Time travel.

The Marina from the Bridge, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

An available mooring on the Lancaster Canal is a rarity indeed. The Lancaster is one of the most traffic intense stretches of canal in the UK. Much of that traffic is made up of GRP cruisers, both wide and narrow beam, but it is increasingly being supplemented by steel narrowboats, some of which are locally based, others visiting from the 'main' system, via the Millenium Link. All of which need moorings, either permanently or as visitors. The three main commercial marinas (Moon's Bridge, Bridgehouse and Garstang) are as full as a marina can be. They don't even have a waiting list as there is no point in operating one. The smaller marinas like Pendle Marine and Nu Way at Carnforth never seem to have any space, new marinas being built at present, like Barton are filling up with boats before they have filled up with water, and the BW waiting list is difficult to negotiate, (although anecdotal evidence suggests that a proactive approach can be productive).
Since it is very difficult to find any sort of mooring on the canal, and it is almost impossible in the marinas, the mooring that 'comes with' a boat tends to be where it is kept. So a Bridgehouse Marina boat tends to remain a Bridgehouse Marina boat through many owners, a Moons Bridge boat tends to...etc.
So if, like me, you are happy with the marina you are using at present, you will probably buy another boat which is already there, and keep it in the same place.
Which means that, in theory, I have already seen the next boat I am going to own.
Which is a bit like seeing into the future.
No, actually, I haven't got anything better to do.

A place in the sun.

www.norman23.co.uk, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Just back from a few days on the boat. An idyllic time, plugging up and down the canal, taking it easy and preparing myself for a return to work next week. This summer may well have been rubbish weather wise, but it has been as good as I have ever known in every other sense. And a few sunny days on the canal this week were very much the icing on the cake. The sounds of wildlife, the dappled light reflecting on the deckhead, cheerful greetings from other boaters, and fishermen on the bank...
I may have fumbled and bumbled my way through the last 51 years, but I know that life rarely gets any better than this.

Cathouse Bridge

Cathouse Bridge / Morning Walker, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Taken on a calm morning earlier this year, this picture is but a distant memory. Driving Henry down the canal in the wind last week was rather like sailing a Mirror Dinghy with the centreboard up.
I recall that particular feeling from my youth as a cadet at the Essex Yacht Club. Returning to the jetty at the end of a race, we would lift the centreboard up completely so that we could sail straight up the slipway and step ashore without getting our feet wet. Guaranteed to impress female cadets if you got it right (probably) but a complete disaster if you lifted too late (always surprising how quickly a sailing dinghy will stop if the keel hits the end of the slipway) or too early (sideslip ruins your aim completely and crashing into the sea wall was never good for your image).
I might have improved Henry's steering recently, but controlling a flat bottomed canal cruiser in a confined space when it is blowing a gale is more a matter of luck than judgement.
That's my excuse anyway.
And I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the helmsman of the big green narrowboat I met at Bridge 73 on Tuesday.
You're right. I should be able to make my boat stay still in the water while I wait.
All I need is a centreboard and lots of ballast.

Henry moored near Bridge 67

Henry moored near Bridge 67, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

To my immense relief, I may have solved, at least partially, the mystery of Henry's wayward steering.
Conventional 'Norman' wisdom (sic) has it that the 23 hull needs extra weight at the front to make it steer in a straight line. I have tried any amount of extra weight under the forward bunks, in addition to the stack of concrete blocks that were already installed there by a previous owner, with little, if any, improvement. I have made guests sit under the foredeck on swelteringly hot days while I drive up and down the canal and I have measured the freeboard of every other Norman 23 in the marina, and matched mine to those whose owners appear to have cured their boat's wandering. To the millimetre. Really.
Even after all this Henry still swayed down the canal as if she was looking for the kebab van in Basildon High Street after an all night hen party. She would track nice and straight for a few seconds, then start a gentle swing to one side or the other, which quickly became a more pronounced veer despite my timely correction, until I finally had so much opposite lock on that she had no option but to swing suddenly back the other way, which again needed far more correction than was reasonable...etc. Oncoming boaters would either smile indulgently at me as if I was driving an Austin 7, or avoid eye contact, presumably in case I started asking them daft questions like "Please Mister, can you teach me to drive a boat?"
But all that is just a distant memory now. While looking at the boat from the other side of the marina, I noticed that the outboard shaft was far from vertical. In fact it was tilted in towards the transom by 10 or 15 degrees. The picture above shows this quite clearly, and I am reasonably embarrassed that I have never noticed it before.
I may be fairly numb in many ways, but even I know that it should be as near vertical as possible so that the prop is at the right angle and the cavitation plate is flat.
A quick adjustment of the thrust pin (two stops out) and a trial run told me that I had hit the nail on the head at long last.
Henry's steering is possibly still not quite perfect, but, in fairness, I have OCD'd so much about this issue that I now can't tell if it's me or the boat at fault.
Still, at least I won't be getting the vintage car driver's pity smile any more. And that is definitely something to be grateful for.

Narrowboat Jemima, burnt out on the Lancaster Canal

Jemima, burnt out on the Lancaster Canal, originally uploaded by Bay Photographic.

Seen while spending a peaceful week cruising up and down the canal in Henry. The heat of the fire had buckled the steel plate of the superstructure and destroyed the interior, but had left the Yamaha outboard on the transom intact, along with the gas cylinder in the cockpit. I don't recall seeing Jemima on the canal before this, so I have no idea what state she was in, but she is well beyond repair now. A shame to see a boat like this, and I can only hope that the owners were insured.