Anne and Bill Sibley - nb Minnihaha
Minnehaha is a 56ft semi trad built by JD Boats Gailey and launched in Feb 2001. Our first cruise lasted 48hrs before being literally "locked into" Birmingham because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak, until we were allowed to move to our new mooring at Springwood Haven on The Coventry.
We chose JD Boats as we had been very happy with our previous boat, the first in the shared ownership scheme from Gailey. Seven years on we knew we wanted our own boat and more storage space and so the boat grew (like Topsy ) from its original 50ft.
Minnehaha has a Shire 2.2 litre 50hp engine which has proved a good choice for river work. She is strictly 2 berth although there is room for an air bed for the odd occasions our daughter comes to stay. We have a very neat anchor stowage locker incorporated into the bow which was a unique design by Jim Matthias, otherwise the boat is a pretty standard fit out.
We think the other unique feature is our name as we have yet to hear of another Minnehaha ( chosen simply because I happen to like Longfellow and Minnehaha means "Laughing Water".) She is very comfortable for winter use with a coal stove and deisel heating. Our crew consists of our two little dogs, a Westie called Tamzy and a Lhasa apso called Sasha. Not much help on the locks but a good early warning system for intruders!
You may see the boat out with our son and daughter in law on occasions, or with our friends Anne and Ollie Sagar while they are waiting for their own boat to be completed, otherwise all navigation errors are down to us. We are really retiring this year and are booked for the IWA Rally at Beale Park which will be our first long cruise. The first of many we hope. We hope anyone who sees us moored will join us for some liquid refreshment of some kind. We have to confess to being wine rather than beer drinkers but can usually find an odd can lurking somewhere. Our main hobby is phography and you can usually find an odd camera or two with us. Our only claim to fame is a few pictures for Syd Arkless's Canal Planner CD and his Waterways Interactive web site!