Preface
The story you are about to read is based on actual events from our deliveries, but we have changed the names to protect the guilty. After reading this book you should be able to use all of the contents to safely navigate from Amsterdam on the Noordzee Kanal to Tower Bridge in east central London, St Katts
“Port control London, this is the Dutch barge Twee Gerbrouder, number one sea reach inward bound for St Katharine’s from Vlissingen”----“Twee Gerbrouder, Port control received”.
The end of this nightmare is almost in sight, and another houseboat will take its place in London. “ Will! Can you take her for a bit? I need to take a break and grab a bit of shut-eye. I’ve contacted Port control, you need to call again at No4 sea reach”. At least I can trust Will; he’s a damn good engineer and doesn’t mind the long hours.
The new owners boyfriend is another story, I’m sure he thinks were being followed by submarines, he must have zig-zagged for over an hour, probably thought we were going to be torpedoed, he couldn’t steer a straight course even if it were on rails.
The Thames is very busy this time of year, you have to keep your wits about you or run the risk of wandering into the path of a container vessel or some other nasty accident looking for somewhere to happen.
Twee Gerbrouder is an Old Dutch barge; Trendies as I call them think this type of vessel is sweet, with its small mahogany wheelhouse, single cylinder 1900s two stroke engines that have to be nursed to keep it running.
With its small living quarters and running lights that can only be described as dim and a cargo hold full of odds and ends from yesteryear. The hold will eventually become the living quarters after workmen have fitted it out.
Going below, now desperate for a cup of tea to wet my whistle, forcing to separate my eyelids for a little longer with an unspoken promise to my body never to get as tired as this again. I grabbed the kettle, which was empty, muttering curses under my breath only to find that the only source of drinking water, held in two litre bottles was empty.
The reason for plastic water bottles was that the old water tanks on board were rusty and contained a foul smelling red liquid that churned ones stomach if you get too close.
“Will” I yelled “who used the last of the drinking water”?. By now I’m standing in the wheelhouse wide awake with steam shooting from nostrils and ears, ready to explode from excess pressure.
“Not guilty”, said Will in his defence, and sheepishly whispers that he saw the dwarf Swede cleaning her teeth some two hours ago, prior to turning in with her Italian bagpipe playing co owner.
The selfish cow, how could she, and the last of the water, without even asking if any one minded her using the last of the water.
They only drank apple juice that they had asked Will and I not to touch as they don’t drink anything with caffeine in it.
“Ok Will, let me take her now, and, can you get all the water bottles topside?. I’m going to go alongside Southend pier, there’s a water tap on the top deck, but the lower deck is very slippery so please be careful.
Will asks, “Do you want me to fill the washing bucket with fresh water?”, by the look on Will’s face and the sight of both our cups in his hand told its own story.
I vow never to wash or wash up dishes in a bucket ever again, I know some Swedes are liberal minded, but this one beats all.
Chapter 1
This nightmare started but a few weeks ago when our phone refused to stop ringing, even though it was the early hours of the morning. Thoughts of family members being admitted to hospital, or some other tragedy firmly fixed in mind, I answered the phone only to find this pleasant Swedish voice apologising for calling at this hour, but that time was short and the delivery was urgent, and that she had been let down by some other delivery skipper. You come highly recommended; I’m a sucker for flattery.
Listening to her voice thoughts of Agnetha of ABBA fame come to the fore then she says that her name is Helga, and abba fades and is replaced by the comedy farce Allo Allo, and the female German who wears a red and black lace trimmed Basque comes to mind. If only we had videophones, and what a shock we were in for.
I suppose I should have known better, I've only been doing this for thirty five years, and to fall for that old flannel, " yes our barge is very beautiful with all the right shape, very quick through the water, and an original Kromhout single cylinder two stroke engine that is in such good condition that it can be started by hand, and I will send you a video of the former Dutch owner doing just that".
