Weighing heavy

Loading up The Jam Butty

April 2017

Well, after a delay of exactly one year we are nearly ready for the off.

In some ways 2016 seems like the year that never happened but Helen is now well on the road to a full recovery and our delayed plans are swinging into action.

As prelude to our departure there was the small matter of my job but finally, after 38 years, I have parted company with my illustrious employer. Yes, I have joined the ranks of the pension receivers (I am far too young and vain to be described as retired) So, this now frees us up to go travelling.

During the winter months I have, under the critical eye of Mrs "quality control" been busy emptying the freezers and transforming their contents into a range of mouth watering preserves. To be honest I did add up how much we had in stock about six weeks ago, but since then Sticky Toffee Pudding jam and a huge batch of Wild Garlic Vinegar have rolled of the Wild Side production line and I sort of lost count at 2,000 jars.

Now all that stock is heavy, really heavy. I have loaded the Zafira to the gills three times with finished product and again with new glassware and it all had to be loaded into the butty. No problem I hear you say, butties are made to carry loads - its the whole purpose of their existence. Well, yes - and no. The Jam Butty is not exactly a normal butty as it is essentially all front and back with only about six feet of straight plate in the middle. As a result the buoyancy of the stern is limited and made worse by the presence of a heavy steel cabin. 

Before we started the ambient trim of the butty was about 14" at the bow and about 2' 10" at the stern with a propensity to list to the left (port for you salty types) and getting the trim right when loading has always been a challenge. If it was a challenge when carrying stock for 3 or 4 days trading imagine the issues when loading enough stock for 14 or 15 days - enough to last us right through to the Black Boating Festival in September. 

I tend to use the back cabin for storage, locating boxes of preserves under and on the benches, but for this voyage I have added a large watertight hold box capable of carrying an additional 700 jars. This box (it looks a bit like Hagrid's coffin) can me moved from side to side to balance out any listing. This aspect of the plan worked pretty well and by moving the heavy gazebo from side to side managed to achieve a very level boat, and with all that weight below the waterline its also very stable for such a short craft. 

However, and isnt there always a however, I did have a problem with the pitch. As I mentioned the boat sits naturally bows high which allows the bulk of the prop wash to pass under the butty and the deep stern acts like a drogue keeping it straight. The additional weight at the back of the cabin caused it to sink even deeper to the point that when I stood on the back water started to come into the well deck through the drain holes rather than the other way around! Whilst there is no danger of the boat sinking, this isn't good.....

To counter this tendency I had to reconfigure the loading to bring the weight forward wherever possible, thereby taking greater advantage of the additional buoyancy in the hold section. With much re ordering I have managed to get the whole thing balanced and its now sitting about an inch and a half down to the left and two inched to the right, evenly spread along the whole length of the boat. But thats it - as Jim McCoy said in Star Trek - "she canna take no more, Capn". 

Note for future - pack a bit less jam!

Vital Statistics

Measuring up

March 2017

Its getting to crunch time when we actually start to load all that carefully prepared stock onto the Jam Butty, ready for sale during the summer season.

Its not just the size but the weight distribution and storage capacity which has been occupying my mind. A quick tally in the store room suggests something like 2000 jars / bottles will be coming with us which at about 150 jars per trading day gives us, um - about 13 days supply. Thats a lot of volume and a lot of weight.

All jars have to be stored in boxes to keep them safe, and we have enough space, just. But how much will it all weigh? Nerd that I am I decided to do a bit of maths. Each 210g jar actually weighs 370g when you include the glass - so thats 740,000 grammes or 740 Kg. But as traditional boaters we spit on metric so 740 kg equals 1,630 lbs, or 116 stone which is the equivalent of 7 medium sized blokes (something I can imagine).

Thats quite a lot of weight, but not so much that the butty cant carry it. It just needs to be distributed taking account of the natural list to port (it lists 2 or 3 cm and its not the fit out weight distribution, so it has to be vagaries in the construction using the remains of the iron day boat. My guess is that one side is deeper than the other. The fabricators were never convinced it was straight either and the feeling is that one side is longer than the other but on a boat which is all bows and stern, with just 2 metres of straight plate in the middle, being a "banana boat" isn't a particular problem.

So, the storage has been constructed with 2/3 to starboard and most towards the middle of the boat and about 66% below the waterline for stability. Time will tell if this all works out.

