Thursday 5 December 2013 Hinckley

When we got home from the pub last night it was dead still with frost on the car roofs, but I woke this morning to the sound of the gusting wind. At some point I lost the rain collector of my weather station, we didn’t notice until after we set off so it may still have been laying around where we moored.

We were away a little after half ten and travelling wasn’t to bad. The highest gust I recorded on what’s left of the weather station was 42.5 MPH.

When I pass something like this I always wonder what is behind it, was it an old solders favoured fishing spot, did he die here, who knows, I never will that’s for sure, unless someone reading this blog knows.

At Market Bosworth the workmen were hard at work in the wind, at least it was dry. This site is a bit unusual for a marina as the ground level is below the canal level so banks are having to be raised all the way round it with clay. As we were passing they had just picked up the hydraulic pile driver to drive more sheet piling into the ground.

There are even more leaves on the cut now and for non boaters let me tell you that is as bad as leaves on the lines. They slowly build up on the leading edge of the propeller and you lose a lot of efficiency, a burst of reverse normally shifts them and I was doing this every half mile at times. It looks very calm here, but you should have seen the tops of those trees to the left of the photo.

Passing a moored boat on the aqueduct at Shenton its bows came adrift, so with some effort I stopped beside the towing path (wind straight on the side) and went back to secure it. I had to donate a mooring pin to do it as they had tied to the wooden rail along the top of the sheet piling which had snapped. While we were doing this the only boat we saw on the move all day came by, a CaRT work boat.
The moorings on the offside at the battle field are now closed, there use to be a set of steps running down the bank but they look to have gone as well. Here is the CaRT notice about it.

Around mid day I saw this rainbow forming behind us, we were still in bright sunshine, however the rain was about to catch us up. Because of the wind it would have been impossible to eat lunch while going along, the fish would have had most of it so we stopped at the 48 visitor moorings at Sutton Wharf. These are build with plastic wood which is very flexible as well as having a slippery surface. I stepped off the stern and nearly fell in, the decking at that point was not fully supported.

We had just tied up before the rain started and as it was coming at over 40mph I didn’t really want to be out in it. It didn’t come to much and we were away again at half two.

A little further on the wind had dropped a tree blocking the towing path, not a problem for boaters thank goodness. I expect it will be gone by tomorrow lunchtime.

About 3pm the wind suddenly died away to nothing and boating became quite pleasant for the last hour in the day. we moored for the night on the first piece of piling we came to after about half three and that was just prior to Hinckley at Barn Lane Bridge No. 19.

As I write this at six thirty it has just started to rain again, but there is still little wind and the atmospheric pressure is rising steadily.