If only we knew the truth we would not have left home. Yes the engine can be started by hand but is not recommended. It was originally an air start engine, but the air tank was rotten and all the air valves leaked, oh how she stretched the truth!
Tickets booked for the early morning flight to Schippol on Friday; weather not looking too bad even though it was a bit cold for that time of year.
We estimated for a three-day run through the Dutch and Belgium canals to arrive at Nieuwpoort late Monday ready for the crossing into the Thames and up to London. It all sounds too easy when said like that.
We use VLM the Belgium airline these days as they are no frills and have a good service to Holland and Belgium. The flight and train ride to Amsterdam central station were uneventful.
Now I am not sure if many are aware of this but a large number of cabbies in Amsterdam are not of Dutch extraction, most are from the Balcones and do not understand much English, my Dutch is pretty poor but I can just about get by with the usual hand gestures and speaking loud and slowly in broken English. After 25 minutes and a friendly Dutch copper acting as interpreter we were on our way.
Arriving at the vessel was a serious shock to the system. Looking across at what was once a pretty barge we could see the new owners working away at various tasks.
“Where is the wheelhouse?” I yelled over to them. “Were still putting the finishing touches to that”. Will and I exchanged a glance that said it all, the taxi was roaring off down the road with our bags and us dumped on the side of the road.
If that driver hadn’t been so quick to drive away we would have gone straight back to the station and return home.
The barge was tiny to say the least with a small owner’s cabin behind where the wheelhouse was meant to be. In that cabin was one double bed and not much else, there must be other accommodation in the hold thinks us incorrectly.
Still no time to waste we had better introduce ourselves and see what’s what. After the usual formalities we made an inspection of the vessel.
In the aft cabin area was a small galley (kitchen to landlubbers) which had a floor area of about 6ft by 3ft, the headroom was about 5ft 3ins, both Will and I are over 6ft so crouching was the order of the day, there was a small stairway in the middle of the aft cabin which goes up to where the wheelhouse should be.
On the opposite side of the stairs from the galley was a small box with a china loo in the middle with no seat or flushing facility.
Great, that’s all you need, four people sharing a loo with no flushing facility. I know it’s part of the job that we do but how many more times have we got to hear from starry eyed new owners
“look on it as an adventure,” “camping out is good for you” did you notice that she missed out that bit about sleeping out under the stars, laying on the deck as there is only one bed, and as the owners, the bed should be their domain.
On our first night aboard we sat and listened to two excited owners explaining how the found this little gem and how clever she was to negotiate a reduction in the BTW (just like our VAT), I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble by explaining that house boats are exempt of tax and that it cost them an extra twelve thousand euros for not seeking legal advice.
The former owner was sensible enough to employ a legal guy to oversee the sale, and straight after the sale had gone through the former owner left for Portugal for an undetermined length of time explaining that they would be long gone before he returned, that was the last they saw of him.
Mind you he did give them an extension lead which was fed through the window of the property they were moored behind.
I spoke to the occupier in the next property who informed me that he thought that his old neighbor had moved permanently to Portugal and would not be returning. I wonder who gets that electric bill.
Later that night it ended up with Will and I taking turns to sleep on the floor of the Galley with our heads or feet sticking out through the doorway.
On night one I couldn’t sleep as I was racking my brain as to how I could let this couple down so Will and I could catch the next flight home.
The first time I mentioned that the vessel was no where near ready and that we were a delivery crew had her bursting into tears and made me feel like a heel as she repeated again and again that everyone had let them down and how it wasn’t their fault because it was the Dutch summer holidays where nearly all companies close.
They said that they had intended to get a small yard to carry out the work on the wheelhouse and the other few jobs that needed doing.
When I looked at the list I realized that either they had no idea on what a small job was or that we were being told fibs. (We now know the latter to be true). We helped where possible.
I am really tired of people telling me that a little hardship is character building even if the person saying it is from Sweden. How much more character can you get when you are nearly 63 years old with a large dollop of snow on the roof.
