#415

NOW SOLD

NB Dane Elm and Gun Metal Fountain Pen

(25% of the profits will be gifted to the Narrowboat Heritage Foundation, the custodians of NB Dane)

EUROPEAN ELM - Ulmus procera

European Elm has is a light to medium brown, sometimes with a hint of red. With an oil finish, it can turn a beautiful golden brown colour. Unless, of course, it's been kept at the bottom of a canal for an awfully long time.

The rotten parts of these rebuilt boats are usually used to stoke the fires that steam the new planks for bending to the hull's shape.Luckily these pieces of elm were too important to burn and have been properly stored. I wasn't sure how deep the rot would have gone and how deep I would have to delve into this piece to find stable wood. The pens I make from historic boat materials have been thoroughly tested by me to make sure that they will give pleasurable daily use.

Narrowboat Dane was built by the Mersey Weaver and Ship Canal Carrying Company and used as part of their fleet. She was built in November 1946 and first registered on January the first 1947. Ade from A P Boatbuilding is currently restoring her on behalf of The Narrowboat Heritage Foundation, the work being done is re-bottomed with new chine planks, kelson, stem post and soon to receive two new bow planks, gunwales, decks, new back cabin and engine room. The pens that I will be making from Dane are all from a heavy lump of Elm bottom plate.

After leaving our sheltered mooring at Gnosal we realised that the winds out on the open embankments were quite a bit stronger than we were expecting. A sixty foot long eighteen ton narrowboat it a tad unwieldy to say the least and the only way to battle a strong breeze is to increase the throttle and 'crab' down the canal at an angle to the wind. 

There does come a point though where navigating becomes dangerous and its time to find a safe-haven waiting for the wind to abate. The weather went past that though we were looking at the leading edge of storm Clodagh. The forecasts were for winds up to 50mph and gusts of 70+. Time to moor up on mooring rings, ideally away from trees. 

We had two days of Clodagh in Wheaton Aston before we were able to move on up a single lock and head through the cutting of Stretton Spoil Banks. We didn't get far. A little less than a mile and I could see something in the far distance that didn't look right on the towpath. I suspected a tree down and Deb confirmed after a check with the binoculars. The canopy was on the left hand bank so the tree must have come from somewhere on the right bank. We moored up and went to check what the damage and prognosis was. It didn't look good, the fallen tree covered about twenty feet of the towpath and did indeed come from the opposite bank. The Canal and River Trust had already been called out by another stranded boater the other side of the fallen tree but unfortunately it would take them and a team of specialist contractors three more days to clear a path through the fallen tree (and another day at least to remove the remaining wood). With nothing else to do apart from worry about all the other trees in the cutting coming down around us on December the 1st I set up the workshop, powered up the generator and set to work turning pen #415 and finishing off a few others.

This was going to change our cruising plan though as we were still about 130 lock miles away from Birmingham and running out of contingency days. More storms were forecast but we'd just have to work through them.