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Anyone else suffer from slipping bollards?


Cal Ando

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12 hours ago, bagginz said:

edit:   Reading back through the thread just now I think we're agreeing with each other  ?     i.e  the larksfoot malarkey is a simple and easy way to firmly attach a line to a stern dolly

Yup, we definitely agree! :)

 

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I read most of the way through this thread before I got to Bagginz's first post, whereupon it suddenly became clear that the OP was on about dollies, not bollards. Unless it's a regional variation. bollards are on land and dollies are on boats. 

 

However, the obvious answer (to me anyway) would be to use a centre line in locks. If a near-vertical line pops out of a cleat on the boat roof, it isn't a problem, because the cleat is no longer necessary in that orientation!

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19 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

I read most of the way through this thread before I got to Bagginz's first post, whereupon it suddenly became clear that the OP was on about dollies, not bollards. Unless it's a regional variation. bollards are on land and dollies are on boats. 

Yes we'd all been talking complete bollards up till then. ?

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39 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

However, the obvious answer (to me anyway) would be to use a centre line in locks. If a near-vertical line pops out of a cleat on the boat roof, it isn't a problem, because the cleat is no longer necessary in that orientation!

No, but a horizontal pull on a centre line can overturn a boat.

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40 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

No, but a horizontal pull on a centre line can overturn a boat.

Nearly went there when a CRT employee "helpfully" suggested it made holding the boat easier in a wide lock if you took two turns round the lockside bollard instead of one. Daughter's BF didn't know better so did as suggested, with the inevitable result as the water level rose. Only saved by cutting the centre line with a saw, the rocking boat smashed a bottle of chilli sauce and a full bottle of gin which made salvage impossible...

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When I did Thames locks

I used my centre rope. 
Simply passed over a bollard, not turned around it, just over it. 
And held onto the other end after passing it through a drainage hole/gap in the handrail. 
Easily kept boat steady keeping rope taught and feeding rope as needed. 
Only 48’ boat mind. 
 

Don’t understand the method of tying to stern dollies. Where’s the other end of the rope ?
?

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I usually use an anchor hitch without the final half hitch (some people refer to this as a Boatman's Hitch.

An excellent knot/bend for centre lines .................... and so easy to remove.

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4 minutes ago, PhilR said:

I usually use an anchor hitch without the final half hitch (some people refer to this as a Boatman's Hitch.

An excellent knot/bend for centre lines .................... and so easy to remove.

Any knot where the instructions start "take two turns..." leads to the problem we had -- boat rises so the roof is above the bollard, pulls the lower turn (attached to the boat) over the other one, then tension locks it in place and it jams, then boat carries on rising. When there's enough tension to make the rope go twang and the boat heel over by a foot or so no amount of pulling on the loose end will free the rope... ?

 

Of course you can do what we always did before the "helpful" advice and just take a single turn (or a bit less so it can't lock up) around the bollard and pull to hold it, though in a filling lock with strong currents it can be difficult to hold the boat this way (yes I know about the right order to open the paddles, it usually works but not always).

 

The only safe turn/hitch/knot in this case is one which doesn't slip (so you don't have to pull on it) but can't lock up like this and can always be released even under a lot of tension -- any suggestions?

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16 minutes ago, IanD said:

The only safe turn/hitch/knot in this case is one which doesn't slip (so you don't have to pull on it) but can't lock up like this and can always be released even under a lot of tension -- any suggestions?

Lighterman's hitch or canalman's hitch

 

It's called that for a reason ...

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4 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

Lighterman's hitch or canalman's hitch

 

It's called that for a reason ...

I know that -- but as I read it, these start with two turns round the bollard. Yes with just plain tension they will always release, but surely if one turn is pulled up over the other -- like happened to us -- they can lock up? Or am I missing something?

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10 hours ago, IanD said:

I know that -- but as I read it, these start with two turns round the bollard. Yes with just plain tension they will always release, but surely if one turn is pulled up over the other -- like happened to us -- they can lock up? Or am I missing something?

When I use them - as I do all the time - I only ever start with one turn round the bollard

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2 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

When I use them - as I do all the time - I only ever start with one turn round the bollard

Thanks, I'll try that next time I'm in this situation ?

 

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On 23/06/2020 at 08:52, Jen-in-Wellies said:

Since a jammed rope can rapidly lead to a boat sinking, it is a little strange that boaters aren't in the habit of carrying, or having easily to hand a knife to quickly cut a stuck rope.

