Successful weekend with some drama - Rickmansworth to Tring
For the weekend I picked up my first crew, my friend Sabine, to make it all the way to the first "summit" of the GU in the Chilterns. There are lots of locks scattered in short distances in between all the way up. Sabine joined me early Friday afternoon and off we went - and got as far as the first lock ten minutes into the journey, when the engine cut out, just as I was in the middle of the lock entrance. Hm. Not good. We pulled the boat back out and tied up on the lock landing. On the first couple of attempts the engine wouldn't start again. Then it started OK, but cut out as soon as I put it into gear. I had no idea what the problem could be, let alone know how to fix it. Fortunately we were broken down just opposite a marina and found an engineer, who said that it's likely to be a fuel problem (water in the diesel) and that the fuel filter would need changing. But he said he had no time until possibly(!) later in the evening. Very encouraging, especially as t