| Here is a short story about Katie our 18 ft cabin cruiser and our first weekend trip. | ||
| The boat is an 18 ft fibre glass cabin cruiser called 'Katie' it is approximately 20 years old but I'm not sure exactly. It is blue and white in colour and is fitted with a Selva 350E 20 horsepower 2 stroke outboard engine which was built in 1976. I own a one third share with two friends, Andy & Colin. We keep it at the South Island Marina on the River Lee right next to Ponders End Lock. | ||
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| Last year I went on holiday
for two weeks at the end of June, with four friends, on a hired Narrow
Boat. We enjoyed it so much that we talked about buying our own boat, not
really thinking that it would happen. About a month after the holiday,
Colin, who had not been on the holiday with us, mentioned to me that he
had seen a boat for sale in a boat yard just up the road, and did
I want to go and have a look at it. So off we went to look at the boat.
There it was sitting on a trailer under a tree in the corner of the yard.
It was looking a bit shabby and was covered in a pile of leaves, but when
you looked closer it was not at all in bad condition. The engine looked
OK and the interior needed a bit of work but it looked like it would not
take too much effort to fix it up. The man selling the boat said that the
asking price was £900 but he would accept £750. We went away
to think about it. I mentioned the boat to Andy and he said he would like
to have a look as well so we went to have another look he thought it was
in good condition and it would be fun fixing it up so a better standard.
So we looked into how much it would cost for the river licence and mooring
fees and also the ‘Boat Safety Certificate’ which is a new regulation coming
into force Jan 1st 97, also insurance. After considering all these
things and also finding out that the selling price was very good, in fact
it was a bargain, we decided to buy it. That was late September last year.
We spent most free weekends over the winter stripping out all the old wiring and water system, not that there was that much of it, and replacing it. We also designed and built a new dashboard and the electric's for the engine and charging the batteries. We now have 3 65Ah 12 Volt batteries connected in such a way so that all three are used when starting the engine but only two actually run all lights and radio etc. This was achieved by using a car starter solenoid switch and a diode. The advantage of this is if we leave the lights on or in some other way drain the batteries over night then the third battery will always have power for starting the engine in the morning. We put the boat in the water for the first time in April and went for some little trips to test if the engine was OK it needed a little bit of fiddling and run a bit lumpy but nothing appeared too serious so we decided to leave it till next winter before having it overhauled. We took the boat on a few short trips gradually taking it further and further until we had really gone as far as we could without staying out overnight, so Andy and I decided take some time off work and finish fitting it out so we could spend the night on it. So in the first week of June, we both took a week off work and spent the first 3 days working on the boat. We fitted a little 2 ring gas cooker with grill so we could make tea/coffee, breakfast and snacks. Fitted a little sink for washing etc. and bought a small chemical toilet which fits into a cupboard under the sink when ready for use if necessary. We also rewired the engine electric's because we had done it wrong the first time and it did not work as intended. We also fitted some new fenders around the boat to give it some more protection from hitting the banks and the walls of the locks. All went well, so on the Thursday morning we set off for our first proper trip up the river. The weather was fine and warm and all was well we decided to go up the River Lee to Feilde's Weir where the River Stort joins the Lee and the up the Stort to Bishops Stortford which is the end of Navigation. Thursday night we reached Sawbridgeworth and stayed there for the night. We found a nice little pub and had a meal and a few drinks to celebrate our success. The next morning, after breakfast, we were joined for a few hours by Mandy, Andy's girlfriend. We went on up river towards Bishops Stortford. Everything was going well until we came out of the last lock. We had just left the lock when all of a sudden there was a bit of a bang and the engine went all wobbly. We stopped immediately. On investigation we discovered that the top engine mount had broken off and nothing was holding the engine at the top only two small bolts at the bottom had prevented the engine from falling off completely. Things were looking grim but after giving the situation some thought we bound the engine to the rest of the mounting bracket with some rope and it seemed to be OK so went on to Bishops Stortford, just about half a mile further on to test it out. All was well so we stopped there went for a walk around the town and had some lunch. |
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We left after about an hour and took it slowly keeping a very close eye
on the engine in case the rope would not hold. We needn't have worried
as our temporary repair worked beautifully, although it made the steering
a bit stiff. We made it back to Sawbridgeworth where we said goodbye to
Mandy as she had to go to work. We carried on taking it slowly so
as not to put too much strain on the rope round the engine. And by nightfall
we had reached Broxbourne on the River Lee. We went to the pub and had
a meal and a couple of drinks then headed back to the boat. Just after
we got back there was a short thunderstorm and the rain fell very heavily
for about 15 minutes. It was then we discovered a hole in the roof that
we had missed when we filled all the old bolt holes etc. So we had to put
a bucket under the hole to catch the drips.
In the morning, after breakfast, we set of on the last leg of our journey back to Ponders End all went well until we arrived at Cheshunt Lock where we discovered to our dismay that the next section of river had hardly any water in it. We thought that our little boat would be all right as it only draws about 4-5 inches so we slowly proceeded down the river. unfortunately the engine protrudes below the hull a bit more than that and we found we could not use the engine as it kept hitting the bottom. So I got a rope and pulled the boat along from the bank while Andy kept it in the middle using an old oar that we had on board. After that all went well
and we arrived back at the marina about 12:30 pm. That was the end of our
first proper trip on ‘Katie’.
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