#475 Now Sold

NB Saturn Oak and 24ct Gold Plated Ballpoint Twist Pen

(£2.50 from the sale of this pen will be gifted to The Shropshire Union Fly-Boat Restoration Society, the Custodians of NB Saturn)

EUROPEAN OAK - Quercus robur

Usually straight-grained, the heartwood of European Oak varies in colour from light tan to brown. Quarter-sawn pieces show attractive flame figuring. The wood is fairly hard, heavy and dense, clean but with the occasional knot. European Oak is a beautiful timber and with an oil finish, the grain will turn a deep golden brown.

This particular piece of oak (probably English rather than European) is just a little bit special though. It is one of the large bow mainframes from the Shropshire Fly Boat Saturn. The days of the fly-boats began with the success of the Bridgewater and Trent & Mersey canals in the 1770’s. Up until the heyday of the fly boats cargos had sedately plodded up the towing paths (Haling Way’s in them thar days) at three miles per hour or so but the new Fly Boats with teams of four men and two horses regularly galloped their loads of perishable goods at ten miles per hour. 

Built in 1906 for the Shropshire Union Canal Carrying Co. at Tower Wharf, Chester, Saturn was used for the fast carriage of cheese from the producing towns of Cheshire and Shropshire to the major markets such as Manchester. 

Saturn is the last horse-drawn Shropshire Union Canal Fly-boat in the World – originally built to travel non-stop, day and night. Over 100 years old, she has been fully restored to her former glory; not only to preserve her for posterity but to educate present and future generations about our waterways, narrowboats and horse-boating.

We had stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon basin for our full allowance of 14 days as the weather had been so nice. The plan was that we'd go out for a belated birthday drink and dinner for Debbie on our last night and slowly plod back up to the outskirts of Birmingham in the couple of weeks after.

Debs treat out very nearly didn't happen. We'd had a day of rain, not particularly heavy locally, but I was seeing a lot of bad reports of flooding from fellow boaters a long way east in Northampton. It wasn't until I looked closer at the maps that I realised that the River Avon was a stream over that way and it was the same river Avon that we were 100 yards from.

The river is usually about five feet below the canal basin and the basin itself has floating pontoons and wharf walls about another foot or so above the canal height. Worryingly though there were some flood markers on the town wall that showed the river had the potential to go quite bit higher. We hadn't had that much rain though. Had we?

On the mooring of our last day the river was up by about three feet and the park and bandstand was starting to flood. Sirens sounded in the distance. I later found out that it was the emergency evacuation procedure for a local mobile home park. Maybe we should leave a bit earlier, get through the two low bridges and up the closest town lock and safely above flood height.

It wasn't that we were particularly bothered about the flood, more that if the basin rose by up to 1 foot we wouldn't be able to get out under the bridges and would be trapped for however long the water stayed high. I logged in to the environment agency's web site and looked at the data for the river hight. Worst recently recorded (1995) was about 1.9m with an average this time of year being about 0.7m. It was now 1.6m but wasn't increasing over a couple of hours that I was checking.

We gambled and stayed in the basin. After a great evening out we returned to the boat a little the worse for wear and to a river height of 1.68m. We decided that if the river level rose to basin level of about 1.85m we would move the boat through the bridges and first lock whatever the time of night was. I took the first watch - midnight to 7am, well I'm a light sleeper and Deb doesn't function on anything less than eight hours sleep!  

The level stabilized over night and was just under 1.85m by 6am. Just as we were getting ready to leave a couple of hours later, using the pontoons to do a quick repair job on our sagging front and rear button fenders, the canal and river equalised. The river bottom lock gate gently swung open to show a completely open ended lock with the tree strewn river rushing past just a boats length from where we were moored. Time to leave.

Pen #475 was turned a week or so later just south of Knowle on Thursday 17th March

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