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Grounding - not electrical!


Col_T

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We've spent 3 1/2 years on the K & A, frequently grounding where other boats are moored, or just going aground letting other boats past us. Now we're having a cruise up the Oxford and the same thing is happening - yes, I know the Oxford is narrow and shallow. However, I've just measured from bottom of skeg to waterline, and answer is approx. 30 ins.

 

Is this unusually deep for a modern, built 2002, narrow-boat?

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13 minutes ago, Col_T said:

We've spent 3 1/2 years on the K & A, frequently grounding where other boats are moored, or just going aground letting other boats past us. Now we're having a cruise up the Oxford and the same thing is happening - yes, I know the Oxford is narrow and shallow. However, I've just measured from bottom of skeg to waterline, and answer is approx. 30 ins.

 

Is this unusually deep for a modern, built 2002, narrow-boat?

Yes a little deeper than average. But on the other hand, our boat built in 2011 is 32.5 inches. At least it doesn’t go sideways in the wind unlike most modern bathtubs, and you can swing a big prop which is efficient.

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23 minutes ago, Col_T said:

We've spent 3 1/2 years on the K & A, frequently grounding where other boats are moored, or just going aground letting other boats past us. Now we're having a cruise up the Oxford and the same thing is happening - yes, I know the Oxford is narrow and shallow. However, I've just measured from bottom of skeg to waterline, and answer is approx. 30 ins.

 

Is this unusually deep for a modern, built 2002, narrow-boat?

 

Took my boat up to The Wharf at Fenny Compton the other day and it was dragging it's arse through the gravel nearly all the way, once on the summit. K&A is DEEP in comparison!!

 

 

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30 inches will likely touch the bottom on the Oxford, especially on the summit. The K&A should be OK centre channel but it does get shallow to the sides.

 

Its not really the year of build that matters, most typical modern boats are a fair bit less than 30", but the more "traditional" modern boats, like Hudsons, are usually about 30 or just a little over. In fact anything with a big slow revving engine is likely to be 30" or therabouts, and the old working boats maybe closer to 36". At 30" you will struggle to get the back in on some visitor moorings and even some lock landings on many canals.

 

A particular problem is modern boats that for some reason are quite deep but don't have the big prop/heavy engine so are not so good at fighting their way out of the silt, my friend has one of these and she gets stuck everywhere. 

 

.............Dave

 

 

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The oxford has only to be a couple of inches off for us to really struggle, but its mainly soft. However we colour the canal a lot and a wash starts over about 2.5 mph. Course most people dont seem to worry about that.. popping the boat in gear puts us to about 3’ 2” , so we have to declutch every bridge hole. Fortunately we were taught that early on.

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For a deeper boat 2.5mph is a typical top speed on many canals, 4mph is just an aspiration. The Bridewater is good, that's a 4mph canal, as are the rivers. Did you enjoy the Thames?

 

..............Dave 

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On 12/07/2019 at 18:31, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Took my boat up to The Wharf at Fenny Compton the other day and it was dragging it's arse through the gravel nearly all the way, once on the summit. K&A is DEEP in comparison!!

 

 

When you say 'up' I assume you mean from Napton. If so it's the most boring stretch there is. That b...d. farm never goes. First it's to one side of you then it's to the other. Even in my clonecraft I'm plowing not boating. I've got to do it in a week or so and i gurantee it will be cold, wet and windy.

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2 minutes ago, Slim said:

When you say 'up' I assume you mean from Napton. If so it's the most boring stretch there is. That b...d. farm never goes. First it's to one side of you then it's to the other. Even in my clonecraft I'm plowing not boating. I've got to do it in a week or so and i gurantee it will be cold, wet and windy.

 

No actually, up from Cropredy. Beware that treacherous bend by that lift bridge near Claydon. It's so shallow I spent 15 mins getting round it even knowing in advance how the boat insists on going only in a straight line anywhere near it!

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21 hours ago, dmr said:

For a deeper boat 2.5mph is a typical top speed on many canals, 4mph is just an aspiration. The Bridewater is good, that's a 4mph canal, as are the rivers. Did you enjoy the Thames?

 

..............Dave 

 

I'll bet you were really grooming along on that canal. ?

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liftbridge near claydon is not as bad as the sharp bridgehole near fenny compton, get the rear too near the towpath there and we could take the arch off the bridge. The other one is by the radio mast, there was a primer special moored on the bend there a month ago, strangely not there on the return.

Leicester summit good at moment, 8.5 hrs lock to lock.

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On 14/07/2019 at 22:13, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

No actually, up from Cropredy. Beware that treacherous bend by that lift bridge near Claydon. It's so shallow I spent 15 mins getting round it even knowing in advance how the boat insists on going only in a straight line anywhere near it!

I know where you mean. I think there's a damned big magnet buried in the bank.?

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On 12/07/2019 at 18:06, Col_T said:

We've spent 3 1/2 years on the K & A, frequently grounding where other boats are moored, or just going aground letting other boats past us. Now we're having a cruise up the Oxford and the same thing is happening - yes, I know the Oxford is narrow and shallow. However, I've just measured from bottom of skeg to waterline, and answer is approx. 30 ins.