Every time we mentioned that we were getting nowhere fast or in fact any criticism the Swede would turn on the waterworks and make me feel bad again.
After a day and a bit it came time to test the engine. I have had some experience with Kromhout engines and all have been air start, and this one was no exception.
All the system was there but all the control valves leaked or didn’t function correctly, and then we were informed that the air tank could not be used, as it had not been tested in years, so could we start the engine the way the former owner did.
There is a small metal spike that pulls out from the front of the 5ft flywheel and it is with this that you crank the engine. We tried for about two hours using this method and Will declared that he was not prepared to continue, as it was dangerous.
I had to agree with Will, who was kneeling down reaching past the flywheel to crank the engine, without any warning the waterworks started again, so we had to point out that the way the former owner used to start the engine was against all safety rules and we would find another way of starting the engine.
Remembering back to my youth and model boats I thought about the starting leather which was a longish square strip or leather which was passed around the flywheel and crossed over the top which could then be pulled in either direction to get the correct rotation.
Using the pulley on the front of the flywheel which used to drive a dynamo or alternator, we passed a length of electrical flex which was about half inch round which fitted perfectly.
A few trial runs later had us ready for a proper go at starting her. Being a two stroke it can run in both directions and when it did start it was in reverse, but Will soon had it running in the correct direction, WOW the new owners are actually smiling.
Will is yelling at me to shut her down. He explains after I stopped her that the water discharge pipe from the top of the engine had a hole in it and was filling the barge with canal water. Will examined the pipe only to upset our hosts yet again.
“The pipe is rubbish with a hole as big as two fingers. As everywhere in Holland was closed for some time we decided to cut out the damaged section and replace it with a length of radiator hose that we found in the Hold.
We restarted the engine and went to check the discharge of water, which was about one foot from the water line. No matter how hard I looked I could not see any water coming out, and after a loud bang Will yells for the engine to be stopped again.
The pipe we had just fitted had split near the engine end. We started to check it out but we were loosing light and we were all tired.
The owners went ashore to fetch a cooked meal for us all, Will and I hoping for a Chinese only to see them returning clutching a bag of sandwiches.
Later that evening I took Will out for a walk to find any form of restaurant to get some food and a hot drink. We found a takeaway just around the corner and thankfully they had a small sit down area, which we were thankful for.
Real food at last, Will says “do you realize we have been here nearly two days now and we still are not ready”.
The following day saw a few changes with us saying that we will have to make a few changes to the design of things or we will have to go home. We are on day three and the wheelhouse still hasn’t been finished and the engine was not fit to run in its current condition and before she started I said there is no point getting upset, “do you want this vessel delivered or not”.
“We are quite prepared to cut our losses”. All of a sudden the two owners are quiet, thoughtful and understanding, she said “whatever it takes” I think they realized they had pushed their luck a bit.
We rerouted the cooling pipe through a porthole as the old pipe was completely blocked; we restarted the engine and noted the squirt of water from the porthole.
Only two problems to go, wheelhouse and battery voltage getting a bit low. This barge did not have any battery charging facilities.
There was a donkey engine on the winch attached to the mast and I found an old dynamo in the hold but it was the wrong voltage.
It was probably used for deck lighting as the voltage was 37volt, it would boil the 12-volt battery if used continuously. If used for short periods on tick over it might just work.
The attached radiator was a pepper pot. Will made a sort of radiator out of an old water tank, and the water from the tank was fed into the engine and the hot water return went back to the tank.
The water became quite hot after 20 minutes so we decided to charge for 20 minutes and 2hrs cooling.
This gave us a happy balance between voltage needs of the battery and the cooling time of the water.
Now if only we could wave the Will magic wand to cure the wheelhouse problem. I could not understand why it was taking so long to build a wheel shelter till we took a close look at what was being done.
