Back to Toul on the Moselle

In Richardmenil, we are not in a hurry. We are ready to leave at 9:00, the French charterer is already very active. We decide to give him a 15-minute head start. The maneuvers for mooring from the previous day were exemplary, so he would have enough opportunity to demonstrate his skills without an audience.

The Swiss probably had the same mindset, his dog stubbornly refused to lay his egg, so we set off 15 minutes after the French.

We sailed leisurely towards the lock, within sight of it, the Frenchman came back at full speed, he had passed the entrance to Nancy.

Now we had the stretch to ourselves again and sailed leisurely towards Toul.

The Moselle widens there into several branches, so far we had been sailing with the large locks, but in Toul there is the pleasure path. We discovered it in the last glance at the division and then positioned ourselves correctly.

Below the Grande écluse de Toul, the Canal-Marne-Rhin branches off on the left bank. The first lock is a few meters back and was on red, our remote control had probably lost its validity, so we floated half an hour before the entrance. My radio officer was then able to handle the formalities and lo and behold, the traffic light turned green.

But already in the lock exit, right at the entrance to the second lock, the port engine reported overheating. So we entered and left the lock with the starboard engine, but then we moored below on the way to the next lock to get to the bottom of the problem.

The impeller was overheated, and after I cleaned the strainer, it was clear what caused it. In the canals, the underwater vegetation has grown strongly, sometimes you feel like a lawnmower. As long as you are moving straight ahead, the mowed grass flies away backwards. But if you float around, change direction, go back and forth, etc., the cooling water intakes are happy and replace the grass basket. They simply suck in the dirt. The strainer was full and clogged, no wonder the impellers didn't want to work properly anymore.

We then continued on, wanted to see if the impeller temperature would remain stable, we had not yet made the decision to stay in Toul.

But the impeller temperature rose again, so we moored in the port of Toul.

An Odenwald saying goes, when things go wrong, the rain falls into the ears.

First the lock in Epinal, now collecting grass in the canal, it can only get better!

Stay in Toul and plan the new route.