As we traversed the New Main Line this morning I thought we really must make the effort to check out all the loops and branches of the BCN some time. We always seem to have a destination in mind and never get to do it. We could after all have taken the Tame Valley Canal to reach Netherton Tunnel, but of course would have missed out Birmingham Centre which we enjoy. We saw no boats moving until we drew near to the entrance of the tunnel when one was just about to emerge. Then another entered the opposite end when we were about a quater way in. That was it. One boat passed us when we were moored up at Merry Hill that makes 3 boats seen moving all day (now four as I write this). As usual the BCN has its generous quota of floating debris and some of it inevitably earmarked for our propellor. Its the juddering of the tiller which irritates me most, but there is also the reduction in propulsive power to consider as some energy is diverted to thrashing the water about instead of producing that nice clean jet from the stern. Mostly the symptoms can be relieved or the problem even cured by a short burst of reverse. I was wondering whether or not to visit the weed hatch before entering th tunnel,but the treatment seemed to have worked so carried on. However, there was a collection of wind blown rubbish just at the entrance and whether or not it was this I do not know, but once we were inside the juddering started again worse than before. So I cut the engine, shouted for a torch, and went down the weed hatch to produce one blue plastic bag. Very eerie exercise in the darkness. At the "Waterfront" development we looked at the secure pontoons, but carried on to the inline ring moorings on the embankment above the shopping centre. The pontoons are book and pay moorings and might be useful if one wanted to leave a boat for a few days. Pat found the large Sainsbury useful and I did some boat maintenance (like touching in paint, brass polishing and such). - Mike ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam
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