Geared up for trouble

The Saga of the broken gearbox

May 2017

I left you moored in Stourport Basin eagerly awaiting a new gearbox, the old one having spewed its contents into the bilge as we made our way out of the Black Country.

Droitwich Canal Festival 2017

Well, things have move one, but only a bit and truth be told its all been a bit of a saga.

Our expectations were that we would have a new PRM120 within a few days and we would be on our way, but sadly this proved not to be the case. There were no spares on the shelf so a new one had to be ordered from Beta before the job could be scheduled. Days dragged by with no firm news till eventually at noon on Wednesday it became apparent that there would be no repair till after the Droitwich weekend.

Trading at Droitwich

So a decision had to be made, to set off down the Severn with a very dodgey gearbox of to resign ourselves to another week in Stourport. The options were considered and as the oil was only dribbling out of the gearbox I figured I could keep topping it up and hopefully we could make it to the festival site. If all else failed we could stop on the river and wait for a tow from one of the other boats making for the event.

It was a nervous 2.5 hours but we made it to the Droitwich Barge Canal without incident and refilled the box and saw an alarmingly large pool of oil under the engine. We carried on up the canal and reached Vines Park with no oil showing on the dipstick!

Festival goers enjoying some sun

And so we managed to trade at the 2017 St Richards Festival under a grey and leaden sky. Not ideal weather but our loyal customers came out in force and we ended up with a very satisfactory event from a sales perspective. Of course, there is more to events than sales and it was great to spend time with other traders and the festival organisers.

As for the gearbox - it has arrived. Sadly an essential tool was missing so the engineers will return tomorrow and hopefully we will be off by the afternoon.

Colours from Morgana