October

We're currently spending half term working on Misterton. Hooray! Sort of....Making progress but sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees. I'll put some more pictures on later in the week, for now, heres part 24 by Mary.

Massive in Staines

My mother took this nice picture when she and dad visited us the other day, as they dropped by to see progress. I did note that they made themselves scarce after lunch when the paintbrushes came out. Maybe I should offer food after work?

And working we have been.

One of the reasons that Misterton was towed to Staines was the fact that she is sitting too high out of the water for her propellor to get a decent 'bite'. This picture shows that it was only just below the surface.

When we first saw Misterton, she was about 8 inches lower in the water than this, due to a combination of the junk the previous owners had stored aboard, and also the general levels of dampness beacuse of the holes in the deck etc. Well, since clearing out and fixing all this, she's sitting too high, so we had to put something back in.

Various things have been used as ballast, from gravel, through to poured concrete. For various reasons I decided to use steel, as its compact and movable (should we ever need to). Several tons of 10Kg scrap bars duly arrived and luckly the delivery company was able to place them by the dock.

Most of this weekend was spent putting this into the space underneath the workshop floor, I did about 4000Kgs on saturday, Mary helped with the last 2000kgs on sunday. We still have a couple of tons to go further up the boat.

I forgot to take a picture, but the propellor is about 3-4 inches lower, which should help. We may need to add more, but we'll get more of the interior done first and see where things end up.

Tired? Oh yes.

Made it

It was a long day on saturday, we got up at 3:45am and were standing at the end of a dimly lit alleyway in Rochester by 5:20am trying to spot Misterton in the dark. We were met by Alan Pratt, the tug skipper and by 6:30am we were away. The Thames estuary was rougher than I'd anticipated, with solid water coming over the front of the tug. At times all I could see of Misterton behind us was the wheelhouse, the rest was obscured by spray and water.

For a while it was pretty rough out there, I wondered if I'd feel sick, but I didn't. I was also worried about Mary, but she was smiling away as she sat in the corner of the tug' wheelhouse. Turned out she wasn't really sure about the conditions, but thought she'd just smile anyway. I knew my worries about being ill were unfounded when I managed to wolf down a fry up in the cabin below while we bounced around.

We got to see all the London landmark sights from the water, Dartford Bridge and the Barrier, both of which Mary's dad had worked on. Tower Bridge was good, friends Piran and Loretta were there and took these photographs.

Almost as big as HMS Belfast ;-)

We made it to Teddington by about 4:00pm and I think we all thought we only had a couple of hours to go. Alan phoned his wife to get her to come and pick him up from Staines, reckoning we'd be there in about 2 hours. Well, it took a bit longer than that, there were 5 locks in all, and the lockeepers went off duty at 5:00pm, so we had to do the last three ourselves or with other boaters. At one lock we met a gloomy chap who told us it would take 5 more hours to get to Staines (in fact, it took about 2) which was worrying Alan as his wife was already there waiting for us. Luckily, Claire, our landlady, found her and made her a cup of tea, so all was well.

Finally at about 7:30pm we tied up Misterton with the tug Nipashore alongside and we were home.

Part 22

From Mary here. Misterton is now in Kent, we're planning to bring her up the Thames this saturday. Excited? I've hardly slept. :)

Goodbye Goole

Lynn Pease sent me these pictures taken by Alan (Pease, her husband and our boatbuilder). Misterton was picked up by Alan Pratt and his crew on the tug Christine and is now somewhere in the English Channel on her way down to London.

Its been a long time coming, and I feel very excited about getting her to London and a little sad at leaving Goole. We never intended to spend so much time there, but we've met a lot of lovely people and its the place we've spent countless days over the past 18 months.

I also realised for all her life, Misterton has been based within about 20-30 miles of where she was built in Beverly in 1923.

I'm struck by how great she looks compared to a year ago, we've come a long way.

Changes all round then - as Vinnie Jones said 'it's been emotional'.

I'm off for another beer before I start singing sea shanties...... :)