Flood prevention

Today we encountered a narrow section whose purpose was perfectly clear.

The structure on the left is to hold the planks that slot across the canal when flood threatens (as I understand it). The canal narrows because 8 foot planks are easier to manage than 14 foot planks! The Coventry canal seems to be, for the most part, a wibbly-wobbly contour-following affair. So when it curves around a hill, there can be a bank on one side, and a much lower stretch on the other. Floods cascading down the hillside would not be welcome.

Floods inside the boat are even less welcome. Today, our shower-emptying system stopped working. This happened once before, on the Caldon canal, when we had my brother and his wife with us and had stopped outside the Hollybush Inn for the night. Amazing – in the pub I ran into Little Rich, who had worked at Great Haywood marina for a while, and done some work on Erin Mae's paintwork. He came on board, found the fuse for the pump, diagnosed the issue as FFF (don't ask!), and created a temporary workaround with a paper clip. He told us what his father had taught him – when you have a problem the solution is usually right under your feet. Except, he said, his father would probably have said it in Latin!

So I've removed the fuse, and fortunately we'll be passing a chandlery tomorrow for a nice new one. Hope that solves it. Taking up a board to get at the fuse I noticed that there has been a slight drip from one of the hoses. I expect a new Jubilee clip will sort that. I'm hoping it's not a perished hose, as that would be more complicated. Little Rich's philosophy is fine, but I really don't fancy messing around with more than I have to!