. Copious squirtings of WD40 had no effect. So with reluctance we decided to return to base at Lorraine Marine.

Easier said than done, as the canal was too narrow to turn round in! The VNF lock keepers appeared beside the boat to ask whether we had a problem. We explained, and with their kind help, reversed Riccall back down the canal, into the lock, backwards out of the lock and into the Port de France. Riccall normally doesn’t ‘do’ reverse: the prop walk always pulls her off line and the front swings about wherever it wants.

But this time, we did a perfect reverse back into the Port de France round the end of the jetty, the front end swung round in a beautiful arc and we set off forwards back down the canal, AND NOBODY WAS WATCHING. Typical!

Shortly, to the surprise of our friends at the boat yard, we arrived back less than three hours after we had left.

After stripping covers and caps off the control mechanism and checking everything in sight, as suggested by a Gardner expert, we came to the conclusion that the whole injector mechanism would have to be taken off the engine and taken back to Walsh’s near Manchester to be re-conditioned.

Fortunately we had the car at the boat yard ready for our trip back to the UK in June so we booked a ferry for the following week and Alex set about removing the injector/governor box.

The next day we heard about all the planes being cancelled due to ash from the Iceland eruption, and we thanked our lucky stars that we had already booked the ferries. We were also able to offer Sue, a visiting friend of Derek and Fran of ‘Tess’, a lift back home as her flight was one of those cancelled.

We were lucky at Calais too, as we arrived early and the ticket office said we could go on an earlier ferry (which was not listed on our timetable) and we drove virtually straight onto it without stopping. But, though the ferry was pretty full with cars and coaches, it was packed with foot passengers, all being charged about €80 or €100 instead of the more usual less than €20! And we were three adults and a car for €35!

We dropped Sue off in Bishops Stortford, spent the night at Julia’s at Bedford, then dropped the ‘lump’ off at Walsh’s, to be picked up, reconditioned and repainted and like new a week later. And sure enough the following week the whole thing in reverse, (except for Sue of course).

The engine was now back up and running and when at last the gale stopped blowing, we set off for a short trip to Liverdun despite the freezing cold 8oC temperature, to make sure the engine really was OK.

And. . . we also made another change of plan!

Because all these delays made it difficult to fit in a worthwhile cruise on Riccall before June, we decided to come back to the UK much earlier than planned and have a few weeks cruise on the narrowboat instead!!

And . . . we still had a problem with the engine! Just a different one! Now it was not ticking over as smoothly as it should or maintaining a steady rhythm at any revs unless under load. Once under load it behaved fine. So we debated whether we could live with this annoyance or not, and finally we decided as we had just spent a not inconsiderable sum of money on a reconditioned unit it should at least be RIGHT. As we still had the means of transportation in France, the decision was made to take the governor unit back to Manchester and have them look at it again.

Of course our planned return to Riccall, after the wedding, was by air and train, not by car and all was booked and paid for long ago, so the engine governor would have to be road transported back to France for us. Oh well, more expense but hopefully worth it.

So, with that decision made, we decided a short trip away from the moorings would be good, and (apart from the tickover problem) the trip to Liverdun was great. We went for a walk to find more of the route of the old canal we had investigated in the autumn, and hopefully, the other end of the tunnel. Having found it, Alex decided to actually go through the old canal tunnel this time as he thought it was a quicker way back to the boat. Louise, though, didn’t fancy it! ‘Chicken’ you may say, but as it turned out she was right! Alex didn’t have a torch with him (he doesn’t always carry one) and as he went deeper into the tunnel the light became progressively less, and although he could see the exit at the far end it was difficult to see what was directly ahead. So he was feeling his way along the old towpath, stumbling over rock falls from the roof, and wondering if at any minute he might stumble into a hole in the walkway and land up on the dry canal bed 3 metres below! Or if there might be another rock fall from the roof onto his bonce. In fact he felt pretty mad to have taken on the whole expedition, but it did turn out to be quicker even so, but only by a few minutes.

On the return trip on Riccall, on a good wide stretch of canal, Alex decided to do a short speed test to see if a good workout made any difference to the tickover problem and also to establish what she could do against a flowing Rhone. This amounted to just over 6 knots at about 1400 rpm. We still have another couple of hundred rpm available, but Alex doesn’t think it would make much difference to that speed.

What might make a difference would be removing all the weed and mussels covering the bottom of the boat, which have collected over the several months she has been sitting idly in Toul! And of course the speed test made no difference to the tickover problem, so it’s out with the injector box again and back to the UK with it!