Keeping a Bee

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This post started in January.   Scroll down to find the he latest update

****POST UPDATED 12th August 2016****
(update title is "Dawn")

Apologies for the break between updates.   I have had a very busy time of late getting the new book ready to publish!

Bee 1

The one that got away (almost)

I found this photo of a once prolific style of boat on the internet.

 

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 Not long before my sixteenth birthday we were heading slowly back down the river at the end of another summer holiday and were tied up for lunch on some nondescript concrete edging at the end of which was a half sunken boat. After over forty years I can't remember where on the river we were but I do remember the 19 foot front cockpit plywood Dolphin cabin cruiser half full of water with a couple of small fish swimming around inside it. It had clearly been there for some time, and would, if nobody did anything, have sunk. The name “Willow Wisp III” was clearly visible on the bow, the steering cable, which I was able to lean over and try, was completely seized solid, as were the throttle and gear-shift. Seeing my interest, my dad suggested that I should ask the nearby boatyard if they knew anything about it. Surprisingly they knew of the owner and, better than that, they wrote a phone number down on a sheet of paper for me. In the days of mobile phones I'd have been able to ring straight away (making the assumption that I'd have been allowed to have one) and the story may have had a different outcome. As it was, I had to wait until we were back home two days layer to get in in touch with the owner. The man that answered the phone sounded a little surprised, and said that he'd lost interest in the boat for reasons he didn't want to go into, and that I was more than welcome to make him an offer for it. Twenty pounds was the sum we settled for, and the man said there was an 18 horsepower Evinrude outboard that I could have for another twenty if I got the craft back in order. I contacted the boatyard to say the deal was going ahead and they said they'd lend me a “Henderson” pump which would be more than adequate to get the water out of the thing, after which Dad said he could tow it back behind the extremely underpowered Nyzark, where it would eventually find its way onto some hard standing in Kingston Power Station's unused barge house where I could work on restoration. The whole project seemed viable as, even with my limited abilities in woodwork, I would have been able to repair and replace bits of the sheet plywood hull, and other parts, as required. Two days before the proposed expedition to raise Willow Wisp III we were contacted by someone who had kindly towed the boat in its half sunken state to the dinghy rollers alongside the weir (I'm afraid I can't remember which lock it was attached to). I wasn't too worried abut this as we were allowed access and, with the borrowed pump, set off to complete the rescue.

On arrival at the rollers we found that Willow Wisp III, having been towed without being emptied first, had finally sunk to a point that the outboard well was now underwater. Worse than that, the powerful “Henderson” pump was an old, but rather large, semi rotary hand pump. Worse still the thing didn't actually work either. We did our best to heave the craft onto the rollers but, yet again they were meant for much lighter craft, and were not in any fit state of repair either. In particular, the shallow gradient at the bottom end had at some point, snapped or sunk, to leave a step that was too much to get the water laden Willow Wisp III onto. Another tack was tried, which was to lash tarpaulin over the outboard well and manually bail the craft out. This too resulted in failure. The whole afternoon was spent in ever more futile attempts to re-float the craft, but without the cash to hire a decent petrol powered pump, and to get the outboard well even a little bit watertight we were forced to give up. I've often wondered if the boat was rescued and still regret that I wasn't able to be the person that did it. I was only sixteen and, though disappointed, accepted that the job was too big for me. I remember Dad saying that If I really wanted to own a boat, he was far more in favour of that than me owning a motorbike. I know my limitations as far as balance goes, and never really fancied the idea of hitting the ground at anything more than walking pace. I said nothing though, but was pleased that Dad wanted to help.

After looking round for some time, we found, at Thames Ditton marina, a small clinker built cabin cruiser sitting on blocks in the car park. She wasn't in the best condition and was rather expensive as part of the deal included a nearly new 7.5 horsepower Mercury outboard. A closer look revealed that the deck on top of the cabin was in a very poor state, and light was visible between the cabin front and the bow deck. We were given the phone number of the owners, and that evening I rang them. The first thing to ask was if they were willing to split the boat and motor into two separate sales, and to ascertain how negotiable they were on price. They were happy to do both, and we agreed on £150 for the boat, leaving the marina to sell the outboard. My life savings at that time were £180, which was in a building society account that I had no access to without parental permission. That night there was one of those conversations between Mum, Dad, and Granny. Dad had an uphill challenge, the clincher of which was that in just over a year I'd have been able to buy a second-hand motorbike, without permission. At that time it was permissible to ride a 125cc machine on a provisional licence which, given that I hadn't so far even ridden a push-bike, struck fear into Mum and Granny who saw the boat as a suitable money pit to keep me distracted from alcohol loose women and road going vehicles.

One condition of sale was that the owners, a retired couple, wanted to see me before they sold the boat to me. They were both canal enthusiasts, had visited several festivals and wanted the boat to go to someone that had the same enthusiasm. I must have impressed them, as, without my asking, they said that I could have the boat for £125 rather than £150. My memory of them was that they were a really nice couple. I seem to remember their name was Nicholson, but I may be wrong. I handed them a cheque, and Bee 1 was then my boat. All I had to do was get her ready for the water with very little cash. 

 And the one that didn't.

This is yours truly at age seventeen with his life savings in wooden form.

An Accident with Custard.

Here is the bright red cabin top of Bee 1 about a year after restoration.

 The following weekend, I caught the bus to Thames Ditton, walked into the car park, and couldn't quite believe what I'd done. Sitting on blocks on the hard standing with cars parked nearby was Bee 1, and I owned her. Rather than go straight to her, I went to the chandlery shop to seek permission which, given that they already knew me by association with Mum and Dad, they said I didn't need. I walked back to the boat and stood looking at her with a feeling that the situation still wasn't quite real. I owned a boat, albeit a somewhat shabby one, but I owned her outright, she was mine. I undid a few of the brass turn-buckles that secured the rather rotten canvas and found a stout looking box to use as a step. Once in the cockpit, I unlocked the cabin doors to start assessing what needed to be done. The boat had been out of the water for a long time but was still pretty well equipped for something that small. All of the contents, however, would have to be unloaded before any repairs could be done, and there were plenty required. The cabin top was probably in the poorest state and, with hindsight, it would probably have been a good idea to replace it with a new sheet of marine ply had I have had any money to do it. The worst thing was that it had been covered with a diamond patterned plastic covering that was supposed to seal it completely, which it probably did for a while, until water started to creep in from any glued edge to leave a permanently wet layer between it and the wood. Also one of the deck rails had been badly knocked, and had come away with a few layers of the plywood, leaving a small hole near the back of the cabin. There was the gap that I'd noticed between the front deck and the cabin front, through which light was visible across the whole width. Dad had suggested that canvas and old paint were the solution to my problems, and, with un-proofed cotton “Duck” being cheap, and old pain being more or less free, it seemed a good solution. I was able to set to work to get the old rails and deck covering off the craft, a task that was surprisingly easy given that the glue holding the plastic no longer had any strength whatsoever and the brass screws securing the deck rails were all pretty loose.. A tin of wood filler, which cost very little closed the small hole in the cabin roof, and, after a day sandpapering I was good to go with the paint. After a raid on the garage for old cans, plus a couple of cans showing up that were being thrown out by the marina staff, I started the job. The dried out wood soaked the paint up quicker than toilet paper, but I soon had a suitable coat of sticky gunge to lay the canvas across. Once this was done, a task that didn't take too long, it was time to stipple more paint through the canvas until it was totally saturated. I had a large tin of custard yellow gloss for this job, and all went well until I was almost finished, whereupon I dropped the tin on the top of the cabin, spilling a fair amount which proceeded to run down the side of the boat, which I had intended to keep in its original varnish finish. It now had an untidy vertical yellow stripe down it which took me longer to clean off that it has taken to do the whole of the decking! I finished the day late, covered in various colours of paint, and seriously fed up. The job was, however, done. The decks of Bee 1 were now watertight, and, as soon as they were dry, I had a tin of Royal Mail red paint to put a top coat on. Thankfully I'd learned my lesson, and was very careful not to spill this one, and it took one sunny afternoon to apply the final coat, tack the beading along the edges, and trim the canvas. I finished the weekend with yet more paint on my trousers, but a feeling of both achievement and of optimism that I could actually see the job through. I think my total spend that weekend was less than £5 which seemed, even then, to be a tiny amount for the transformation it made.

