Well here we are again, trying not to bore you all with more rubbish about the trials and tribulations on RICCALL!
We promised ourselves that we would give up the blog altogether this year but somebody said they liked it. So, just for you Julia, here is the next instalment.
We have had nothing to say for the last two years, what with Covid and Brexit and what not, but last autumn (2021 we were informed by our winter mooring capitaine at Buzet that a tree had fallen onto the back of the boat!
The photos looked pretty horrific but when we arrived, in haste, a few days later, the Communauté de Communes (local council) had cleared the tree from the back of the barge and the damage sustained was one bent back rail and one smashed PV panel (and less importantly, two tarpaulins which had been covering the wheelhouse roof).
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On the plus side, we spotted little Kevin Kingfisher on our deck! |
The effort and cost of the visa makes it questionable as to whether it’s all worth it! But this year as our plan is to travel north again up the Rhone we just can’t rely on being able to achieve that in 90 days.
So we set off from Buzet mid April, for a leisurely trip to Ramonville, Toulouse, for a couple of weeks in dry dock, which we had had booked for ages, this to renew our ESTRIN and replace the keel cooling pipes which we think now have a minor leak (not something to contemplate getting worse on the Rhone).
We were on the Garonne Lateral Canal for two years 12 years ago, and marked up all the bridges in our canal guide as to whether they were passable with roof ON or not - ROFF. We confirmed our notes again when passing through in 2019.
This spring though as we travelled towards Toulouse, we noticed that the water level was up a bit. Even so, as we approached Dieupentale bridge, which our book told us was tight, we thought if the height marker at the bow of RICCALL went though OK, the wheelhouse would, as normal.
The height marker did indeed go through OK but three-quarters of the way through there was a horrendous graunching as the roof struck the underside of the bridge and with 70 tons of inertia behind it RICCALL graunched along for a metre or so. The boat eventually came to a sickening halt.
We were stuck absolutely fast. As we tried to manoeuvre the barge left or right, forward or backward, we could hear the PV panels disintegrating!
We rang VNF and explained the situation as best we could. They said they would send help and be with us in 45 minutes.
The bief was 17 kms long and the usual practice of lowering the water level in the pound, would take forever, even if VNF had been prepared to do it, so we got on with it ourselves.
Alex sprang into action and retrieved our tirfor, which we have kept in deep, deep store since we went aground on the Marne. Having been rescued by a team using a tirfor on that occasion, our first action on getting home that year, was to buy a tirfor on ebay (£50) and have it on the boat.
It’s a heavy old thing and by the time Alex had set it up, worked out again how it worked, tied ropes to bollards on the barge and some fence posts on the shore and given it a couple of pulls on the lever he was knackered!
But lo and behold, at that moment a young man on a bicycle turned up and offered his help. “Oh thanks, Are you sure? That would be great”.
It turned out he was a volunteer rowing instructor and thus very suited to generating a backwards and forwards leverage motion using the tirfor. Being young and strong and taking turns with Alex, after two hours overall, we eventually scraped our way back out of the bridge hole.
We have to give heartfelt thanks to Nicolas without whom we might still be under the bridge. (Of course, VNF never did make an appearance!)
When we reached Grisolles, our overnight stop, we easily discovered Nicolas in his rowing club adjacent to the canal and invited him for aperos. He was very good company, spoke English extremely well, but was preparing his team for an away competition, so could only spend a short time with us.
We finally got to Toulouse but on the journey up through the locks (ROFF for this section, no question) the alternator decided to stop working! So now we are waiting to go into dry dock together with our friends Julia and Richard on ETTIE, during which time Alex hopes to replace two of the PV panels which, although damaged, are still giving some output, get the alternator working properly, mend the leak in the overhead skylight in the kitchen, get the leak on the cooling pipes fixed and refix the rear bollards which were originally seated on wood and which is now rotten - and so it goes on!
After some carry-on with wooden blocks on the crossbeams to accommodate our keel and keel cooling pipes we were eventually in the dry dock and high and dry.
Once we got a closer look, the cooling pipes themselves were still on good shape: the problem was that we had touched something pretty hard at some point which had caused an indentation in one of the pipes, right up to and including the screw fitting into which it was connected.
This is where the slight leak was, and because the screw fitting had been so distorted it would be impossible to unscrew the pipe. So the welder did his best but the proximity of the keel and the underside of the boat meant it was impossible for him to weld the top of the joint (no room, no vision) so a very minor leak still exists.