I do, or did, before lockdown made it near impossible, a lot of caving . When climbing and descending vertical pitches I'll have a very small penknife with a 1" long blade on a lanyard round my neck for a couple of extremely rare circumstances, where it can come in very useful. Similarly, divers will have a knife on them to cut netting, cord, or whatever they might get tangled up in.

A loaded rope can be cut with frightening ease by only gentle pressure from a not particularly sharp knife. I'll have one for caving, but not for boating. Weird.

There are special rope cutting knives around, where the blade is protected from getting where it shouldn't, like other people!

 

Jen

 re: keeping a knife to hand - and that almost nobody does:  True.   

 

A sunken boat is an absolute disaster.   A severed mooring rope - easily replaced for 15 quid - not so much. 

 

I have a sharp swiss army knife on a hook just behind the front door - but in many/most emergency circumstances that just isn't accessible enough.  Re-think required.

 

  (ex caver here btw) 

Edited by bagginz
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22 hours ago, Goliath said:

 

Don’t understand the method of tying to stern dollies. Where’s the other end of the rope ?
?

The photos are a little misleading.  Mooring lines normally have an eye spliced onto the end.   Pass the working end through the eye to make a loop.  Put that loop over the dolly and pull tight. 

 

Once you see how it works you can move onto expert level and turn the eye back on itself - as David Mack mentioned upthread

Edited by bagginz
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21 hours ago, IanD said:

Any knot where the instructions start "take two turns..." leads to the problem we had -- boat rises so the roof is above the bollard, pulls the lower turn (attached to the boat) over the other one, then tension locks it in place and it jams, then boat carries on rising. When there's enough tension to make the rope go twang and the boat heel over by a foot or so no amount of pulling on the loose end will free the rope... ?

 

 

There's a difference between a round turn(s) on a bollard that has: 

 

1.   the standing end  (the end attached to the boat) lowermost - below the coil.   

2.  the standing end uppermost (above the coil)   

 

It's a very good ideal to get to know the difference between the two and practice how to "tie" both versions

 

Version 1 will lock the centreline against the lip of the bollard once the roof rises above the bollard.

 

Version 2 won't. 

 

Rule of thumb:

if the boat is going up in the lock, your rope's standing end (end attached to the boat) should be up   

if you boat's going down, the standing end should be down.

 

If you line does get locked against the lip of a bollard.   Don't panic, put your foot on the taut line and put your weight on it, 99% of the time it'll be enough to unlock the rope underneath, freeing it. 

 

 

Don't ask me how I know. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by bagginz
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On 23/06/2020 at 17:30, Goliath said:

When I did Thames locks

I used my centre rope. 
Simply passed over a bollard, not turned around it, just over it. 
And held onto the other end after passing it through a drainage hole/gap in the handrail. 
Easily kept boat steady keeping rope taught and feeding rope as needed. 
Only 48’ boat mind. 
 

Don’t understand the method of tying to stern dollies. Where’s the other end of the rope ?
?

Obviously ignoring the sign saying use a rope at both ends, engine off. 

We saw a boat do just that, rope rode up and jammed, lock keeper did notice when the side of the boat hit the lock parapet, boat was at about 30 degrees, fortunately there was a boat alongside so the narrow boat wasn't able to slide across and sink. All this happened in about 20 to 30 seconds, everyone was safe and had a dry bed that night but so so near. Going down there is no risk and you don't really need ropes but uphill is very different, a bow rope stops the boat swinging sideways across the lock as the sources are opened, and if it jams it tries to pull the bow down and stern up, which is not likely to happen welds will fail, even 16mm rope will snap if several tons of load is applied.

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On 23/06/2020 at 17:30, Goliath said:

When I did Thames locks

I used my centre rope. 
Simply passed over a bollard, not turned around it, just over it. 
And held onto the other end after passing it through a drainage hole/gap in the handrail. 
Easily kept boat steady keeping rope taught and feeding rope as needed. 
Only 48’ boat mind. 
 

Don’t understand the method of tying to stern dollies. Where’s the other end of the rope ?
?

even in my 20ft lightweight cruiser the lockies often insist on ropes fore and aft, obviously a jobsworth thing.

 

where the lockies are more relaxed I use a similar centre rope technique.

