Friday, up at 0darkhundred, take wife to Penmaenmawr to get coach to Manchester for Craft Exibition. Then back home, put launch, backpack and flask in car for short trip to Daves, transfer to his camper van and off to the canal at Chirk. We make "The Poachers" our base. Raised steam and, in company with Daves tug, head off against the current towards the Chirk Aquaduct. Weather as forecast, overcast and warm. Engine after repairs ran better than ever and launch ploughed on at about 3 mph. A lot of leaves floating on surface keep getting caught on the stem but don't cause a problem. Gas running low after 35mins so hauled her out for a fill. No delays on refilling as air temp such that gas tank is not warm and refill takes the usual 90 secs. Re-lit the burner and after a couple of minutes returned to the water and resumed passage. Quite busy narrowboatwise and plenty of peeps on the towpath. Got to the Aquaduct and waited a little while for an oncoming boat then ran straight across and into the pound before the tunnel. Two boats coming through so took the opportunity to top up fuel and drain the de-oiler. Tunnel empty so donned head torches and entered canal. Got about 20 yards in and both torches packed in so discretion v valour etc. turned short round and headed back. I don't seem to have much luck with LEDs! As proceeding with wind and current made good time and got back to "The Poachers" on one tankful. After scampi and chips and a cappuccino returned to the water heading the other way towards "Lion Quays". The steam pressure started to drop off towards 20 psi and I thought the jet was blocked so pulled her out, cleared the jet(it looked OK to me) and resumed passage. Still no good. The last fill was the end of a bottle so, refilled with a new bottle and flame back to normal again. Made "Lion Quays", did a few turns around the basin and set off back to the pub. Things went downhill from there. Dave fouled his prop on a bramble, fortunately on the towpath side but towpath quite high above the water with a steep slope. Dave cleared his prop and I decided that as it had started to rain quite heavily, we wouldn't bother refuelling "Wear" but put a line on Dave's tug and he would tow me back to the pub. Easier said than done. Got a passer by to hang on to my legs and me hanging upside down trying to attach the line to the tow hook. Couldn't get the bar to stay down so tied it round the capstan. Scrabbled my way back on to the towpath and with spots before my eyes, set off home. Got back without further incident, packed up and after a cup of tea returned home. We used 4 tanks of gas and steamed a little over 7 miles, had at least a million photos taken, made many passes for videos to be taken and made many people's day special. That's the real power of steam.
I couldn't move next morning I was so stiff but a 10 mile bike ride accompanying shmbo got me started again. A thoroughly enjoyable day.
Jerry.