July 13, Foulain to Marnay-sur-Marne
We left our quiet little mooring at Foulain and got to the first lock at 7:50, just ahead of a big peniche who was obviously scheduled to go through ahead of our 8:00 departure time. We were making very good time on our short journey to Rolampont, which was only 14k and 7 locks away; we hoped to be there by noon before the locks closed for lunch.
At 9:38 we came out of the fourth lock and the engine made a terrible noise! Suddenly the boat was sideways in the canal, the engine was racing and as I turned around I saw black smoke billowing out of the engine stack. I screamed at Dave to shut off the engine – he was trying to regain some control of the boat and hadn’t had a chance to turn around and see the smoke; his first thought was that the prop had come loose again. My first reaction was that there was a fire in the engine room – however, had that been the case the smoke would have been coming out of the blower instead of the stack. He tried everything to shut down the engine but nothing worked – not turning off the engine, not the emergency off switch, not disconnecting the fuel line. Finally he went down into the engine room which frightened me more than the smoke, which was now copiously pouring out of the stack. I raced around the boat trying to decide what to do – I tied on tires as fenders in case we hit the left side of the canal which is bordered with a metal retaining wall, I put a line on the right aft bollard in case we came close enough to the right side of the canal to tie up to something – the boat was almost perpendicular in the canal – the bow on the left, the stern on the right. Dave staggered back to the wheelhouse from the engine room – looking faint, pale, and covered with grime and sweat. The engine finally turned off itself and we were both shaking and unable to comprehend what had just happened. A man on a bicycle came down the VNF path and we were able to throw him a line which he tied around a tree. Of course, as you can well imagine, you are simply not allowed to tie a line over the path – it is used for the VNF when traveling between locks, bicyclist use it and people on motor-bikes. It is a wonderful little path that runs alongside the canal and is relatively flat as well as picturesque. A line across it could be very dangerous to anyone zipping along. However, we had no choice – and the tree we tied to was a baby tied to a stake itself – hardly anything strong enough to secure an 80 ton barge. The man asked if we were planning to take the tree with us as a souvenir. I had to watch the path and make sure anyone going by saw the line. Meanwhile, Dave called the VNF, or what he thought was the VNF, and handed me the phone. I began to explain, in French, where we were and that we had a problem. Of course – Dave dialed our friend, Ben instead of the VNF, and the dear boy called the VNF for us and had the “chief” come to assist us. Ben is in St.-Dizier, 100k away.
The “chief” arrived promptly. He had stopped to chat with us most every day for the past several days and was well aware of who we were. He couldn’t be a nicer man, who doesn’t speak a word of English. However, we were able to explain the situation to him, of which Dave now had a slight understanding. He went to the lock keepers house, we are only about 75 meters away from the lock, and borrowed two spikes which he pounded into the ground for us to tie our lines to. He then called a barge repair company in St. Jean de Losne (which is where we are headed and is about 100km away) to see if they could come and fix the engine. That company is on holiday (after all it is France in the summer), but he was able to reach another company who actually is a Vetus dealer (the engine is a Vetus) and is able to come and hopefully repair the engine next Tuesday. That means we are canal side here for 6 days with no facilities – no water, no electricity, no shops anywhere, nothing but fields and cows. The train goes by but does not stop between Chaumont and Langres, either one is about 21k away.