Golden Syrup

Bee 1 with her new nameboards

Having got the cabin top and front deck watertight, it was time to sort the peeling yacht varnish from the cabin sides and all the hull. I was lucky in that, along with the boat, came a reasonable amount of the stuff and other paint products that had been used for general maintenance which had been stored either in the cabin or cockpit. There wasn't quite enough varnish but I only needed a relatively small quantity to add to what I already had. First though, I had to prepare the ground. In these days of cheap Chinese made power tools I'd have risked electrocution with an unbranded mains powered sander, or explosion with a battery powered one. Then though, I only had one option. Cork block, sandpaper and elbow grease. Though tiny by cabin cruiser standards, 15ft 6 inches is a lot of boat to sand, and I also had the joy of keeping finding little bits of yellow paint that I hadn't managed to get rid of in the previous clean up. The whole job took all of my spare time for a week, at the end of which I felt that I'd made Bee 1 look a hell of a lot worse than she'd looked at the start of my effort. There was only one thing for it, start varnishing! Another bus ride, with some more paint brushes I'd purloined from the garage, and I was again ready to go. The weather was warm, and I have always found that painting is quite therapeutic, so I settled to working away, brushing the syrup coloured yacht varnish on the cabin sides and hull whilst listening to my radio which was perched inside the cockpit. The wood was quite dried out and soaked the first and second coat up with little change to its appearance. I think I put four coats on in all over the period of a week, and perhaps a fifth on the cabin sides which had been in a very poor state. One of my happy memories of the time is standing back looking at a newly varnished plank glistening in the sun and the new single by Roy Wood's Wizzard, “Angel Fingers” got its first play on Radio One.

As is the case with boats, there is always another job to be done when you think you've finished. I'd taken the name boards off in order to paper behind them, and was simply going to reattach them when the varnish was dry. Having looked at them though, I felt they were a bit too battered and decided to take them back home for a repaint. That evening I set about sanding the first, only to find that water had got behind it (where it hadn't been painted) and, as a result, it had decomposed quite badly. Checking the two, I found that one was in as poor a state, and the other wasn't so hot. The following day I managed to find a suitable piece of scrap wood that was big enough to make three new name boards. It took me quite a while to get them all the same size, and each got three coats of white paint before I started with the lettering. Using graph paper as a guide, I drew the letters out and then traced them, going over the back with a very soft pencil so that a mark would transfer over to the pristine white gloss of the boards. It took a few hours to paint the name three times over, and get each board looking the same. I used a small artists brush and black Humbrol enamel (from my Airfix kit days) for this. By the end of the week I had some quite presentable boards, which I proudly attached to the boat. I now felt I had something that looked quite presentable, and which was also beginning to feel believably mine. There was still a lot to do, including getting something to power it with. I'd been told by the previous owners that the 7.5 Mercury had been a bit of a mistake on their part when they bought it to replace an earlier outboard. It was a very well engineered machine but was a bit on the heavy side, and Bee I was overpowered with it. On the river it wasn't so bad, but on canals, on the low throttle settings, they found that it tended to run a little too cool, and, even with the 50 to 1 petrol oil mix, spark plugs used to oil up quite frequently. With this, and a budget of £30, in mind, I set about the task of finding something suitable. It was to be a long search.

I need power Scotty!

The right tool for the job, a 1968 Mercury 3.9

In the days of no Ebay or Gumtree, it was classified ads, the Exchange and Mart, and basic cycling around to every boatyard in the phonebook that was the method of searching. There were quite a lot of old outboards available, but most of them seemed to be the 1 ½ horsepower variety that wouldn't have had the punch to push the boat on the Thames, though they'd probably have been fine for canals. The first machine I remember finding was made by a company called Clinton who, I thought, made motors for lawnmowers. The thing was pretty old and battered, but had the look of a “proper” outboard. The person I spoke to at the yard said he didn't know much about it except that it made a bit of a clatter, and that he wanted £50 for it. Next in line was a 4 horsepower British Anzani which would have been suitable on power, reliability and condition. They were a simple machine, with a permanently engaged forward gear, meaning that when you started the motor, it immediately propelled the boat, and kept doing so until you stopped. O.K. for going along the river, but not so good for manoeuvring in locks etc. I would have bought this but someone wanted it for a sailing boat and offered the seller more money than I had. The same place had a 4 horsepower short shaft British Seagull for sale at a price that I could afford. Problem was that it was a short shaft, designed for either an outboard well or a sailing boat with a lower stern or motor bracket. The yard must have had the thing cluttering the place up for some time, as they offered to fabricate a bracket out of scrap steel for me as part of the deal. Feeling that this was about as good as I would get, I accepted the offer and now would be able to move Bee 1 when she eventually went in the water.

The bracket, when it did show up, was made of pretty thick steel, weighing about a quarter as much as the outboard. It was well put together and I duly attached it to the back of the boat with four large bolts. My “Jim Stratton” moment came some time later when, at the power station barge house, I attached the British Seagull, and set about pulling the starter cord. In my book, “Mayfly” Jim simply goes through the motion of starting a rather better machine on a day when nobody else seems to be around. I wasn't so lucky. The wharf area for the barge house was alongside Canbury park, and I attracted a small audience as I tried, and repeatedly failed, to get the damn motor to fire at least once. Of course, I eventually got the guy who “knew a bit about outboards” who gave me all sorts of spurious advice which resulted in the carburettor flooding and absolutely no life from the little outboard. There's something about starting recalcitrant machinery that is mildly annoying, and it gets even more so when someone keeps shouting advice through a stout iron fence. After about twenty minutes it was probably possible to cook an egg on the top of my head (though I never tried) I simply disappeared into the barge house to see if there was anyone that actually knew anything, and ask them. Thankfully by the time I returned, fuelled with the advice to simply leave it for the petrol to evaporate, put a new spark plug in (of which several were supplied in a box of bits for the motor) and then pull the cord once with choke and again without. I was also now accompanied by my dad, who had finished work for the day and was interested to see how everything went. The advice I'd been given worked, and with the motor on tickover I cast off. I got as far as Gridley Miskin's Timber yard near Kingston Bridge (no more than a couple of hundred yards) when I noticed that, instead of being perpendicular, the outboard was now leaning at quite an angle, having vibrated its clamp screws (which I had made sure were tight) to a point where I could easily have lost the thing in the river. Thankfully I was able to grab hold of a moored barge, stop the motor, re-tighten the clamp, and head back to the power station barge house. The run hadn't exactly been the success that I'd hoped and, despite encouraging words from Dad, I couldn't help feeling that I'd wasted my money. I can't remember running Bee 1 with the British Seagull again, though I may well have done, and I sold it soon after for a small profit to pay for something entirely better.