Rosie's Walk, Aldridge

The Jam Butty at Rosie's Walk, Aldridge
July 2016

The Jam Butty will be making a pop up appearance along the route of what will be the very last Rosie's Walk in Aldridge this coming Sunday (17th July).

Rosie's Walk, or more accurately Rosie's Helping Hands, has been a local charity inspired by the tragic and senseless killing of Rosie Ross in Birmingham on 12th May 2001 when she was just sixteen. Each year a large crowd gather near Longwood Boat club and walk a three mile circuit in her memory, raising about £15,000 pa which is used to benefit local children's works.

As well as a canalside walk, the route takes you through the Hayhead Local Nature Reserve which is itself one of the more fascinating lost sections of the BCN canal network.

This year will be the last and with the blessing of the event organisers (Rosie's mum) The Jam Butty will be open for preserve tastings and sales on the visitor moorings at Longwood Boat Club and Rushall Top Lock.

As an extra bonus the Homebrew Boat will be on the canal at the same time so you can sample locally made preserves and learn more about the subtle art of fermentation, as well as getting some exercise on what promises to be a lovely summer day.

The Jam Butty and The Homebrew Boat will be open from late morning till late afternoon and the walks themselves will start at noon and the last start for both the three and one mile routes will be at 2.30pm (Satnav WS9 0QQ).

See you there.

Bostin in Brownhills

Bostin in Brownhills

June 2016

I spent last weekend on the waterfront in Brownhills, taking nearly three hours to get there along the shallow and narrow Daw End Branch of the Wyrley and Essington canal on Saturday. I arrived in time to set the butty up ready for the Brownhills Canalside Festival and to go and chat the a couple of the other boaters for an hour or so, putting the issues of the EU to rights in the process.

Brownhills Canalside Festival 2016

This event is really a canal side fete put on by the local residents (The Brownhills Peoples Association to be accurate) and whilst a smattering of boats was needed to bring the water to life, it is not a boating festival by any stretch of the imagination. There was the Ikon art boat, the BCNS workboat Phoenix offering trips, two local boats in for the day, two permanent moorers who simply sat it out and then there was me, the first trading boat to appear at the event and a novel addition which went down well with the attendees.

The Jam Butty in action

The organisation is a bit hit and miss with limited direction and supervision, but there is a team spirit about the while thing and everyone just seems to muck in an it all comes together. There was no booking system for boats and no harbour master, so we all discussed the options and then made it happen. The limited number of boats should not come as a surprise when you remember that  Brownhills is at least a full days cruising on remaindered canals from any main waterways.

Lots of canoeing

There is something rather special about these small local events, organised by local community activists for the local community. From a trading perspective I never have high expectations but am so often pleasantly surprised, and Brownhills was no exception. I was trading solo with Helen staying at home with a friend so I scaled back the operations a bit, dropping the cordials and offering a more limited range which I can manage on my own.

Local musical acts

I woke to the sound of rain hammering down in the night but it had moved on my the morning and instead we had an unseasonal northerly breeze with a forecast of rail for late afternoon. These conditions called for the gazebo plus a couple of sides but come 10.00 am I was set up and by 10.10 I had covered my stall fee - not a bad start! The day continued in a steady fashion, never overrun but rarely quiet. I had some company over the lunch period but in the main I served alone and it surprised my just how many people I know, both locals and visitors. And so the day passed in a very sociable manner and by the time the rail arrived at 3.30 the table was looking a bit light on stock. In the end we have a good day with takings which would not have disgraced a big event like Droitwich.

But, as we have seen before, a late rain shower is the final curtain for outside events and the crowds just melted away and the stallholders trying to set gazebo dismantling records. I plodded on steadily and just after 5.00pm all was packed away and the Jam Butty was both weatherproof and ready to move.

And then a dilemma - do I stay or do I go? Well, I was already more than a bit damp so I pulled on my waterproofs and made a start on the return journey. The temperature plummeted and as I passed through Walsall Wood my breath was coming out as steam - great for the end of June! My destination was to stop at the offside mooring next to Aldridge Marina, only half a mile from home but a full two hours cruising from or mooring so with no plans for Monday morning I stopped for the night and was rewarded with a bright and dry end to my short trip out.

Pop up trading opportunities

Pop up trading opportunities

June 2016

I seem to have stumbled across a new format for impromptu trading opportunities.