They were building the real thing. With just hand tools they were trying to construct a hard wood proper wheelhouse complete with hinges so they could lower it to get under low bridges.
I could contain myself no longer.
Steam and bile coming from every orifice. Will explained to them that all the bridges we needed to go under had that much clearance that you could stand on the wheelhouse and you still couldn’t touch them, and all the bridges in Belgium open, so you have just wasted our time.
When I returned from my enforced absence due to excess steam Will had the wheelhouse covered and a small tarp over the top to keep the wet out and a bit of thin rope to keep it all in place. After finishing work that evening we went for our usual stroll to take care of the eating problem and we noticed a supermarket a bit further on so we decided to be nosey.
It was one of those stores where they stack things like a pyramid, hey Will look, a whole stack of fire extinguishers, it seemed so out of place and I suddenly noticed Will punching keys on his phone, he explained that his mobile had a built in currency converter and that these 1kg extinguishers were three and a half euros.
Back in the U.K. we would pay nearly twenty pounds for the same thing, only difference was the instructions were in Dutch, a big plus was that they came with a nice new certificate and we would not have to pay our local company nine pounds to have each old extinguisher checked and pressure tested.
At last a bit of good fortune. Then you know what came next, GREED in big capitol letters, if we buy more than we need we can sell the extras at say eight pounds fifty, still cheaper than having one serviced and we get a bit of profit for our troubles. We both decided to purchase fifty units each, and they come in boxes of ten.
Now a one kg extinguisher holds 1kg of powder but it weighs a lot more than that, there was no way we were going to be able to carry five boxes each, so we managed to persuade the market manager for us to borrow two of his finest trolleys.
The looks we were getting from passers by, maybe the thought we were pyro maniacs or some thing worse.
Really amazing how the greed thing works, one sight of our booty and explanations to the Swedish and Italian owners saw them volunteering to return the trolleys for us so we could go and eat, needless to say they bought a dam sight more than we did, looks like they’re going into the extinguisher business when they get back to Britain.
Next morning bright and early, we had one more small task and we could get underway. The new owners failed to explain that they had not had the fuel tanks cleaned and refilled with clean fuel.
To help try and rectify the problem we had to use one-gallon car fuel containers to put enough fuel in to get the vessel to the bunker station.
I have always used Fiwado’s who are based in Zwindrecht and used to have a bunker/Chandlery station near central station Amsterdam, it has now moved round the bend on the Amsterdam/Rijn Kanal, just south of the sluis (locks) going to the Ijssel mere.
The friendly giant who greeted us at the door was Pieter, an old trusted friend. He had us fuelled in no time flat and sorted out some fuel filter inserts that would work in this system.
I was hoping to take Pieter and his partner for a meal on this trip but had to postpone that thought for another trip, still it was good to see my old friend again even if it was for a short visit.
Before leaving the bunker station Will and I had our navigation equipment installed and a working VHF radio which by the way should have been two radios fitted according to the Dutch waterway regulations, all navigation lights working even if the wiring was run across the deck.
It did not look pretty but it all worked. Pieter was totally amazed at our starting system using electrical flex but we soon had his usual thumbs up.
Can we now go to London?
Not just yet Will as we need to load a small cargo of four one tonne bags of sand and three pallet’s of paving slabs to qualify commercial red diesel, it is amazing how the difference in prices affects things.
We had to go back the other way to the sand yard at Zaandam. Finally all loaded and hatch boards in place, Will has even found time to tidy the wiring, but on the way to Zaandam he noticed that the engine mounting bolts were loose and the engine was bouncing up and down.
He decided to replace the main bolts with the new ones we brought with us.
Seventy minutes later we were moving on our way to London. Some of our Dutch skipper friend’s think us a touch mad crossing the North sea using just one piston going up and down.
For those who have never encountered a Kromhout, they are very reliable Dutch engines.
Chapter 2
And so it begins.