During the restoration of Bee 1, the new owners of Lady Jena, the boat Mum and Dad had bought before they got Nyzark, had decided to sell her. They'd enjoyed their time with her, but with a new baby on the way, they needed to get some money together. A buyer was soon found, but they couldn't afford the boat with the engine and, much as I had done, planned to find one when funds were available. I'd always liked the single cylinder 1968 Mercury 3.9 that had powered Lady Jena more or less since she'd sunk and been brought back to life. This now was just within the absolute limit of what I might be able to afford so I offered the owners £40 for it, thinking that it was probably worth more and fully expecting to be turned down. Thankfully they accepted and I was now the proud owner of a long shaft outboard with a real gearbox and proper remote fuel tank. I was also completely skint, but I really didn't care. With a smile on my face, and some stout plywood on the back of my bicycle, I set off to my little boat to remove the well made but rather unsightly (and now unnecessary) steel bracket. Once I'd taken it off, I reinforced the stern with plywood either side of the stern post, fixed firmly into place with the bolts from the bracket, several screws and a good dose of marine grade glue that I'd found in one of the lockers. It is the Mercury that I decided to build the opening scene of Mayfly around. The motor never really set a foot wrong, and I'd like to think that, like many of its kind, it is still around today.

 

But will it float?

With all the work done, it was time to put Bee1 back in the water. She was severely dried out, and it was suggested that I put some water in the bottom to allow the planking to take up the slack. It was a good job that I did, because there was a bit round the bow where there was quite a bad leak. Nothing too serious to fix, but sufficient to have sunk the boat overnight had she just been put in the water. As with all similar situations, suggestions as to how to fix the problem came thick and fast. In the end, someone from the yard workshops said he'd go over it with a product called “Farocaulk” which would sort things. I've never seen a tube of the stuff, and can find very little information on it other than it was well liked and had a long shelf life. It did the trick though and Bee 1 was lowered into the water on the slipway the next day. The following weekend, I reassembled the interior of the little boat, having done my best to repair items made with interior grade plywood that had separated. I also bought (with the last of my cash) a small brass bodied pump for the bilges. All was good to go. I had turned seventeen and I owned a boat. Sadly it was close to the end of the summer break and I had no money whatsoever. I did have a tank full of petrol though, so I was able to enjoy a few short runs before going to college of further education. With the Mercury outboard Bee 1 had a good turn of speed, and was easy to handle, a lot of which was down to the beautiful hull design. She did roll rather more than some boats but was a willing little craft and it was on one of the runs I made with the original tankful of petrol that I decided I was going to have my own holiday, the following summer. I sat down and worked out the cost, and whichever way I did, I came to the conclusion that I would either be able to afford food, or fuel but not both. Then petrol shot up in price. I calculated again and things did not look too good but I was still, at an age where one really wants to assert independence, determined to go. The answer was simple. Apart from the odd LP record now and again, I saved every penny I could, putting the cash either in a tin on my windowsill, which once had about £10 worth of 1971 two pence coins, and a wooden box near my bed for anything that would fold. A whole lot of that was lost on the licence, but I kept the regime, and by the end of the summer term at college of further education, instead of revising for my exams, I was busy on Bee 1 preparing for what, for me, was an epic voyage. I remember arriving by bicycle, with all I needed for the exams stuffed into the pockets of an old anorak. Actually the pockets had long worn through so I had steel rule, drawing set, slide rule etc. in the lining which amused people as I pulled the items out, appearing to lose weight as I did. A friend was filled with horror when I told him I'd put a coat of white gloss on the inside of the cabin top that afternoon when he'd had his head in a textbook the whole time. I had been warned by the tutors that I would probably get a worse mark in the exams than in the mocks mainly because of my attitude to revision. I still got a distinction though (Which is as good as you could get in City and Guilds), so I must have been doing something right.

The day finally came for that “Jim” moment. This part of it was the heading into the unknown. I am aware that many teens my age claimed to have been everywhere and done everything, which did rather belittle my talk of my own personal adventure. It was my adventure though and I was going to have it. The Mercury fired up perfectly, and I was on my way up the river Thames. Hardly uncharted territory but this was my boat, and my home for two weeks. Then it started raining and I was a sitting duck. I got soaked through, stopped at Molesey Lock, changed my clothes, put waterproofs on and continued. Then the sun came out and I started sweating like a pig. Whilst still steering, I took the waterproofs off and tossed them in the cabin. Cue another heavy shower.

By the end of the day I had been soaked to the skin and dried out several times. I also had had a splitting headache. I tied up for the night near Halliford school on the old river behind Desborough Cut. Next it was time to try my luck with the rather old and equally dangerous looking Calor gas stove.

One burner on the thing looked like a sawn off blowtorch, and the other was disk like with four vents. Both burners were quite rusty, and the knobs very stiff. The main body of the thing was made of steel, painted with faded custard yellow paint. Not feeling too hungry I decided to boil and egg, which, using the blowtorch burner, boiled too fast and exploded in the pan. The meal was not set to be a resounding success, but it was food. I was in my boat and it was my holiday and I was going to enjoy it even if it killed me!

 

Dawn.

The next day the weather was a bit more settled, and I woke up without the headache. Everything seemed fine so I had breakfast (I can't remember what it was) and then set about getting the boat ready for the day. Most things seemed neat enough, and there wasn't a lot of water in the bilge, so it was soon time to start the Mercury and head off. Bee1 was a very pleasant little boat to handle, and cut through the water without a huge wake. The outboard was pretty quiet, and I settled to the days cruising happily, hoping to get to Cookham by the evening. I'd always been told that two stroke American outboards had a tendency to be very thirsty as far as fuel was concerned, but I seemed to be getting between 4 ½ and 5 hours per gallon from the little 3.9 horsepower single. There were no issues with going through the locks, although my care with getting the boat in the right place, did get me asked to speed up a couple of times. After a few more locks though I fully got the hang of the role of the one man boater.

The meadow at Cookham was a bit packed when I arrived, but I found a space that nobody seemed to have spotted. I fount that this may have been because it had the misfortune of being something of a trap for wash from the boats still going along the river. At the time, I think the 7 knot speed limit was regarded by a lot of the more well heeled boat owners as being more of an advisory thing, and they pushed their craft well beyond it at times. This resulted in the wash hitting the bank and eroding it, but where I was it caused a lot to funnel between the bank and my boat, landing quite a good deal of it in the cockpit. Eventually I partially fitted the canvas over the back to deflect it. This was far from ideal as the cover was nothing more than that. It clipped to the cabin top with turn-buckles and sloped down to the stern, leaving pretty much no room to sit. Still, when the traffic had finally ceased, I sat out for the rest of the evening. I think there had at one time been a hard top for the cockpit but this had been removed long before I had the boat, and probably accounted for the several holes left in the cabin top before I fixed it all up. The second, and subsequent nights got better as time went on and I eventually found my way to the beautiful meadow by Halfpenny bridge in Lechlade. It had been a while since I'd been there, with the Thames being used mainly as a route to the Oxford Canal by my family for a few years. The distance had to be covered as quick as possible, with no time to spend simply dawdling. Even then the town of Lechlade was changing. The beautiful old café that was A.Smith had long gone, and the shops were just beginning to homogenise into what we have today. It was still nice to be there though, and I spent an enjoyable time browsing at some places. A trip to Park End Wharf to get a few necessities made an interesting diversion, and I eventually decided to take a look at the old Thames and Severn junction. The best way to look would have been by water, and the wharf, who used to hire small motor boats by the hour, now only had a selection of rather battered fibreglass skiffs. They had the advantage of being cheap, so I spent a little of the limited cash I had on one. The thing was in a poor state of repair, and the oars were in even worse condition. To start with they didn't match! One was about ten inches longer than the other. They didn't locate properly in the rowlocks which themselves were severely worn and malformed, being bent to a point that should have snapped any self respecting piece of cast iron. Eventually I gave up on the attempt and decided to walk instead.