We usually have three formats for preserve trading on the boats :

1. The full blown stall trading from the butty under a gazebo as seen at canal festivals

2. Using a hanging rack off the hard section of the cratch on the butty (to be replicated by hanging shelves on the motor when I get round to making them).

3. Ad hoc sales as we mooch along prompted by the display boards having over the sheeting of the butty.

In recent weeks I have met up with the BCNS Explorer Cruises twice and because they have all heard about The Jam Butty and the foraged dimension to our products - they want to try them.

For a small group the full stall would be overkill but the other options dont really hit the spot. So, when we joined the May group for the loop through Walsall I set up the tasting boards on the roof of the butty and offered a dozen flavours for tasting. I was rather bowled over by the enthusiasm for the pop up event and was rushed of my feet satisfying orders from the boxes stored in the cabin.

The June cruise comprising 20 boats called at Longwood Boat Club last night and whilst I cant travel with them on this occasion, I was asked to pull the butty over the canal and set up shop in the jaws of the lock. The butty was duly poled over in the morning as the guests were arriving and I left a sign advertising a tasting session at 4.30. 

I had no idea how this would go but come the hour I put out the tasters and settled on the back cabin roof. Silly move - everyone came along and I didnt sit down again for an hour. As usual, the preserves were a big hit and there was the satisfying sight of lots of "Another jammy treat from Wild Side" bags wandering down the towpath.

I will catch up with the cruise again on Wednesday morning for the now traditional historical walk up the Bradley Locks Branch to the Bradley Works, and hopefully a swift pint in the Gospel Oak on the way back.

Sorry, no photos - I was too busy selling jam!

Blistering Blisworth

Blisworth Canal Festival 2015

August 2015

Its the first weekend in August so it must be the Blisworth Canal Festival, an event which has entered its seventh year and this time it was bigger and better than ever before.

Blisworth Wharf on festival weekend

Last year the Saturday was good but the Sunday welcomed the entrails of a tropical storm which washed the event out completely. This year the weather was kinder to a fault, with the thermometer hovering in the high 20's and barely a breath of wind to rustle the Gazebo.

This represents a landmark event as it is the last time we will trade from the gazebo on land - next year we will trade from The Jam Butty - so its goodbye to our pitch behind the allotment society and goodbye to the lovely studio B&B near Roade.

Ice Cream and shade

We were invited to spend Friday night with Sandra and Barry (Homebrew Boat) so we rocked up in late afternoon and were just setting up the stall when Areandare slid through the bridge. The evening saw the sampling of wine and beer and the conclusion of a very satisfactory game of Six handed Rummy (a game of great skill which saw the girls roundly trounced and me stalking Barry only to steal the lead in the last round).

Barry

This event grows and grown and every year we seem to see the fields given over to car parks grow in number. With good weather forecast for the whole weekend the crowds turned out in force - an estimated 23,000 on day one only to be eclipsed on day two when the overall weekend total approached 60,000! 

Festival overspill

From a trading point of view Saturday is normally the busy day and Sunday being more relaxed, but in this case the Saturday was just too hot and the huge crowds milled around listlessly more interested on shade, water and ice cream than buying stuff from boats. Hey ho, Sunday was fresher and more inspirational for the buying public many of whom are repeat customers who beat a path to our stall each year for their jammy fix.

Heritage Boats at Blisworh

All in all this is an extraordinary event which just grows and grows, a village fete on steroids which in the realms of canal festivals is in some ways unique. We don't want to get locked into a fixed cycle of events, but come August 2016 we will be back.

Longwood Canal Festival 2015

Longwood Canal Festival 2105

June 2015

We are trading at two festivals over successive weekends and as I type this account of the Longwood Festival the lyrics of "We're the kids in America" playing in the Norton Brewery next door mix with the distant beat of The Stones floating up from the stage opposite Big Lock. Yup, we are at Middlewich Folk and Boating (FAB) Festival, and what a contrast.

Longwood Boat Festival 2015

Middlewich is a huge, heaving music based festival attracting thousands to the town with its main stage and its many fringe stages which occupy every nook and cranny.

By contrast Longwood Boat Festival was a very homespun affair based around the small Longwood Boat Club which occupies the arm at the top of the Rushall Locks and numbers no more than 30 boats. There is not usually a lot of action out on the northern reaches of the BCN but every other year a festival takes place at Pelsall Common which serves the joint interests of the local boating community and the local population. 2015 was scheduled to be an "on" year but unfortunately the festival infrastructure has been allocated to the 200 year celebration of the Worcester Birmingham Canal, so Longwood Boat Club stepped up to the plate and decided to run their own gathering, the first time such an event has run for 13 years.

