Coaxing Jena to Kings Cross.

Jena is the Canal & River Trust's floating welcome station, office and support boat. She's a 60' x 12' gas-free broadbeam with an Isuzu 55 engine. Today, a team of volunteers including N, TF, and myself were tasked with getting her from Bow Wharf at the top of the Hertford Union Canal to Granary Square on the Regents Canal for the Kings Cross Festival.

Jena at City Road Lock.

I arrived at Bow Wharf at 11am. to find N & TF looking glumly at the engine where there was clearly a problem. The hose from the skin tank back to the engine had come loose and the hose clip (jubilee clip) needed to hold it in place was corroded and unserviceable. Without the hose attached the engine cooling system would not work and the engine would very quickly overheat (and perhaps catch fire!)

The hose looked as if it had been subject to previous (bodged) repairs and it also seemed entirely too short, barely reaching between its connections to the engine and the skin tank (other hoses I've seen that do this job lie on the engine hole floor, this was so short it was suspended above the floor.)

JB & I were dispatched to the nearest Screwfix to purchase new clips and screwdrivers (as there were very few useful tools on Jena.) With a new, broader (12mm x 40-80mm) hose clip attaching the hose we could refill the coolant system and set off.

The hose came off again.

We waited for the engine to cool, and filled Jena with water at Old Ford Lock while we waited. Then we reattached the hose more firmly and clipped off a zip-tie that seemed to be pulling on it. We also tried to keep the engine at a number of revs that didn't cause it to vibrate so much it might shake off again. This was tricky as at tick-over the engine was clearly shaking dreadfully on its mounts.

We didn't get very far before the engine overheated again, badly! This time, when we got Jena back to the towpath, her oil pressure light had also come on and the engine was not just steaming, but smoking.

After allowing the engine to cool once more, we bled the cooling system of air as we refilled it. It was clear that there had been a lot of air in the hoses and tanks that prevented us from filling it properly after the second hose repair. This airlock had caused more overheating.

Bleeding the system meant removing a very badly mangled and corroded plug from the top of the skin tank, no easy task, but just about possible with a set of mole-grip pliers. Then we filled the cooling system from the filler cap until water ran from the skin tank bleed plug. Replace the plug, continue to top up the system until full. Then we continued.

(Ideally, at this point, we should have run the engine for five minutes, then topped up the cooling system again before continuing, but we were feeling a great sense of urgency as Jena was expected at Kings Cross and several of the volunteers had time limitations - trains they had to catch etc. Also, none of us really know our way around engine problems, not being engineers, so I hope our negligence here can be forgiven.)

At last, we seemed to be able to continue with the helm's left eye almost glued to the temperature gauge which continued to jump around but seemed more settled now.

Coming up the locks towards Kings Cross.

At Sturts Lock we had to share the lock chamber with a family of swans. This meant carefully keeping the boat at the back of the lock and letting in water slowly to not swamp the cygnets. At the top of the lock we were all relieved to see them swim off.

Free at last!

Then slowly on, through Islington tunnel and at last to Kings Cross.

Moored at Granary Square, Kings Cross.

We arrived on the dot of five o'clock. A journey which should have taken less than three hours, took us at least six!

We moored on a temporary mooring on the offside, our festival mooring was not yet clear of boaters (despite two weeks notice of the mooring suspension in the area.) G, the local mooring ranger and I then spent another ninety minutes moving the errant boats so that they'd be easy for their owners to remove come morning.

6½ hours boating.
1½ hours working with G.