When I got opposite the junction I found that the long demolished footbridge had been replaced and I spent a couple of hours doing a rather poor watercolour of the area, this being the only image I have from the holiday. I sometimes wish that I'd taken a camera with me, but with no more than the one image, I feel the memory of the holiday has stayed a lot fresher in my mind that it otherwise would have. I'd decided that if the time was to be a getaway, which was something I really needed then, that I would take a minimum of clutter with me. Following this ethos, I also left my radio and cassette recorder behind, taking a guitar, which I wasn't that good at playing instead. Although it was no more than a repeat of early family holidays, it formed a special part of my life that eventually sowed the seeds of my changing direction and going to art school. It could be argued that the two weeks were truly life changing in that respect as, when at Sunderland Polytechnic on my fine art degree course, I met someone called Janice Armstrong at someone's birthday party. The rest, as has been said so many times, is history. A year after I completed my degree, we were married in Kendal, and are now rapidly approaching our 34^th anniversary. In the Mayfly books I have written a lot about the benign influence boats seem to have on the lives they touch. Maybe Bee 1 knew something that I didn't.

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The Birth of Nyzark

A simple little ceremony on the day belied the task ahead.


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This post started in August.   Scroll down to find the he latest update

****POST UPDATED 5th October 2015****
(update title is "Elvis has left the building")

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From Plywood to Steel

So, what happened next? I went back to school armed with the diary, and my holiday photos. Nobody else had kept a diary, and the teacher had forgotten she'd set the work so it never got looked at. This was a very inauspicious start to a bad year. My final year at primary school, and that worst of exams, the Eleven Plus. Whoever came up with the idea of a general exam that could have just about anything in it, and could come at any time, must have disliked children with more hatred than I have for yoghurt. I got caught up in all of the hype and ended up so nervous about almost everything that the enjoyment of being a kid in the sixties was temporarily suspended. The memory of the holiday, the promise of another, and “The Flower of Gloster” on the television were pretty much the high points of an absolutely appalling time in my life. The start of secondary school (after the promised holiday) did little to improve things but, after some battling by my parents, I switched to another school which did, in the short term at least, improve the situation.

It was in my fourth year at secondary school that some money from the sale of a house in Greece that my grandparents had owned before World War 2 came through. Suddenly we could think of getting a bigger and better boat, and plans started in earnest to find one. The sale of Lady Jena raised about £200, which gave us just enough cash to consider a 26 foot Springer hull that would be delivered before Easter so that my dad (mostly) could fit it out with help from the rest of us. Early seventies delivery dates were more of a rough target than any form of binding contract, and it was on the day of the school fête in July that the hull finally did make its way to us. Even then (due to traffic) it was late. Nyzark though, had arrived, and we had about three weeks to get her ready for the holiday.

First obstacle was the secondhand Petter 22 hp twin cylinder diesel that we'd bought that was supposed to fit the mounts. Due to a mistake in the information sent, the thing wouldn't fit, unless you cut a hole in the bottom of the boat to allow the prop shaft to line up! We'd spent every penny we had, plus some, and, thankfully were able to return the motor but still had to get something that would fit, and time wasn't on our side. About the only thing with no waiting list was the Japanese Yanmar diesel. The urgency of getting one, plus the need to economise, even on the delivery cost, meant that we were of to Acton in my dad's old Vauxhall Cresta to have one of the things placed neatly in the boot. It all but bottomed out the back suspension, and with the nose of the car pointing skywards, we headed back to Kingston on Thames.

Full Steam Ahead.


Sorry that I don't have a photo for this post.   We were a bit too busy to take pictures.

This link will be interesting though.

http://www.steamboat.org.uk/user.php?id=61373

 Even if Nyzark had been delivered on time it was going to be a tall order to get her ready for the holiday, but, armed with plenty of advice from Sam Springer himself, we felt (or at least Dad felt) up to the task.

On the day we went up to see the “factory” where the boats were made, we were greeted by Sam, who was a pleasant enough guy with what could be called a “rough and ready” manner to him. He showed us around the place, and we were able to see a hull under construction. I remember him saying that the boats were designed to be fitted out with standard 6 inch planed floorboards.

“You'll be wanting windows,” he said, picking up an aluminium frame complete with sliding panels. “We get asked for these ones a lot, and we've fitted tons of them. The're the sort they fit on fibreglass boats and stuff. They cost quite a packet though, but I'll tell you something,” he paused to get our attention. “They're no bleeding good at all. They leak and they're a bugger to fix if they break. What you want is these,” he added, having set the posh frame down and picked up something a lot more modest. “You can't go wrong with the old Crittall frames. They're as tough as anything and if you break one you can put any old glass in them. And of course they're a bleeding sight cheaper too.”

Having just done himself out of the extra profit, and advised me to take up welding as a career, we felt he was good enough to be trusted, and went ahead with the order on the day.

I remember the truck, and the weather, also, for some reason, being driven in it for the short run from the road down to the river. It was a blisteringly hot afternoon, and in the days of no air conditioning, the cab was like an oven. Nyzark had arrived though, and the timber had been ordered from Gridley Miskin's wood yard in Kingston-on-Thames. To cut the cost Dad had ordered slight seconds, these being planks that had the odd stain, split or warp, but which were mostly fine to use.

There was a minor issue of getting Nyzark from Turk's boathouse (where she'd been delivered) to Thames Ditton Marina, where we'd set off for our first canal holiday several years earlier. Dad's friend, George Hargreaves, from Kingston Power Station stepped into the breach, offering to tow us with his boat. George was an interesting character who, some years earlier, had been left a small steam launch called Churr in a will. He was up for a challenge, and surprisingly quickly got steam up on the paraffin powered boiler of the craft. Churr was then in her seventies, and painted white, with a small saloon cabin at the back, a centrally mounted steam boiler, brass funnel, and a beautiful compound steam engine sitting between it and the saloon. With a head of steam, George set the little motor running with its sewing machine like sound and, despite comments from some people that she would not be powerful enough, we were soon under way. Once Nyzark was safely tied at Thames Ditton, we returned on Churr to pick the car up from Turk's car park. This was where the little craft came into her own. She was almost as long as the springer hulled Nyzark, but a lot narrower, and with the steam engine wound up, she could move really quickly. George Hargreaves kept her in pristine condition, and had even had a few commissions for her to appear in films, but he'd always insist on being behind the wheel for those occasions. Knowing her to be his “Pride and joy.” I was more than surprised when he got up from his seat and said “You can steer her for a bit Mike” I remember the quiet efficiency with which she cut through the water with little wake, at speeds that seemed rather faster than the 7 knot limit (and may well have been) though with George controlling that side of things I won't ever know. George kept Churr until about 1980, when he'd found some problems with the hull, the remedy set to cost more money than he had. I'd often wondered what happened to her after that, but have since found that she is still very much alive and well, having undergone extensive restoration in the mid eighties. She is now a grand old lady of 115 years, and looks splendid.

Here is the Vauxhall Cresta that lugged the Yanmar home

This is the earlest photo I can find of the completed Nyzark

This is around the same time, with headlamp (which came from a scrapyard at Kidlington)

From left to right. Me, Granny, my brother John, and Mum.