 

Is this unusually deep for a modern, built 2002, narrow-boat?

 

I'd say most "modern" boats are 24-26" and with good reason.  There are an increasing number of canals where anything over that figure and it's not going to be fun, unless of course your idea of fun is cruising at 2mph and getting stuck on every tight bend.  I meet a lot of slow moving vessels where the owner will say ah yes but with a bit of water underneath her...  But apart from rivers, the Bridgewater and parts of the Main Line where are you going to find deep water these days?   

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What is this all about ?  I used to take a fully loaded coal boat over the Oxford regularly.  Nowhere did I have any real trouble.  Too many boats these days don't have the draught to stir the mud up, and have toy propellors.

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46 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

 

I'd say most "modern" boats are 24-26" and with good reason.  There are an increasing number of canals where anything over that figure and it's not going to be fun, unless of course your idea of fun is cruising at 2mph and getting stuck on every tight bend.  I meet a lot of slow moving vessels where the owner will say ah yes but with a bit of water underneath her...  But apart from rivers, the Bridgewater and parts of the Main Line where are you going to find deep water these days?   

The L&L from Wigan to Liverpool is surprisingly deep and much under-rated.

Just been down the Coventry for the first time in about 5 years, its a bit bendy and the offside vegetation is getting bad but I only really hit the bottom once. Down the South Oxford tomoro.

 

..............Dave

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2 hours ago, Chris Williams said:

What is this all about ?  I used to take a fully loaded coal boat over the Oxford regularly.  Nowhere did I have any real trouble.  Too many boats these days don't have the draught to stir the mud up, and have toy propellors.

 

So they're grounding because they're not deep draughted enough? Ok, I'm trying to understand the logic.


In my opinion, too many narrow boats are wallowing around in shallow muddy ditches and need to try some proper boating on rivers.

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1 hour ago, roland elsdon said:

On the oxford the channel has moved due to moderns cutting bends and vegetation growth. In places there isnt a recognisable deep bit. If you follow the old deep channel round the outside radius its mostly ok. Course it wasnt built for motor boats.

Thats interesting. Is the deep channel where most boats go or where the few deeper boats try to go? When on a shallow canal and taking a bend I always try to think "where do most other boats and I will try to go there, but maybe this is just perpetuating shallow boat thinking.

 

................Dave

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The channel used to be on the outside radius of the corners , hence the warnings in nicholsons in years gone by of being aware of deep draughted boats passing on the wrong side. 

An unladen boat will continue on shallow water to a point and then as the engine hole goes aground turn suddenly away from theradius of the bend as the stern slows, down. This forces the bow towards the deep bit, frequently occupied by something with a glass ‘cratchboard’ . Thats why most deep boats creep into a tight bend and then put power on to force  the front round, digging the stern in to the canal. Lifting off at that point is a disaster, as you go straight on assisted by the stern wave lifting the prop out.

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Is  the Oxford summit level down much at the moment? We draw 28 ins and don't normally have a problem. 

We're out and about next month to have fun with all the grockles. On second thoughts we might wait until September.

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10 hours ago, dmr said:

The L&L from Wigan to Liverpool is surprisingly deep and much under-rated.

Just been down the Coventry for the first time in about 5 years, its a bit bendy and the offside vegetation is getting bad but I only really hit the bottom once. Down the South Oxford tomoro.

 

..............Dave

Yes it is, on both counts.  

 

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10 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

So they're grounding because they're not deep draughted enough? Ok, I'm trying to understand the logic.


In my opinion, too many narrow boats are wallowing around in shallow muddy ditches and need to try some proper boating on rivers.

They are grounding because there are not enough deep draughted boats to keep any sort of channel.  Plus they don't know where the channel should be.

I only used those muddy ditches to get the coal down to the River. 

A lot of people are frightened of rivers - they have currents and big weirs, and big wide boats that go on the sea.

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@dmr A particular problem is modern boats that for some reason are quite deep but don't have the big prop/heavy engine so are not so good at fighting their way out of the silt, my friend has one of these and she gets stuck everywhere.

 

I suspect that is the problem with our boat - it has a Beta BV 1505, so about 38hp flat out, and a prop blade is about 8 maybe 8 1/2 inches long (I guess that equates to a 17" propeller). 

 

@dixi188 We came off the Oxford summit on Friday - stirred quite a bit of mud and probably helped carve out some new routes through the silt. We tend not to speed, don't much like the sound of breaking wash, so slow and gentle was the order of the couple of days we there. Generally not too bad.

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We draw 32.5 inches static as previously mentioned. We rarely have a problem. Just come up from Fazeley nearly to Liverpool via Birmingham and the Shroppie. The only place we had the tiniest problem was on the exit from Barton tunnel (or was it the other one) - aground right in the middle of the cut. It was a disaster and took me at least 30 seconds to get going again.

 

Southern Stratford, S Oxford, Macc, Caldon etc all fine. Llangollen near the top, a bit challenging! Ditto Hud Narrow, but mostly due to low water levels.

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