The Jam Butty in full sail at Longwood Boat gathering 2015

The Cotswold Cruising Club were touring the BCN with about a dozen boats and attended the event en mass, swelling the number of boats to about 35 and adding significantly to the vitality of the proceedings.

A crowded Longwood Boat Club

The field next to the club was leased, land based stall holders were invited, along with various attractions like vintage cars, a dog show, a canoe club and all was set fair - till the weather intervened. You cant predict the weather in a UK summer and the Saturday dawned dark and wet and a big blob of rain sat over Walsall all day and it rained unremittingly.

Atlas and Malus on dispaly

At any other event we would have thrown on the towel and just turned up on the Sunday but this is our home club and they had kindly given the Jam Butty the prime spot on the lock wing wall outside the club house. We had erected the gazebo over the boat on the Friday so decided to press on and play our part in giving the attendees something to see. And so we spent the day with the stall shrouded three sides looking something like a building under repair - but better that than no trade. Business wasn't exactly brisk but the final tally was as good as it gets by wet day standards. I cant say if this was a sympathy vote or just because we had a captive market as they ducked in out of the rain!

Swallow moored in the lock

By contrast Sunday was clear and fair and the residents of Aldridge flocked onto the site and the event heaved, redressing the balance from Saturday. The high point for me was the duck race.... This can be attributed to our position which afforded me a ducks eye view of the race with the little plastic creatures propelled by a mix of the raffle ticket sails on their backs and the flow into the lock.

The nail biting duck race!

It was also great to spend time with the local and visiting boaters who gathered each evening in the beer / entertainment tent. The entertainment was home grown and familiar, which all added to a distinctly chilled vibe. I was particularly pleased to spend time with Ivor who has a soft spot for The Jam Butty and spent an hour or so explaining the practicalities of horse boating which he had picked up from Chocolate Charlie. It all fascinating stuff and the evening ended with Ivor donating some self created decorative rope work which is now part of the Butty's best dress on show days.

Ivor's rope work

The event ended with a two hour run to Brownhills, ready for a big push on to the Shropshire Union and a four day journey to Middlewich.

The event may have been small, but it was perfectly formed and provided a memorable event which even the worst of the weather could not spoil.

Blueprint for the bows

Ideas from the ether
June 2015

I had an interesting visitor last night.

We had just tied up at the Middlewich FEB festival traders area when along came Mick from the Lollipop Boat with a sheaf of papers in his hand. We had met Mick last summer in Birmingham and discovered that he had fabricated the front deck of the Jam Butty and he came bearing the photos he had been given to use as a guide in its construction.

There was me thinking it was just something which had been knocked up as part of the build project, but there was much more to it than that. 

My brief to Keith has been "keep it traditional, but functional". And that is exactly what he strove to deliver. Keith Ball had given Mick a few photos of outer front decks and asked to "do something similar". Its interesting to see where the inspiration was drawn from and the end result is indeed both functional and pleasing to look at. What is more we have discovered that sitting out on the warm front deck on a balmy summer evening with a G&T in hand is just about perfect!

I post a number of the images to serve as a reminder of there the front deck had its origins.

BCN Gauging Plated 229

BCN Gauging Plates 229

April 2015

In a recent post I mentioned that I had recently acquired a pair of BCN Gauging Plates at auction, and after some repainting they will be applied to the bulkhead of Montgomery aka The Jam Butty.

In an ideal world such plates would remain with their original boat but sadly most of these boats are long gone and only a few artifacts remain as mementos for canal enthusiasts. I suppose I could refurbish them, screw then to a nice bit of wood and hang them on the wall at home, but that's not what I have in mind. If they can't adorn the original boat (which was made of wood and will have rotted away decades ago) why not let a new craft display this bit of inland waterways history? I wouldn't want anyone to be misled but given the Jam Butty's mongrel pedigree it seems better to let others see them in the context of at least a section of a BCN iron day boat.

The auction particulars provided some provenance stating that plates 229 were allocated to John Tool's boat Albert and that was about as far as my insight went. But never underestimate the power of the web and in particular the Canal World Discussion Forum. No sooner had I mentioned that I now own plates 229 than I was sent a photo of the BCN Gauging Register from 9th April 1922.