Same year, on the return home at Caversham.

Left to right My brother, Granny, Auntie Olive, Mum, Me, and Uncle John.

Good To Go

 We knew the fitting out was going to have to be basic, and what was planned was to run two more or less continuous bunks down each side, partly on the advice of Sam himself, the one to starboard being shorter to accommodate the door and a rudimentary galley. The Yanmar diesel, being a general purpose boat engine, came complete with a 1 ½ gallon tank attached, ready for instant use. To save time Dad ran a pipe from the 20 gallon tank Springers had installed, to a tap that sat just over the filler of the Yanmar, so that we could keep the thing topped up (on the run if necessary).

At the time, the working arrangement at Kingston was ten days on and four off. This supposedly being in keeping with the union agreed rule that no worker should work more than six days in any week. The arrangement was imposed as something of a “stitch up” because Sunday is officially the first day of the week, which allowed working from Monday to Saturday of one week (six days) followed by Sunday to Wednesday of the next (four). If ever there was a case of not following the spirit of an agreement, that was it, and Dad was stuck with it. Worse than that, it was the beginning of a ten day stretch at work that Nyzark had arrived, so all spare time was used in the getting ready process. That she was fitted out in any way at all, however basic, was something of a miracle, and by the start of the school holiday she had the two linear bunks, a fitting into which some plywood could be dropped to make a transverse bunk for Mum and Dad, battens in place over the newly glazed windows and the all important connection of engine to prop shaft. Any electrics beyond the starter and charge circuit were to be arranged. Also there was a rudimentary deck across the top of the engine with open steps down to the cabin door. The rust scale on the cabin had been covered with a liberal dose of aluminium primer too.

We had been invited to a cousin's wedding on the first Saturday of Dad's next four day break, but work had to continue, a small window in time being taken for the do itself. The previous evening I had been busy painting the outside cabin with green gloss paint, eventually by the light of yellow sodium street lamps. The lighting made it impossible to see what I had and had not painted without resorting to prodding at the cabin side to see where I'd been. By the time I'd decided I'd finished, I was well covered in splodges of the paint, and had no knowledge of whether I had done a good job or not.

The following morning it was time to prepare for the wedding, and I, as a sullen teen flatly refused to dress up. “They can have me in a sweater and jeans and like it.” were the words I'd used. I must have got the point across because nobody actually challenged it. They insisted that I was as smart as possible and I was to clean my shoes as well as wear clean clothes. There came the problem. I only had one pair of relatively decent shoes, these being the ones I'd been wearing to school. They were also the ones that I'd come home from school in, and gone boat painting with. They were well decorated with drips of the lime green gloss that I'd been throwing everywhere the night before, and black boot polish wasn't going to cover them. I polished as much as I could, then got a magic marker and blacked the remaining spots of green, declaring myself ready to go.

When we did get to the wedding, Monica, my second (... or so) cousin's friends had all taken her instruction not to get dressed up like a dogs dinner, so my bit of teen rebellion went unnoticed amongst the denim jackets and sweaters present.

On the Sunday morning, we headed back to Thames Ditton to carry on with the fitting out. Surprisingly I found that I'd done a fair job of the cabin sides, with only a few bits of touching up before I painted the window frames with Royal Mail red paint (part of the same batch of leftover stock which included about half a gallon of green and the aluminium primer. Nyzark looked almost ready to go.

  Here is a very similar motor to the Yanmar that first powered Nyzark.

As time went by, the interior of Nyzark got a lot more homely.
This photo was taken the year the plywood panneling went in.

Springers were solid enough, if a bit rough and ready (like the man himself)
Note the Crittall windows and unground welding.

Ready or not, here we come! 

When the day came to go on holiday, the interior of the boat was just about habitable. We had electric light from two 48 watt lamps (which I'd wired with a drum of rather thick cable and a screwdriver that could have been used as a tyre lever for a lorry), a gas ring to cook on, curtains and a chemical toilet. Luxury it wasn't but it was time to holiday, and the Yanmar diesel was started. On tickover it sounded almost authentic and we moved slowly down the length of Thames Ditton Marina, turning left to go under the bridge and into the main river. Dad increased the throttle and the motor ceased to sound in the least bit authentic. Worse than that, the boat was hardly moving. Eventually, with the thing wound up to the point that it sounded like a large and very bad tempered lawnmower, we gave up the fight and returned to the shelter of the marina. After some discussion and consultation into the various data sheets it was decided that the prop that had been fitted (to replace the steeper pitch one that was originally installed for the slower revving Petter (the engine that wouldn't fit into the boat) was actually too shallow a pitch. In the absence of a suitable substitute, the original prop was put back on. Back out on the river, the instant Dad increased the throttle, the exhaust smoke came out pitch black, but at least we were moving. Trouble was we were also destroying the Yanmar, which was not up to the challenge of the steep pitch of the prop. Back to the marina and another prop was fitted. This coming with no other guarantee other than it was different and (due to it having sat at the back of the workshop for several years) available. Another run on the river revealed that this was actually a shallower pitch than the one that was thought to be correct. I remember commenting that if we went any slower we'd actually be going backwards. The comment wasn't too well received. With the day mostly used up (and someone commenting that we should have named the boat “Yo Yo” instead of “Nyzark”) we waited whilst several phone calls were made to E.P. Barrus, Yanmar U.K. and eventually the Japanese company to ascertain the exact pitch of the propeller that should be fitted. Finally we had an answer, but no chunk of bronze to attach to the end of the shaft. That came the next day, was fitted, and we set off. The decision seemed to be that whatever the new prop did as far as performance went, we'd cope with it and deal with any consequences at the other end of the holiday. To be truthful it wasn't a lot better than the first one we set off with. Nyzark was noisy, very very nosy, ungainly (due to lack of any form of ballast) and slow, extremely slow. But we were on holiday even if we did sound like a machine gun being transported by a rather bad tempered snail.

The following morning we woke up to what seemed like a slow drizzle. The weather was O.K. but the coolness of the shady mooring allowed our collective breath to condense on every surface inside the cabin, most of which was painted with aluminium primer. Over the years several attempts were made to alleviate the problem which only went away when Dad fully lined the cabin with plywood and tongue and grooved board. First attempt was polystyrene lining “paper” which, thanks to the advertising hype, was stuck up with a proprietary brand of wallpaper adhesive. The paper was very fragile, and eventually succumbed to the fact that the adhesive was designed for plaster walls, not steel. The man in the advert, who was pasted to a board by his overalls and then suspended from the bottom of a helicopter was either very brave, or completely stupid. Hopefully he was well insured. Next, someone said that a paint called Corkon would do the trick because, as everyone knows, cork is a good insulator. It was expensive stuff though, and was therefore spread sparingly, so, it didn't work!

During the day we had a downpour of rain which revealed that the Crittall windows also leaked. This we could do something about, and Dad set off into town to buy a couple of pounds of a putty that was suitable for metal frames. This was liberally pushed round the joint between frame and boat on the inside, and actually worked really well. With a reminder to dry the condensation as soon as we woke, we felt we'd conquered the worst shortcomings of the hastily prepared craft, and our holiday continued.

"Doing" the Avon ring.

Here we are on a later holiday by one of the beautiful lock cottages on the Stratford-on-Avon canal

 Left to right
Mum Granddad Nye (then in his early 90's) my brother John, Granny (on Mum's side) and a very sullen looking teenage me.

