Hawkesbury and a Broken Throttle Cable

Saturday 29th May 2021 in Rugby.

 Hawkesbury Junction, known to the old boaters as "Sutton Stop" after the family who used to manage the lock. It is the meeting place of the Coventry Canal and the North Oxford Canal. We paused here briefly to take on some water, and R and Peter did the stop lock (just a few inches deep, designed to stop the Coventry Canal from stealing the Oxford's water). Note: we were still wearing several layers of clothing - summer had not yet arrived in Warwickshire!

In its heyday, Sutton Stop was where the boats waited for their orders, where they picked up coal to take down to London. This was the energy distribution centre of the Midlands, supplying coal to the capital. It is still the energy distribution centre - only now it is distributing electricity instead of coal. Progress?

Passing Brinklow, MM's engine suddenly died back to idle power. After ten years of service, the throttle cable had broken. We pulled in to the bank (by shere luck there was a space) and R disappeared down into the engine room. By pure chance, Mel and Peter on "Inkling" had a spare cable and R was able to fit it, although initially he couldn't work out how to connect it to the Morse control. Peter supervised, offering helpful advice!

So R improvised with a pair of mole grips to keep the revs up! It worked!

  

After we moored up, R was able to talk to Simon, our lovely engineer. R then worked out how to connect the cable to the Morse control, and we were back working normally again.

 

The buttercups have been amazing this year with whole fields a mass of gold.  Beautiful.

We moored up in Rugby opposite the park and went shopping in the big shopping centre. Such a warm feeling to have the fridge full of goodies!

Today: 13 miles, 1 lock and 4.8 hours.

Trip: 65 miles, 21 Locks and 26.4 hours.