Bidford to Offenham

Captains Log Canal Date 13th July 2009 Travels 5 Miles 2 Large Heavy River Locks Current Location Offenham (Fish & Anchor Pub) OS Ref SP 066 – 471 Lat – Long 52.7’22.3N 1 54’16.8W After spending a few days in Bidford it was time to move, the domestic batteries are now quite flat. I think that I may have a faulty battery, but which one. I don’t want to replace all four if only one is weak. After a phone call to the office a super battery tester was dispatched to me. No use trying to test a flat battery – it will only tell you that it is flat, so we travelled for 2 hours, just enough to put a bit of a charge into them. I did not want to get into Evesham before checking as that is where I would get any replacement batteries. At each lock we shared with a plastic river boat. It looked like it may have been made out old recycled Tupperware. It does look flimsy in the lock with steel sides to the lock on one side and 22 tons of narrow boat on the other side. All went fine and we were still speaking to each other at the second lock. We moored up at The Billington locks (right next to the Fish & Anchor Pub) It’s a lovely spot; we are on an island in the river Avon, an ideal spot for the dog to play. After letting the engine cool down I checked the batteries (not a 5 minutes job!) all four batteries are fine. Perhaps I expect too much from them. I have 440 amp hrs and they only last about 3 days. I have checked the charging, checked for discharge and checked the batteries. All are fine. I blame Pam; she wants the fridge on all the time. It’s only important when the weather is hot and the fridge is full of beer, any other time it should be off. She also wants to watch TV in the evening. I think that is we eat out each night the batteries would last for weeks! My thanks to Bob & Marg for bringing out the battery meter and for a good meal in yet another pub. As I said we are right next to a pub, no more than 100 yards away. Shame it’s on the other bank with little prospect of mooring on that side. It is a form of mental torture.

The story so far

Well where do I start We took possession of Daddy Cook in early November 2008, I was assured that all had been checked and everything was working as should be. Now call me cynical if you like but I always find it hard to believe that they tell the truth when they say that. What they meant to say was "We cant be bothered to look at it so just let me know what faults you find and we may or may not do something about it. We now have your money in are rapidly loosing interest in you" This is not a caustic comment aimed at the boat builder specifically but at any car, caravan or similar item I have purchased in the past has generally followed this line of thought. We could not get any lighting to work, in fact the batteries would not support anything other than 1 led light. The horn did not work, the tunnel light had a mind of its own, the central heating had the most infuriating habit of working just perfectly whenever the engineer was on board but refused to anything for us! After a few days some of the batteries were replaced and that then showed that 11 of the LED Down lights did not work properly. After a few weeks the horn & tunnel light have been sorted. They have taken the central heating unit away for further investigation and still we have 11 LED lights not working. Its not just the boats that move at a very slow pace on the canals.