Edstone Aqueduct, scene of the famous non-suicide leap.

Things are getting better.... (sort of)

Given the time taken to create something habitable, and the unknown reliability of just about any part of the Nyzark, we decided to follow a tried and tested route along the Thames, Oxford and Grand Union Canals. Though noisy, and ungainly we were on the move, with Dad lifting the engine hatch every now and then to top the 1 gallon diesel tank on the Yanmar from the 20 gallon tank fitted by Sam Springer via a gate valve and associated pipework. It was during one of these routines that he decided that we should moor up, pretty much straight away on account of the fact that we were in the process of slowly sinking. Nothing too serious though, just that the weed hatch bolts had worked themselves loose and water was being thrown from the prop into the engine hold. Tightening them and pumping the bilge provided a temporary fix, allowing Dad and I to head into town when we reached our destination for the day to buy some shake proof washers, a flat rubber mat and a Stanley knife with which to seal the hatch in such a way that it would not vibrate free again. This was about the only issue we had with reliability for the whole of the holiday, as, with typical Japanese efficiency ( I won't say quiet efficiency here ) the Yanmar did the job asked of it, even if that job was rather beyond its capability. There were various other shortcomings that came to light though, not the least of which being that, once under-way there were very few places to sit apart from inside the cabin, which was O.K. if your idea of a quiet time was sharing a grain silo with a pneumatic road drill. The side decks were O.K. but they had a slight inward slope, which collected rainwater. That was easy enough to spot and avoid, but when my Granny was doing her morning ablutions, she would open a window and throw the water she'd washed with out into the river (or canal). This wasn't as eco-friendly as it should be but things, I guess, were a bit different then. Granny was quite short, and at over 80 years of age, would not have made the England team as a fast bowler, so most of the water ended up on the side deck, trickled back, and soaked into whoever's jeans that was sitting there, so I guess no lasting ecological damage was done.

Nyzark was definitely more at home on the canals than the Thames and although still far from quiet, the engine note was rather less abrasive. We never did sort the issue of ballast out, which seemed something that both Mum and Dad were staunchly opposed to, so the boat always sat too high in the water, and was prone to being blown about by even moderate winds. One incident I do remember was on a later holiday when, on my brother's suggestion, we “Did” the Avon ring. We were about to cross the Edstone aqueduct on a day that couldn't really be described as breezy, but there was sufficient air movement to highlight toe shortcomings of our 26 ft Springer. Unlike the far better known iron trough of Pontcysyllte which has the towpath suspended over it, Edstone does not. The trough is the width of the navigation channel and that's it. As we entered the trough, any way we had was immediately damped, and we were soon pinned to the side of the thing by the wind. The Yanmar hadn't got enough power to use brute force, so we eased back out of the aqueduct and tried taking it at what speed we could muster. The result was the same. Much discussion followed as to how to overcome the obstacle, and I eventually had the rather obvious idea of hopping onto the towpath to push the boat back into the channel. Having thought of it I acted on the plan and, much to my poor Granny's surprise, I jumped off the side deck and disappeared from view to her. It never occurred to me that she didn't know there was a towpath, because she hadn't seen it as it was built at the level of the bottom of the trough to save on having to extend the stone piers to water level. It basically looked, to Granny, like I had simply got bored and jumped off the boat and into the river valley tens of feet below and she was understandably concerned!

Here are Mum and Granny with the new Nyzark in the background.

The Summer of 1965 was the only other waterways holiday that Granny came with us on.
Here she is in the cockpit of the "River Rose" hired from TW Allen and sons.

Granny Mum and Auntie Winnie enjoy the spartan comfort of the early Nyzark cabin.

 Two photos of Granny and Mum chatting with the lock keeper of Stoke Lock on the river Wey in the early seventies.   Next to Granny on the balance beam is "Phoenix" a balsa model I'd made at the start of that summer.

And here she is again, looking somewhat bewildered at the helm of the very stationary Lady Jena.

Gladys Amelia Gout (prnounced Goo) A truly magnificent lady.

Granny.

Granny had lived with us ever since I was two years old, which was when Mum and Dad moved into Chantry Road. The house had been owned my my grandparents when they arrived via Malta from Greece at the start of World War two, but Granny was keen to sell it, so it made sense for Mum and Dad to keep the place in the family when the house on Maltby Road became too small for us. In the days before Nyzark she'd either stay with her sister and niece in Surbiton, or her son and daughter-in-law in Caversham for the duration of most of our family holidays. To be honest, I'm never quite sure which she preferred. Thetis (her niece) was happy to have her in the flat and enjoyed feeding her with as many of the recipes she had pencilled into a small notebook. I only later found that my “Auntie Thetis” actually disliked cooking and, in her later years, avoided it wherever possible. John and Olive had quite an active social life at the time, and Granny enjoyed being a part of that as much as John and Olive's friends loved her forthright way of speaking, which was always polite and tinged with the slight continental accent that she'd obtained by living most of her life in Greece. The holidays did, however, give her the chance to spin a yarn to the relatives, story telling being something she'd always enjoyed. Even now, snippets of those tales still rattle round my head, sometimes merging into something totally different. I'm sure the incident at Edstone Aqueduct was related many times over, though I don't remember her telling it. The time that the headlamp (the one from the breakers yard in Kidlington) went out in the middle of Shrewley Tunnel was, however, embellished to the level of high drama on the ocean. Basically the lamp was wired to a two pin plug, and the insulation on the headlamp (to remove the earth return on it) shorted out, which, with the plug being the way round it was, caused it to blow a fuse in the old Wylex distribution box in the engine compartment. That light, and all the others went out, and for about twenty seconds we were blind and invisible (if not inaudible). Several torches were lit to provide more light than the original headlamp, and we continued forward to the end of the tunnel where a piece of fusewire fixed everything.

Then there was the crash near Fenny Compton “tunnel” in the summer of 1973 not long before my 17^th Birthday. It can't have been long after the marina opened at Fenny Compton, as I remember us stopping there for fuel, and also remember thinking that it wasn't there the year before. The tunnel is (as most people know) actually a cutting, having been opened out many years ago. It's still narrow and you have to pass boats carefully When out of the “tunnel, it's nice to enjoy the full width of the canal again, and the person piloting the 40 foot hired boat was doing just that. What do you do when the boat coming at you seems to be aiming at wherever you go to avoid it. Ultimately it will collide with you however good you are at steering (and Dad, being ex Royal Navy) was pretty good. Granny, who was ever watchful for my brother's and my welfare had long disliked me climbing onto the cabin roof to run the length of the boat when crewing, so I had eventually agreed to take the slower and considerably more awkward route via the side decks, holding the hand rails instead (and having to avoid the edges of the open windows and fender ropes. I'd seen what was gong to happen and set off in this manner. Having just let go of the deck rail to get the boathook to fend the other boat off, it hit us, knocking Nyzark sideways and putting a small dent in weld along the top of the port bow. Having let go of the deck rail, and had Nyzark knocked about two feet sideways, instead of a side deck, I was now (like a Roadrunner cartoon) standing on thin air. So I did the only decent thing and fell into the canal, drinking a fair bit of the water and deciding that I'd really rather have lived a bit longer and done a bit more before this untimely end. Thankfully, I'm still here. As I came up for the first time, I grabbed at anything I could, and that happened to be the bow of the boat that had just hit us. I made light of it, and stepped off onto the bank. At that point Mum suggested to Dad that we pause to pick up the crew, getting the reply that they can pick up their own *****ing crew. When she told him that it was me, the previously thin air turned rather thick with Dad's best naval expletives and a graphic (and biologically impossible) description of what he would do to the person steering the other boat if our paths crossed again. When I finally arrived in the cabin of the Nyzark, Granny greeted me with

“I know it's been raining, but your father isn't that wet.”

