OK, so we’ve bought Ordu.  She’s in west London, and we live in east London.  Now we need to find a place to keep her and a means of getting her there, because her gearbox is broken and she can’t move without being towed.  I ask the woman I’ve bought her from if she will organise the replacement of the gearbox (for which I will pay her).  This is Mistake #1.

We bought Ordu in December 2005 and spent Xmas and New Year excitedly planning how we were going to get her from Thames Ditton to east London.  This meant choosing whether we would take her onto the Grand Union Canal at Brentford and then across London via the Regents Canal, or whether we should just go for it – wait for the right tide and take her down the Thames.  Either option would be scary but exhilarating.

The original (broken!) Paragon gearbox

So, what would these two options involve?  Well, taking her via the Regents Canal would mean a trip of several days as there are quite a few locks to be negotiated, but it would be safe.  In my excitement at the thought of getting Ordu I had already visited the marina and bought a windlass for opening manual locks, and a British Waterways key for operating electric locks (I can’t remember how much they cost exactly, but it was of the order of £10).  Most marinas sell these items, or can get them for you if you ask. I’d also requested a copy of the Thames Tideway Guide so that I could see what travelling down the Thames would involve. All we had to do now was plan our trip and wait for Maggie (the previous owner) to let me know when she’d replaced the gearbox.

So we waited.  And we waited.  And we waited some more.  Looking back, I can laugh knowingly at the naive faith in human nature that led me to assume that Maggie had any intention whatsoever of trying to replace the gearbox.  Mistake #2 would have been letting her do it, but fortunately we managed to avoid that by getting really fed up with the delay and telling her to forget the whole gearbox thing.  Don’t worry though, the real Mistake #2 is not far away.  In my frustration with the situation (which was really of my own making – what was I doing buying a boat with a broken gearbox?) I decided to take affirmative action.  This meant finding somewhere to put Ordu while I managed the replacement of the gearbox myself.

I went to the internet and searched for suitable marinas in west London to serve as a temporary home for Ordu while the gearbox was changed, and while we looked for a permanent mooring.  Mistakes #2 & #3 came in quick succession as a result of this decision. Mistake #2 was choosing a marina that was some 20 miles away from my home.  This meant that my access to Ordu to check on anything at all was ridiculously limited (I don’t have a car – who needs a car in London?).

Mistake #2 compounded and amplified the effect of Mistake #3, which was choosing Shepperton Marina as her temporary home.  Shepperton is a lovely marina, and it is also home to the financial black hole that is Linden Lewis Marine.  Unfortunately I was both ignorant and panicked, what with a new boat and nowhere to put her, so I took what seemed like the best course of action.

Background, Gearbox, Ordu