Running South through countryside now on the Amsterdam/Rijn kanal heading towards Utrecht I looked at the GPS Navigator and I was surprised to see six and a half knots, wow that’s not too bad considering the past four day’s, thinking about it Will had all but rebuilt things below deck and the engine was running like a sewing machine.
Will said he heard a rumbling noise and rushed below to see what was making the noise, he never gave me time to reply and when he reappeared I explained that it was my stomach.
With all the rushing around to get moving we had missed getting some breakfast. I could not face another sandwich of either Dutch ham or cheese, I love my Dutch friend’s but ham and cheese, no, I could kill for a good old fry up.
I think both Will and I have lost a lot of weight since leaving home so Will said he would check what was onboard for eating. The Swedish owner admitted that there was little supplies onboard and that she would like to stop at a supermarket to do some shopping.
She could not believe that there were none, but there was one a short walk from the rail station next to the kanal just North of Utrecht, only problem was there are no moorings on that side of the kanal, so we decided to stop and let her off and cross over and tie up on the east bank, at least it gave Will and I a chance to take a break.
Dropping the owner’s on the east bank we swung across the wide Kanal in one turn, Luxemotor’s are quite maneuverable when they are ballasted correctly.
Tied up and alongside we took our chance of a break, but on a small barge there is little area’s for resting, no sofa’s or comfy arm chairs, well except for that double bed, should we chance it, we ended up sitting on the grass river bank as that seemed the softest available to us.
We seemed to be sitting on the grass for ages, there was us hoping that the two owner‘s were having a good spending spree and bringing back loads of goodies.
Daft really for us to be so stupid, they turned up an hour and a half later with one small bag of shopping, I wondered what took so much time, but as usual they had decided to take the opportunity of the stop to do a bit of sight seeing.
At least they managed to buy some bacon, strange how thin the Dutch are able to slice bacon, we decided to eat before getting underway. Ten minutes later both Will and I were presented with two sandwiches with a rasher of bacon in each one.
I’m sure Will thought as I that they were being a bit stingy with the provisions. At least we will not need to go on a diet after this delivery.
I had a quiet word with Will to let him know that I wanted to run virtually non stop, or we will end up starving.
Time for us to get a bit sweaty starting this old engine, with gas torch going full blast heating the coil on the top of the engine we used our patented electric flex starting system and she burst into life at first go, right direction too.
Remembering back to the air start ones in the past this method is actually quicker, I must write this method up later to share with other Kromhout owners.
Only problem with mooring on this side of the river is that we are now facing the wrong way, “cast off forward, cast off aft” we ease ourselves off the berth but for some unknown reason it seems to have become rush hour central, the wash from passing vessels put us back alongside, we will just have to wait for a gap.
After what seemed ages we see a gap and go for it making a perfect turn from the berth.
Once again running in the right direction, South East, we settle down to our cruising speed, a large pusher tug with three barges in front start to overtake us and I put this little barge as close to the bank as is safe to do, good manners go a long way over here and besides which the pusher is a lot bigger.
As the pusher drew level with our stern the suction from their propellers sucked our stern towards them so I continually had to adjust the steering. As their stern reached our bows we swung violently to Port and ended up directly astern of the pusher tug.
A quick change of course put us safely back close to the bank. The owners were amazed at the strength of the effects another vessel could have on theirs, “Will keep an eye out for overtaking vessels, I do not want to get in their way”
Time for some serious decisions. The choices are remove the propulsion system and use the services of a local towage company and empty your bank balance into theirs, move whole propulsion and steering system to the sharp end and always go backwards, raise wheelhouse by about five feet or install a really good multi camera system at the sharp end and multi screens in the wheelhouse. In picture one the brown bit at the back is the wheelhouse, and the next picture is all you can see from that wheelhouse. After moving said vessel to the drydock a stiff brandy would be the order of the day, but seeing as I am tee total I'll just shake for
