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Coal, Diesel, Pumpout, Ropes , Fenders, and Other Boating Consumables to Boats & Canalside Business & Properties. E-mail :nbalton102@yahoo.co.uk or Mobile: 07791345004 or 07976811073

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Alton's Latest Schedule March 2011

With Ann Marie still away on holiday, I (Brian) will be joined by Graham Beard on the next run and George Boyle will be helping us by being on the tiller as we work Marple Locks.

Thursday 24th March:  Ashton under Lyne to Whaley Bridge
Friday 25th March:       Deliveries at Whaley Bridge & Bugsworth
Saturday 26th March:   Furness Vale to Marple and on to Bollington
Sunday 27th March:      Bollington to Fools Nook and return to Marple
Monday 28th March:    Marple to Ashton under Lyne
Tuesday 29th March:    Road deliveries to Sandbach, Middlewich, Nantwich etc.

Please note the above schedule may change slightly depending on traffic and customer requirements.

If you need supplies, please phone, text or email us.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Altons Docking No.3

We really are determined to get Alton into good shape before her 75th Birthday in July this year, so she is back on the wet dock at Ashton Packet for 2 or 3 more sessions of repairs and renovations. This is very difficult to organise with Steve and the Crew at Ashton having to work around our coal run schedules. We really appreciate the effort they are putting in and the work they are doing in very tight time frames.

The repairs on Alton are going fairly well, one or two jobs have been a bit bigger than we had hoped whilst others have not been as bad as we feared. On Tuesday morning work started in ernest with Steve assessing the condition of the repairs carried out to the cabin in October. These look to be standing up well to the weather, so next he looked at the rest of the cabin condition on the chimney side and at the stern. One area that needed some major attention was the joint of the counter / deck and the bulkhead. In this area the woodwork was rotten and the deck corroded. It was decided to tackle the chimney side first. The lowest plank was removed and the deck cut away to good metal.


Alan then made a repair plate which he trial fitted:



Then welded:




Before finishing with grinding:



Mean while down at the bows Steve was working with wood. He had removed the old rotten front timber known as the hood and made a new one.



He also removed one of the cants and made a new one:



Once the welding was finished Steve continued with the woodwork repairs to the back cabin before applying the primer coat of paint to the chimney side of the cabin:



I'll try and get some more photos of the work and update the blog before we start our next coal run with Alton on Thursday.