The rest of the boat has been high pressure washed and sprayed to the water line. The ESTRIN surveyor Willem has been and given the barge a largely clean bill of health and at the same time given Louise and Alex a hefty dose of COVID which we kindly and unwittingly passed on to Richard (ETTIE) who came to supper the following night while Julia was back in the UK.
So we entered our second week in dry dock feeling weak with Covid, but it’s dry dock after all and you have to do what you have to do while you’re there, regardless of how you feel.
In terms of Covid Alex had nearly the worst sore throat he can remember while Louise had a continuous streaming nose: strange – the same disease and two totally different presentations.
When questioned, our surveyor agreed it was probably he who had infected us, didn’t apologise but hoped it had not been too bad!
It was our fault as well, of course, as we always wear masks when shopping but failed to ask Willem to take a test before coming to us, we didn't wear masks while he was with us and we didn't give significance to the occasional coughing fit he had. We let our guard down. Idiots!
We sent off for a replacement alternator from the company which had originally reconditioned ours and at huge expense it was delivered on our second Thursday in dock. At first the output was too high and the Sterling control system went into overdrive to shut it off. Then after a couple of other minor tweaks it decided to die completely, like our existing alternator. So it appears that maybe the standard regulator is somehow taking the alternators out.
We were told of an alternator expert near Villeneuve sur Lot, so we limped back to the free mooring at Escatalens where we plugged in and took the original alternator and control box up to the guys at Villeneuve sur Lot on Monday.
They had some hiccup and didn’t get to look at it till Friday, so the new diodes were supposed to arrive on Tuesday but they then said it would be Monday (6 days later than promised). And we can’t test the regulator until we have got the alternator fixed so to save time and uncertainty we have ordered a new regulator from the UK.
The next disappointment is that with the heat really warming up we thought we would get the recently installed air con working to cool the bedroom. On, no we won’t!! Over the two years or so since we installed it it has run out of cooling gas, so its not working either. So far we are onto our second air con engineer who might agree to fix it. It just needs a re-charge even if there is a small leak. It would last long enough for this summer!
We have moved form Escatalens where they switched off the water and electricity without warning (yes, I know it was all free) to Castelsarrasin. But the spot where we are moored is booked for ROSA the hotel barge next week and we need the continuity of stable mooring so we are now moving to Moissac where we are promised a mooring for as long as it takes.
This is doubly good because Alex has just succumbed to a medical problem in the nether regions which he has had before and hopefully the doctors in Moissac can sort it out again as has been the case in the UK on the last two occasions.
Who said boating was a gentle and relaxed pastime?!
Actually, it turned out over the next few days that the medical problem might actually have been just bruising from the bicycle seat when Alex rode over some rather rough ground. Well there’s a plus!
We collected the car from Escatalens with the kind help of Dee from Zeelandia, who gave us a lift there. When we got to Moissac we caught the train back to Castelsarrasin for the car, but in all this as the weather gets hotter we noticed that the air con in the car was not as cool as it should be, so that’s another thing that needs sorting out!
Having trawled the internet for local garages we did a drive round and hit on one which offered to replenish the car cooling agent the following day for the princely sun of €64. We no longer care now, we will pay anything to get all these jobs done. Unfortunately, air con engineers don't want to know when ‘boat’ is mentioned. So we learned from this and trawled on line again and made a short drive in the car to suss-out a place on the outskirts of Moissac and bingo! The lovely Christine rang her partner and he was prepared to come to the boat, the very next morning, to do the re-charge.
Pascale did indeed come to the boat (another €80 but so what?!). We also heard from the alternator repair guys to say the new regulator had been delivered and everything was ready for pick up.
So after the air-con recharge on the car had been fixed we set off for the 100kms drive to pick up said alternator.
Next day, with some trepidation, Alex re-installed the alternator and new regulator and gave it a go. NO OUTPUT!
To cut a long story short, after two days struggling to find out what was wrong, Alex eventually discovered an earth connection he had made which was incorrect and should not have been made (actually it was a tachometer output for the alternator not an earth as he had thought).
Once that was discovered, everything seemed OK until he reconnected the Sterling microprocessor controller when everything went haywire again. So - disconnect that and just run it on the standard regulator and all seems well.
At last we're off!