This register entry shows that the wooden craft had a day cabin, was 71' 6" long and 7' 1/2" wide with a hold 58' 4" long and 6' to 6' 3/4" wide and was registered to John Toole of Bilston. This is a neat twist because the general view is that the bows and hold of The Jam Butty were built for the Hickman fleet with operated also out of the Springvale works at Bilston. 

The register offers a fascinating insight into the theoretical maximum load weight of a BCN wooden butty, sitting seven inches deep unladen and 46 inches when loaded quite literally to the gunnels.

The register shows how weights were added in one ton increments and recording the steady reduction in the dry inches remaining. Its certainly true that they tested the craft to its limit and when an eye watering 40 tons was dropped into the hold there was just one third of an inch of free-board remaining. Not that a boat would ever travel with such a load partly for fear of sinking but also how far do you think a boat with a draft of just a tad under four feet would get?

Hopefully the plates will adorn The Jam Butty in time for its first outing of the 2015 trading season at St Richards Festival in May.

My thanks to Speedwheel for the images and the rest of the guys for interpreting the handwriting.

A Star is Born

No we havn't been on Strictly - but close!
September 2014

If you were wondering why we made a mad dash to Wigrams Turn over the bank holiday, all can now be revealed.

With Tim amd Pru - after the "its a wrap"

Thanks to a comment by Maffi, we were asked to take part in the next series of Great Canal Journeys with Timothy West and Prunella Scales. And so we spent the better part of Friday afternoon miked up and trying very hard to ignore the presence of huge cameras in the confines of Wand'ring Bark.

Filming in a narrowboat has its challenges

The brief was to do a spot of foraging with them as they explore the South Oxford Canal so Helen was off with Pru making jam whilst I paired off with Tim to pick Sloes and make Sloe Gin.

The Jam Butty attracts attention - as usual

I have to admit that the whole experience was great, certainly a highlight of 2014 and Tim and Pru were a delight to meet and spend time with.

Fun with foraging

Hopefully the snatched photos give a flavour of the experience.

Tim - a lovely gentleman!

My big apology is to all the boaters using the Napton Flight who found both out boats tied up on the lock landing - it was their idea, not ours - honest!

Birmingham Floating Market 2014

Birmingham Floating Market 2014

June 2014

Birmingham Floating Market represented the first official outing for The Jam Butty so it was all a bit of trial and error. 

Birmingham Floating Market 2014

A Kev Maslin special portrait

The mechanics of using Montgomery as a sales platform went very well, with the adjustable floor working to perfection and the ability to pull the loaded stall back into the middle of the boat and leave it set up under sheeting made overnights a delight.

The Jam Butty in trading mode

Rather irritatingly the weather was not great with rain pretty much all day on Saturday. Undaunted we decided to try out our wet weather option which involved erecting the gazebo over the boat with the front legs 1m over the towpath. This worked surprisingly well and allowed us to continue to trade all day, even offering customers much appreciated shelter. To tell the truth I think they came for the shelter and then got sucked into the whole Wild Side thing!

 Dragon Boat racing

Whatever the reason, we had a very good days trading on Saturday and Sunday in spite of the elements.

Saturday night saw something of a celebration of The Jam Butty's launch attended by friends, fellow traders and even Mr Parry from the C&RT. The participants were fortified by Helen's jam on scones and Cheese / Chutney on crackers washed down with jugs of Pimms and a keg of Andy's Homebrew (IPA). The whole event went off well and was enjoyed by all.

The Jam Butty's official launch party

It was particularly good to meet up with Sue and Ade from the Cheese Boat and Ricard and Sue from Indigo Dream who were both in Birmingham for the weekend.

The new and the old in Birmingham

We took our leave at 6.00pm on Sunday under a setting sun, waved on by Andrew Denney (Granny Buttons and Waterways World) and made a solitary trip to Tipton arriving at 9.30pm. The setting sun was magnificent and added a whole new dimension to the New Main Line which can be a bit dull at times.

Leaving Birmingham

For the return trip I altered the trim of Montgomery to make her stern heavy with her bows up 2 inches plus altered the towing straps. The result was dramatic and she towed better and faster.

Sunset on the New Main Line

All in all a good shakedown for the new combination and good preparation for our trip down to Oxford in 10 days time.