Packet Boat to Little Venice on IceBreaker 9.2.0 aka nb Tastoma

29/07/2008 by Mark.Whalley.

For reasons too complex to explain here, I own a 52’ (15.8m) steel narrow boat.  Of course, if you happened to mention you had a 52’ boat in such places as Monte Carlo or Cannes some may be suitably impressed.  But when you mention it is less than 7’ (2.1m) wide, those envious looks start to look elsewhere.

A little bit of history about the British narrow boat

The narrow boat (no, it’s not a barge, a long ship or a long boat) is something which is almost exclusively British.  With the first working narrow boats dating as far back as the 18th century, the narrow boat was originally designed for carrying goods on narrow canals.

Although originally there were over 4000 miles (6500km) of navigable inland waterways in the UK, today we have just over 2500.  A figure which is slowly increasing as people realise what the waterways network can provide – from cycling, walking and running along towpaths to fishing, canoeing and of course boating.

The majority of the waterways network is managed by British Waterways.

In July 2008, having not done much boating since moving the boat (nb Tastoma) from Sawley Marina, Derby to its current location at Packet Boat Marina, Cowley Peachy, Uxbridge (what a great name), I decided it was about time to try and drum up some enthusiasm for the resurrection of the “Booze Cruise”.

What follows are a number of emails that passed between me and my colleagues in Premium Services….

Hi All,

Following a number of successful evening and one weekend “Booze Cruises” whilst I was a contractor at RWE npower when the DBA Team (comprising Ingres, orakle, Mi-SQL, SeaQuel Server, DeeBeeTwo and M$ Excess) would join me on my narrow boat for an evening cruise along the canals of the West Midlands (usually ending up at a pub / restaurant), I thought it might be time to resurrect the tradition.

Before I start any planning, I thought I would first gauge the interest (if any) amongst the Premium Services Team.

If you are interested, could you let me know your preference for: evening/weekend, which day(s) are good/bad etc.

Cheers
Mark

PS For those that are interested, one of the previous Booze Cruises can be viewed here and our recent trip to Little Venice: (apologies for the poor sound, image quality etc).

This was then followed by a flurry of responses.  Some of which I have copied below…

“Happy to be crew if it does not limit drinking.”

“Drinking is compulsory – and of course being crew, someone else has to get your drinks and take away the empties.”

“{A colleague} can vouch for my credentials and Stella drinking capabilities”

“Would that be the holy water (St. Ella) – to whom I worship as frequently as my liver will allow me”

 

“San Ella as they say in France, is indeed an imbibing gift from the gods to which I honour as often as possible. {A colleague} has been introducing me to the Oasis of Windsor and shown me where I can obtain safe fluids to take on board to quench such thirsts.”

 

 

“The difficultly is that I’m mainly based outta Ker-nutsford “aka Barclays, Radbroke Hall” and live in the land of the Liver-pool (N.B. I’m not a scouser, so all items not locked down are safe) which makes anything but a weekend extremely difficult. This is unless of course I can schedule some suitable meeting in Sluff to coincide with an evening event….urmmmm” (no guessing where this might have come from!)

“I’m pretty flexible with weekends as I’ve already had a week off and won’t be doing anything else until November and my next holiday.”

“I have had an idea over the weekend.  I know that {A colleague}  has been planning a Team Building  day out for some time now.  Rather than paying a lot of money for some fancy hotel why not use the narrow boat for the day?”

So, with enough numbers to make the trip viable, I decide to take the “Booze Cruise” (now renamed “non-Teetotal Cruise”) to the next stage…

Hi All,

Apologies for taking so long to plan a trip and for the change of name from ‘Booze Cruise’ to ‘non-Teetotal Cruise’. Wouter has suggested that we try and plan it for when Michael Lochead is in the UK – the 29th / 30th July.

With sunset around 21:00, although boating is possible at night, I would not want to be blamed for wiping out the whole of Premium Services, so I suggest we should plan for a 21:00 cut-off.

At 4 lock-miles per hour, we are not going to get very far – especially if we set off from Packet Boat Marina.

I have therefore come up with what I hope is an ingenious solution.

I will move the boat to a bridge near Hayes and Harlington train station, a mere stone’s throw away.  This will cut over an hour off an otherwise quite uninteresting stretch of canal.  By catching the 16:15 or 16:26 train from Slough, we could all be on-board and ready to set off by 17:00.

We would then have a maximum of 4 hours cruising.

Using CanalPlanAC, I have worked out that we could get to either Little Venice (5 minutes walk from Paddington Station) or Brentford (close to Brentford station).

The Little Venice route is about 13 miles long and has no locks.  I have recently done this route with my better half (Bev), but the lack of locks makes it a bit less fun.  Its main advantage being next to Paddington means a 16 minute train journey for those needing to get back to their cars in Slough.  The Brentford route is much shorter at 5 miles, but has an impressive 10 locks – plenty for you to do (rather than just drink Tea!).  The biggest problem with Brentford is returning to Slough – by public transport it takes between 1-1½ hours.

As most of the evening will be spent travelling, I would suggest we pick up an M&S Buffet and plenty of Tea (other suggestions also welcome!).  For those not in a rush to return to Slough (or elsewhere) I am sure there might be a hostelry – serving Tea of course.

I will be remaining on board overnight and probably return the boat to Packet Boat Marina the following morning.  If anyone is interested, I can provide accommodation for one (or more if you are very good friends!).

Regards
Mark

There was then a further flow of incoming mail, some concerning the change of name, others requesting their choice of blend of Tea whilst most included their vote for Little Venice…

Maybe we should open up a competition for other names for the Cruise.  We could even wait until winter then as we break through the frozen canal we could call it “Project Icebreaker!”

Earl Grey for me please

If I am invited…. my vote would be for Brentford Gauging Lock.

 

Actually, even if I’m not invited, it still gets my vote.

Is the director (Mr Flower) also joining us?

We have the DirectorS: Wouter and Michael and the Sr. Vice President, WW Support Service (Mr Lochead) – a veritable crowd!

So it is a ‘high society’ event!

Absolutely, it’s black dresses or evening gowns – and that’s just the men

Great idea, thanks guys, I haven’t checked with Don, but I expect he’ll be interested in joining us.

 

Oh and I think Don prefers English Breakfast over Earl Grey….

 

And so it was, with the assembled crew and passengers on board, we set off from Hayes and Harlington station along the Grand Union canal, turning left at Bull’s Bridge towards Little Venice and Paddington.

We didn’t lose anyone overboard and most of the ballast was consumed (mainly drunk).

Arriving at Little Venice we did a 180 turn (winding) before mooring up along the towpath where I was going to stay for the night.

To ensure I wasn’t left with too much ballast, we had a few more glasses of Holy Water before disembarking and heading towards Paddington train station and returning to their respective homes.

Mark Whalley
Captain

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