“Yes, but he didn't just fall in the canal did he.” I replied flatly.

Whether it was a pang of guilt (Had I simply run along the top of the cabin I'd have been there in time to push the other boat off with the pole.) or simple protectiveness, Granny went into overdrive on making sure I didn't catch pneumonia, insisting that I change all my clothes, (which I was in the process of doing) and that I should have some hot coffee with rum in it (which was quite pleasant). When I got the mug, it smelt pretty alcoholic, and tasted like very little water had been used in brewing it. I was instructed to rest, sleeping for about half an hour, then it seemed that I could pretty much have the rest of the day to myself, having been absolved of all boat related duties, so I spent the early evening walking along the towpath recording the top 40 on my radio-cassette recorder.

I'm not absolutely sure if the people did remember us, but when we did do the fuel stop at Fenny Compton, we walked past the hire boat that had hit us, and it was all locked up with all curtains drawn. It's tempting to think that the crew of the boat were all cowering in fear of my dad's wrath, but it's far more likely that they were enjoying lunch at a pub somewhere close by. As for me, bear them no malice, and never have done. They'd been put in charge of a 40 foot concrete ballasted all steel narrowboat with the simple instruction that it's pretty much like a car to drive. I expect they just couldn't get to the handbrake in time.

No need to explain this one.


 

 Here are a few photos from the year we "did" The Avon ring.

The Avon Ring

The last run I remember doing with the grossly underpowered Yanmar diesel was the “Avon Ring” which we attempted in the mid seventies. By that time my brother was at university and had already had a narrowboat holiday with some other students on a hired 56 foot boat where they had gone to Llangollen. Fired up with adventure it was John that suggested we do a round trip instead of going to the same old haunts every year. In principle the scheme was good, but for the fact that we didn't really have the time to do it. Dad worked at Kingston Power Station, and was usually allowed only two weeks annual leave together out of the total of either four or five (I forget which thought I think it may well have been only three. As we'd already managed to get third week the previous two years, mainly because the power station by then was generally mothballed in summer with maintenance easy to schedule to make it ready for the winter months, dad had the application turned down by the new management. With a bit of careful number work, Mum was able to slightly circumvent this by the placement of a couple of days leave which added to the 4 day weekend meant that we could get a head start which would get us to the “Wise Alderman” at Kidlington. Dad at the time was still on what was called “Staggered working” where he worked through for ten days and then got a break of 4. The longer break sounded good but wasn't (it being more than countered by the ten day week)and there was no extra pay for the arrangement. From Kidlington, Dad went back to work for three days and then returned by car, leaving it in the pub car park by arrangement with the landlord until we arrived back two weeks later when he would go back to work for a couple of days, returning by train for the run back down the river. Even with this, there wasn't much time available for the planned trip, which in the end turned out to be something of a route march. For the first time we had to get to a certain place by a certain time, and, with John's planning, we actually achieved it (albeit with rather frayed nerves). Probably the most frightening part was the short run on the Severn, which seemed massive compared to the narrow canals. The Yanmar was simply not up to the job of propelling the Nyzark and we knew it, though thankfully she wasn't as noisy as the previous year thanks to the purchase of a Mc Murdo rubber silencer which reduced the percussive machine gun exhaust noise massively. The motor itself still sounded like a bag of bolts in a washing machine though. We wouldn't normally have bought something like the Mc Murdo, but we had ventured to the Earls Court boat show and, with all the salesmen there it was hard for even Mum to avoid spending some money. Apart from the silencer, two more things that came out of it. The first of these was a catalytic heater that was supposedly safe in all conditions. The salesman was very polite and when asked to demonstrate the key feature which was that the thing could be doused with petrol and not catch fire, he duly threw a small cap full of methylated spirit at the catalyst, which caused no harm whatsoever. We bought the base model which was about the diameter of a medium sized frying pan, and which screwed directly onto a refillable Camping Gaz cylinder. It worked, but produced a lot of water vapour, and robbed the cabin of oxygen pretty quickly too. Also, due to its compact size, the edges of the thing got extremely hot. I found that out when I caught my hand on it. Some of my skin was left stuck there, and the rest blistered into something that I really should have gone to A&E to have sorted. It was (suffice to say) painful, and took until well past Christmas to heal adequately. Even now (well over 40 years later) if I am out walking on a cold day, a red mark appears on my hand showing an imprint of the edge of that heater. The other thing that came from the boat show was the seed of an idea that we could (a the right price) replace the motor in Nyzark with something more powerful should the funds be available. The Yanmar was still a saleable item, and the unit that caught our eye most was a 12 horsepower Sabb. It was sat there in a glass case ticking over almost silently and we were impressed. It was set up to look like it was actually running, with the exhaust neatly piped to an unknown destination. I do now wonder whether the thing was simply being turned over by a small and hidden electric motor despite what the sales staff claimed. As with all ideas, nothing happened on that until we did get another small windfall emanating from the final sale of one of the houses that my mum's side of the family had to vacate rather quickly due to the second world war. Stuart Turner at the time were offering a small diesel that was made in Spain. Mum wasn't keen but we investigated it anyway, to be told that the total cost by the time all work was done would be too great. Somehow they were then convinced that it was a good idea to buy a secondhand Sabb which was actually marginally less powerful than the Yanmar, and which did not have electric start or a generator. Of the three ideas, the Mc Murdo silencer was the most successful and it meant that we could have a holiday without ear damage.

The most interesting part of the journey was the relatively newly restored Avon with its secondhand Thames lock gates and steel shuttering lock chambers which, though Heath Robinson in appearance, seemed to work pretty well. There was still a lot that was makeshift, including the signage which was almost graffiti like in nature. A lot of the bridges had just one navigable arch, and there were a lot of markers for obstructions in the channel too. The river itself though was very picturesque, if a little fast flowing in places, and of all the waterways I think it came equal favourite to the Srtaford on Avon canal, which was also beautiful but in a more ordered way. Being the sullen teen that I now was, I spent quite a lot of my time sitting on the cabin front, scribbling various things onto scraps of paper. What I scribbled was lost a long time ago, and I have no real recollection of what it was. I know that at the time I felt that I was heading in the wrong direction, having moved from school to Kingston College of Further Education where I was studying for a City and Guilds in industrial electronics. I was pretty good at what I did and, despite my not really wanting the path that it offered, I completed the course, continuing work for the company that I'd done day release (in the final year) for another year. It was on the Avon that summer though that the seeds of an idea were sown. I wasn't going to stick in a test room with no natural daylight for the rest of my life. One of my workmates had gone there from school, and was 32! It seemed horrifically old to me, though now it seems really rather youthful! I worked slowly through what I could do, and when working, spent my spare time doodling, or making small models from the plentiful supply of tinned copper wire. On one really black day, one of the guys (I think it was Martin) spotted me and saw that I was pretty fed up.

“Why don't you do some evening classes,” he said, adding, “You can draw so why not try art.”

A swiftly booked day off took me back to my old school (who I felt still owed me something) to be largely dismissed by all but the headmaster who advised that I spoke to the careers officer who just happened to be there that day. The guy was pretty positive about things and understood that I wanted to broaden my horizons, suggested a couple of classes and arranged enrolment for me. That then set the course that took me to art school, and it wasn't long before I was visiting Kingston College of Further Education to tell them of my change in direction. Peter Hayes, who taught most of the final year, was about to go into class at the time, but dragged me in to introduce me to his new students.

