Narrowboat

I applaud Google’s taking over of Youtube, which I suspect some oppose purely because of the Google global domination strategy much like some people oppose Microsoft because of their market share. It is not because I love Google, though as I am a Gmail and Chrome user you may disagree that I’m not an adopter of all things Google, but because my timelapse video’s which have previously suffered under Youtube’s over compression techniques now shine under Google’s adoption of High Definition.
If you are uncertain of this claim, look at my Youtube videos and compare my older timelapse video’s with recent ones. I’ve always used a camera capturing 640×480 resolution (it’s just my March 2010 voyage I used a different camera that can capture quicker than 5 sec intervals), and used a similar compilation technique of turning the photo’s into video using a lossless codec and using Premiere to compile all parts and render into a HQ video with a 3k+ bit rate. Now at least everyone else can view the video’s as I see them before upload. Though I wonder if there would be interest in re-uploading older videos now they wont b over compressed.
I’ve strayed from my original premise for this post though. Youtube always had a 10 minute limit on uploads, so I’ve always kept them underneath this, but day 3 of my March 2010 trip took 9 hours, it exceeds this limit under my new rate regime. I just hope it keeps you all interested.

On Sunday 14th March it was Mothers Day, we had spent the night in Warwick and was travelling a short distance today, just 4.5 miles, as we were booked into the Waterman pub for an evening meal. Under 5 miles, sounds like a short day? Well there was the case of doing 23 locks – Cape’s two and Hatton’s twenty-one. We’d also arranged to meet some new owners wanting to find out about the boat.
It was a lovely sunny morning with a bright blue sky, but very few boats on the move – still early in the season I guess. There was a cold wind blowing too, so although it was sunny a jumper was needed to keep the chill off. Cape locks were empty when we got to them – does this mean Hatton will be too, or that someone had spent the previous evening moored at the Cape of Good Hope and had set off down before us? the first two locks of the Hatton flight were full, so it looked like maybe someone had gone up in front or not come down. We then met a boat coming down so sailed into lock 28, and the rest may well now be empty?
John had telephoned just before we started into the first lock saying he & Brenda had arrived at the Waterman pub and were walking down to meet us, and had now arrived. It was still early and we took our time, and we still flew through as the locks were now empty. We passed another boat in the pound before lock 33, an old canal carrying boat, also out enjoying the weather – two boats in one day makes this our busiest day so far! Of course the downside of going slow is that the wind can seem to effect you more, though this was mostly when we were in the locks, blowing us across, but a quick tug on the centre line brought us back ready to set off through the open gate.
Hatton is an interesting place and there often is various walkers and families out. We had help from such a group of kids for lock 39, though they didn’t seem to be going upwards so no help through the next lock, ah well. Lock 43 was full when we got to it, so I guess it must have been at this point the canal carrier coat had passed a boat in front of us (possibly, all purely a guess of course). Passing in short pounds should be a relatively painless process, but sometimes there’s a confidence/ability issue or a level of brinkmanship that may change how you handle the manoeuvre. So when the crew of the on-coming boat close the gates when the boat leaves, what do you do? I suppose one option is staying in the lock entrance until my crew got up to open the gate, but that would have been unfair to the obviously inexperienced hirer, and progressing slowly forward may have been okay, but the cross wind would most likely have blown me into the path of the other boat, so I just went tow-path side and got off with the middle rope. This should have meant they had a straight run into the lock, which somehow they cocked up and came to an abrupt stop as they found out the boat couldn’t go in sideways – still two locks down and they may have it mastered by the end of the lock flight.
Once through the top lock we moored up on the spaces after the long-term mooring (or there about, it might have been before the visitor moorings started, but there was plenty of space).

Our March trip on the boat was going to be a one-way trip from Stockton to Norbury as the boat is moving bases. We arrived at the boat late on Friday, or later than planned, so we decided to just go through Stockton locks and find somewhere to moor (we had only planned to go as far as Long Itchington anyway).
Saturday 13th March we were up early-ish and raring to go. It was a bright and dry morning – the previous week had been wet (we’d brought wellies and waterproofs – we often do anyway but were expecting to have to use them this week) so it was a nice surprise. As we set off I noticed the boat in front was decked out with balloons, had we missed a party? We went through lock 12 with just a jogger or two for company along the tow path. On approaching lock 13 there was a boat inside, going our way, and they waited and we lock shared. It turned out to be the Ownerships boat Compton.
The next locks were a mile or so off, and started with a staircase lock pair, Compton went in first and I followed with a helpful nudge to one side as they’d strayed from the lock edge. We progressed down Bascote locks fairly quickly, before I took the lead and set off. I’m not sure whether, for video purposes, its better to follow a boat or be in front. On one hand following a boat does give something to focus on, but avoiding it does mean you get to see the canal more. Today was the first day with my new set-up. I had tried the camera last year, but had got a 12v adapter for it to run off the boat’s 12v system, unfortunately it only output 3v when the camera needed roughly 3.2v. I did have an official 240v adapter, but didn’t take it then. This time I did, so my camera was running off the inverter, but at least it meant I no longer had to worry about changing the battery regularly.
After going down Fosse locks and Radford bottom lock we parted company with our lock-sharers as we were stopping for lunch. After lunch we set off for Leamington. There are a few supermarkets around this section of canal and we had purposely only brought a day’s worth of supplies with us (there’s enough things to bring without having to bring too many supplies too!). We opted for stopping at Tesco store just before bridge 46. Although we initially intended to go further we ended up deciding to stay here, or more accurately moving to the moorings bollards on the other side of bridge 46 and going off into Leamington Spa.
Below is the video of the day’s journey taken images shot every 2.5 seconds and turning into a 15fps film.

I am back from my week afloat and now have 10GB of photographs (as each is about 80-100KB, that’s quite a fair few), or there about, which considering I took three 4GB cards did at least mean I had worked it out right. I was using the Canon camera I had bought second hand and formatted each card with CHDK, so I could run a time-lapse script. The advantages of this method were I could run it on a power adapter (no battery changing ritual every 90 mins or so), and the script was quite configurable; I set it up to take a shot every 2.5 seconds, which I’d estimated should fit on the three cards, with plenty of room for error and long days (in theory I probably could have gone down a whole second, but I wanted to see how this set-up worked without worrying about cramming the card full so much). The downsides of this system are that cards have to be FAT formatted (which really means 2GB cards, though 4GB work and there are work-around methods to use larger cards) and it’s technical (not really a downside, but there’s a learning curve).
We set off from Stockton Top Marina and spent the first night at Long Itchington, dining out at the Blue Lias pub. From there we followed the GUC into Birmingham, well we didn’t go into the centre, but took the Tame Valley canal across and then went onto the Wolverhampton level to follow that from the Engine Arm to Wolverhampton locks. From there it was on up the Shropshire Union to Norbury, where we ended the week.
The canals were quiet, still early in the season I guess, but the weather was dry though chilly in the morning. More details as I compile the videos.

I’m out afloat for a week going from Stockton Top to Norbury Junction over this next week. I should be heading up Hatton Locks on Mothering Sunday, then taking the GUC route to Birmingham. I won’t be going in the city centre this time, instead I’m going via the Tame Valley Canal and then exiting via Wolverhampton.
My Canon camera now has the timelapse software, via CHDK, on three 4GB cards which should be enough for the whole trip.