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Unsinkable weedhatch


MichaelG

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I recently saw a narrowboat with what was described as "an unsinkable weedhatch". It was a traditional style stern with the weedhatch directly under the stern deck hatch. There was a bulkhead a couple of inches forward of the hatch opening which extended down to the bottom of the weed hatch, effectively sealing off that area from the rest of the boat. I wondered how common place this design feature is. The safety advantage is obvious and I cant think of any negatives so I wonder why all narrowboats don't have them, I don't see that it would add much to the overall build costs of a new boat. 

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I can see the benefits.  I didn't put my weedhatch cover back on completely securely once, just before entering a very long tunnel.  By the time I came out the other end, I'd taken on so much water, the exhaust outlet was only a couple of millimetres above the waterline.  Having been in the tunnel, I had no idea it was happening below me.  If the tunnel had been much longer, bad things may have happened.

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Tyler Wilson amongst others have put these on boats for years now. The downside is you need long arms to reach the prop, the upside is you can stand there and use a boat hook to attack whatever is on there.

They generally have a plate at the bottom of the wedge hole and if these are not tightened properly, the water level can fill whilst you are motoring along, until you have water coming out of the hatch lid you are standing on!!

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38 minutes ago, MichaelG said:

I recently saw a narrowboat with what was described as "an unsinkable weedhatch". It was a traditional style stern with the weedhatch directly under the stern deck hatch. There was a bulkhead a couple of inches forward of the hatch opening which extended down to the bottom of the weed hatch, effectively sealing off that area from the rest of the boat. I wondered how common place this design feature is. The safety advantage is obvious and I cant think of any negatives so I wonder why all narrowboats don't have them, I don't see that it would add much to the overall build costs of a new boat. 

The weed hatch on my boat (a 70' Orien "tug") has a hatch on the counter; below this is a square duct reaching down to above the propeller. The duct is completely separated from the inside of the hull. There is a conventional protective "lid" with a screw etc at the bottom of the duct but this only serves to aid propulsion, it is not needed to prevent water getting into the boat.

 

This arrangement is fine for me but the boat has much less freeboard than the average narrowboat. It might be too deep for a "non-tug" design.

Edited by frahkn
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46 minutes ago, MichaelG said:

I recently saw a narrowboat with what was described as "an unsinkable weedhatch". It was a traditional style stern with the weedhatch directly under the stern deck hatch. There was a bulkhead a couple of inches forward of the hatch opening which extended down to the bottom of the weed hatch, effectively sealing off that area from the rest of the boat. I wondered how common place this design feature is. The safety advantage is obvious and I cant think of any negatives so I wonder why all narrowboats don't have them, I don't see that it would add much to the overall build costs of a new boat. 

I suspect these things appear much more important to people who don't own a boat than those that do ?

 

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

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9 minutes ago, dmr said:

I suspect these things appear much more important to people who don't own a boat than those that do ?

 

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

I own a narrowboat and over the last 30 years have owned a number of other types of boat and I thought it was a pretty sensible design feature, from the previous posts it seems some boat builders do too, but each to their own.

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2 minutes ago, MichaelG said:

I own a narrowboat and over the last 30 years have owned a number of other types of boat and I thought it was a pretty sensible design feature, from the previous posts it seems some boat builders do too, but each to their own.

Some hire fleets have utilised them over the years, there are several about.

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