“This is Mr. Nye,” he said. “He was a student here and left a year or so ago. We had a lot of arguments but he did well. Now he's decided to go off and do a degree in Fine Arts.”

I waited for condemnation of my choice but got none.

“It's a new adventure and I wish him all the best in it,” he paused for a moment. “Now,” he continued. “If any of you lot have ideas like that, please come and tell me, then I can kick your backsides for you,” another pause. “Mr Nye here can do that because he can. He isn't like any other student I've taught, so if he decided he can do something he'll damn well go and do it and do well too.”

He said a good deal more before I headed back home (it being Derby day, Epsom school of Art and Design was closed). It was sunny and I was strangely happy to have the blessing of someone that had been at times an adversary as much as he was an advocate. I realise now that, had my brother not have suggested the routemarch that was the Avon Ring, I may not have had the right situation to think things through. I did go on to complete a degree in Fine Art at Sunderland Polytechnic, which I got an upper second. After that I went back to electronics as there were no jobs and everyone has to eat. My horizons were broadened forever though.

 

Here are Mum and Dad, with Nyzark still in her original bright green with name painted by me

Below are views of the newly (1975) panelled cabin.

 

 

Elvis has left the building.

My memory of the 1977 summer holidays is that they were rather disjointed. My brother had decided that he wanted to either watch cricket on television or go to the Oval to watch. John always liked the sport and had played for a team called the Oxford Erratics. The team was comprised of players who enjoyed, but were not awfully good at cricket, and they presumably played matches against similar teams from other colleges or universities. His life at Oxford is somewhat shrouded in a mystery, partly of his own making, and also because we were not the closest of siblings. Whilst he had managed, by his own intelligence and sheer hard work, to get through the eleven plus, and all other things in between with flying colours, my path through education was more than a little odd. I had completed my City and Guilds in electronics, then worked for a year whilst going to evening class and gained a further two O levels after which I was now set to start on a foundation course in art at Epsom school of art and design.

A holiday we were having though, so it was Mum, Dad, Granny and me that set off for a trip covering the River Wey, the Thames to Lechlade, and the Oxford Canal to Napton and back. There wasn't anything too strange about the holiday in terms of adventure, it all being ground that we'd covered several times before, but one day sticks out as being one of the strangest I can remember. As I remember we were tied up near Send on the river Wey, and I had idly turned my radio on whilst thinking of what to do. There wasn't any music, but a continuing commentary on how people were gathering around the gates. Many were distressed, and most were pretty incoherent in anything they said. We had absolutely no idea what was going on, but needed some groceries from the village. Someone from another boat also needed to go to the shops and, I'm not sure quite how it happened, but I think he suggested that I borrow his bicycle and do the shopping for both. He seemed an amiable enough guy, and was about as careworn as his bicycle which had a rather large lump on one tyre that caught the brakes with each revolution. Thump, thump, thump. I kept looking down to see the thing was still intact, and bought a newspaper when at the shop to see if I could throw any light on what had happened. I didn't want to make myself sound ignorant by asking but the rest of my family plus the old guy with the bike were depending on me finding out. Thankfully I was able to do just that. The news broadcasts that had been continually telling what was happening were now simply assuming that everyone knew the basic story and reporting on events as they unfolded. The newspaper rack was rather different, each paper carrying a variant of a very similar sentence. The date was August 17^th and the weather was forecast to be warm with thundery showers. Elvis is Dead, or King Elvis is Dead, or even Elvis Presley dies at age 42, were the headlines. I bought the groceries, bought the paper, and rode back with the associated thumping from the tyre and passed the knowledge on.

By the Summer of 1977, Nyzark was just about as well fitted as we could make her on a low budget. The cabin was lined with plywood (finally getting rid of the condensation issue), we had a proper, though small, galley with a Calor gas cooker that had two burners and an oven (though Mum refused to pay the extra few pounds for one with a proper “Regulo” thermostat) and we even had a new engine. We'd taken the Yanmar out, and had a Sabb fitted (as mentioned earlier). As standard the second hand motor had no electric start, no generator, and was, as mentioned earlier, less powerful than the Yanmar. Sabb diesels, we were told, were reliable, easy to start, smooth running, and a whole host of other things that may well have been true about every other machine they built but not the one we got. Starting by hand, we were told, was simple. Just lift the decompression lever, swing the starting handle round a couple of times to get the motor moving, drop the lever and... Well, actually and nothing. The thing stopped dead, Dad's hand slipped off the starting handle and he skinned his knuckles on an unidentified protuberance in the engine compartment. Various profane words and an Elastoplast later, he had another go. Still nothing. We both tried and got nowhere, phoned the company we bought the thing off and told them of our problem.

“No problem, it's just a knack,” we were told. “I'll come down on Saturday and show you how to start it.”

Dad was at work that weekend so I agreed to meet the guy and be shown the special knack. Though not as hot as 1976, the summer of 77 had its moments and that Saturday was one of them, sunny, hot, a little humid but all in all a beautiful day. I cycled to Thames Ditton and met the guy that would start the motor and show me how.

“Simple,” he smiled. “Drop this lever, then one, two, three.”

When it hit compression it stopped dead and he caught his knuckles very likely on the same protuberance. No profane language, no Elastoplast. Just a smile.

“Must be a bit cold. I'll give her a few more swings,” he said.

By the time he was doing one last effort, about 45 minutes later, he was swinging the handle round so fast that, had I put the thing in gear the boat would have gone faster than it ever did when powered by the thing. It still refused to start.

“May be a little bit of dirt in the filter,” he smiled, red faced and perspiring. “We'll have it right.”

I still wonder why Sabb actually bothered to fit a starting handle and its associated mountings to the motor because it was basically impossible to start by hand. The marina eventually gave up and fitted the Sabb approved Dynostarter which looked like an over sized car dynamo and either drove or took its drive by two parallel belts around the flywheel. Even with this fitted, the process of starting was not easy. The motor would not start without a shot of motor oil down a little copped tube, it needed to be run on the dynostarter for several seconds before the decompression lever was dropped and the thing burst more into a zombie like existence than actual life. Once the black smoke from the motor oil subsided, it ticked over smoothly, but had absolutely no power whatsoever when it came to moving Nyzark. At least we'd be able to charge the battery again.

The thing was fitted, and we were going on holiday, albeit slowly. The Sabb was a bit quieter then the Yanmar but it wasn't by much. It had a habit now and again of deciding it wasn't going to start, usually at the most embarrassing times, and then occasionally would stop for no reason. Another little kink it had was that every now and then, and again for no apparent reason, the water pump, a complicated thing with nylon valves, would stop pumping water, causing the motor to overheat. Dad, with a little help from me, dismantled the thing several times over the holiday, and finding nothing wrong, reassembled it to find it worked again. Well it worked until the next time it stopped.

That winter, several letters were sent to the marina, and also to Sabb themselves to inform them of our displeasure at the thing in out engine compartment.

Sabb themselves said that the model we had was known to them as not being a good starter, but given that it was second hand, were not willing to do anything to remedy the problem. The vendor um'd and ahh'd, made sympathetic noises, but did nothing. We were stuck with the thing.

The word Sabb, we were told meant either “dependable or reliable” in Norwegian. Having checked, it apparently means nothing whatsoever in the language. Sabb have a good reputation for building good engines. This story is about one Sabb diesel that may have been the only bad one they made. It sure was a shocker though.

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