From the Mediterranean to the English Channel Episode 9

OOPS WE’VE SPRUNG A LEAK

Simon Jenkins, the managing director of Norbury Wharf is on a boat buying trip of a lifetime, bringing his first historic barge from the Mediterranean to Belgium, and now onto the Channel coast. Last month the surveyor gave his historic Belgian barge, a clean bill of health and the boatyard welded and painted to get Ambiorix back in the water. But all is not well. This is his story, in his own words.

We awoke the next morning quite excited about planning to get off - we were just waiting for a diesel delivery and for the carpenters to come and do some woodwork that was damaged when the boat was being moved around the ship yard.

No worries as we also had a lot of work to do in putting the boat back together after the repaint. But our excitement turned to dread when we examined the bilges that morning.

The cause of the leak - some old 1911 rivets

Water, and it was everywhere, not deep water but bearing in mind the bilges were bone dry it had to have come from somewhere. Was it some damage on the hull from moving this 130 ton boat around the ship yard? We wouldn't know until it was lifted back out of the water for further inspection.

Now I've seen hundreds of boats on the dock at Norbury and also ones that have had leaks so I have a pretty good idea about such things. Unfortunately I could not get into the bilge space.

This area was about 2ft 6” high but pretty much full of ballast from bottom to the floor so my poor partner Amanda - she is only little - had to crawl in to the space, firstly to pump out all of the water - about 70 litres and then to try and find the leak.

After a few days the leak turned in to a weep and almost healed itself up, and I had a good idea it what it would be - probably a leaking rivet. With a bit of tenacity from Amanda she found the area of the offending rivet and so it was that once the slipway was free we were hoisted up again, this time only far enough to see the affected area.

When I say tenacious I meant it, as its no mean feat finding a leak on such a big boat. We had managed to measure the position of the leak on the inside and then transfer that information to the outside where Amanda proudly pointed at the spot.

This happened to be on an over-plated section of the hull and the workmen set to and cut a 12” x18” patch out and - lo and behold - there were three old 1911 rivets that had popped.

Welding the rivets and patching the hull

It was easy to weld them up, weld the outside of the plate up, and then weld the patch back in. A few hours later, all painted, we were off down the slipway once more to the river Meurse.

We set off enthusiastically, as we had been there so long we wanted to get on the move again heading further North, much waiving to Akim, and Michael and the other staff and we were off heading North and through the Lock at Namur and shortly on to new waters.

The river  Saone joins the river Meurse at Namur and is a much smaller waterway, as we left the last lock in Namur we let a rather large commercial go in front of us. The rules say to give way and precedence to commercial craft and only right too.

These large commercial boats take up most of the waterway

Yes we are sort of commercial, as the boat will ultimately be sold for profit, but we are not time dependant like these guys! As we turned on to the Saône we had to wait behind this large commercial vessel as another one came around the tight bend taking up the entire width of the water way in doing so. The boat in front slowly moved off and that also filled the entire waterway. We were glad we were following that and didn't meet the one coming the other way.

At the first lock it is very industrial and we had to wait several hours for the commercials to pass through this very slow lock. The Sambre goes all the way from Belgium and in to France - 87km long - but we were only going about half way before we turned off.

It is pretty much an industrial canalised river with lots of commercial traffic, and not very wide so navigating it was a little tricky, we shared some locks with commercials when there was space - and they were very accommodating indeed, going diagonally if needed so we could squeeze in diagonally behind them.

We pushed on all day long until the locks closed and we were forced to tie up above a lock just as it was going dark. Nice mooring and very quiet. This river has bankside moorings above the locks which is much more pleasant than the Rhone.

Next morning we were up early as I wanted to clear this industrial canal and head out in to a more rural scene, not too many locks to do, but all big ones with lock keepers. We managed to clear the last lock before it closed, and that was great as we were then on cruising out in to the countryside and no more locks-well at least for that day.

Unlike the UK canals where you can stop almost anywhere, it is not so easy to moor on these big commercial waterways. The passing boats don't slow down and the banks can either be quite high or slope in to the water. So we pushed on along the Canal de Charleroi a Bruxelles towards the next junction where I knew there was a good quay with excellent bollards and in a nice quiet place.

Passing a long commercial boat with a female skipper

We passed only one other boat, a loaded commercial about 100m long and steered by a lady. It’s not uncommon for women to steer these big boats on the canal in Belgium. It started to get darker and by the time we reached our mooring for the night it was pitch black. This boat lights up like a Christmas tree if you turn all of the outside lights on, which I did, making mooring really easy and we must have looked like a space ship coming in to dock!

In the next episode: Heading for the coast – via the biggest boat lift we have ever seen.