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22 hours ago, bagginz said:

 

There's a difference between a round turn(s) on a bollard that has: 

 

1.   the standing end  (the end attached to the boat) lowermost - below the coil.   

2.  the standing end uppermost (above the coil)   

 

It's a very good ideal to get to know the difference between the two and practice how to "tie" both versions

 

Version 1 will lock the centreline against the lip of the bollard once the roof rises above the bollard.

 

Version 2 won't. 

 

Rule of thumb:

if the boat is going up in the lock, your rope's standing end (end attached to the boat) should be up   

if you boat's going down, the standing end should be down.

 

If you line does get locked against the lip of a bollard.   Don't panic, put your foot on the taut line and put your weight on it, 99% of the time it'll be enough to unlock the rope underneath, freeing it. 

 

 

Don't ask me how I know. 

 

 

 

 

Agreed about which order the turns should go in (it wasn't tied, just looped round twice) -- which didn't help an inexperienced crew member when given "advice" by a CART employee ?

 

He tried putting his full weight on the line, there was no way it was going to release, far too much tension in it -- the boat was heeling over a long way by this time, since several attempts to free it hadn't worked and the water kept on rising, so I guess this was the 1%...

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2 hours ago, Detling said:

Obviously ignoring the sign saying use a rope at both ends, engine off. 

 

  

It's tempting to use just the centreline on the Thames locks (when you can get away with it) but securing both ends is actually very good advice 

as I found out when I went uphill in a sidefill lock of which there are at least 2 on the Thames.

 

As the name suggests the water floods the chamber from the sides, not the bottom.

 

The sideways water pressure pushed my bow hard off towards the middle at about 30 degrees, stern hard against the lock side with the centre line taut.  There wasn't much I could do about it until the lock has filling had slowed down.

 

No significant listing, but the fact is, there were other boats in the lock and I wasn't in 100% control of mine.   Fortunately it didn't bash into a fibreglass cruiser. More embarrassing than anything.

 

I did chat with a lockie after - who told me it was a Sidefill lock and that was why the boat swung out and that it's a bit of a tricky lock and warned me of the next one up river.   I asked him why it had been designed that way. He did give a long detailed explanation  which kind of amounted to "because that's how they designed it" 

 

Another thing I learned single-handing Thames locks is to get off the boat onto the lock side and manage both lines myself - taking in slack etc as the boat rises. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by bagginz
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1 hour ago, IanD said:

Agreed about which order the turns should go in (it wasn't tied, just looped round twice) -- which didn't help an inexperienced crew member when given "advice" by a CART employee ?

 

He tried putting his full weight on the line, there was no way it was going to release, far too much tension in it -- the boat was heeling over a long way by this time, since several attempts to free it hadn't worked and the water kept on rising, so I guess this was the 1%...

In my original post I was going to add;  "in which case run for the knife"  :) 

 

Once the situation has been allowed to develop that far, yes it's the 1%.   

 

Which adds even more weight to Jen in Wellies point which is; we'd all do well to carry a sharp knife in our pockets when doing locks.   Which is excellent advice and something I'm acting upon . 

 

 

Edited by bagginz
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2 hours ago, bagginz said:

In my original post I was going to add;  "in which case run for the knife"  :) 

 

Once the situation has been allowed to develop that far, yes it's the 1%.   

 

Which adds even more weight to Jen in Wellies point which is; we'd all do well to carry a sharp knife in our pockets when doing locks.   Which is excellent advice and something I'm acting upon . 

 

 

I was steering the boat, I was just thinking that the only solution was to cut the rope (with the pruning saw that I keep handy for weed hatch delving) when the CART employee whose advice had caused the tie-up walked over with his saw (they were making some new wooden handrails) and beat me to it. At least we only lost a bottle of chilli sauce and one of gin and didn't sink, I was so shaken that I thanked him for cutting the rope but didn't give him a bollocking for the advice that had caused the hang-up in the first place.

 

Yes in theory we could have dropped the paddles filling the lock, but it was a staircase so they weren't immediately to hand and both paddles were open so this might have been too late. It's easy to be wise after the event but when the boat starts tilting over the first reaction is to scream "free off the rope", then spend some time trying to do that before realising it just isn't going to come free. There's also the fact that having done thousands of locks over the years with no big problems you get complacent and don't expect something like this to happen, that's just human nature.

 

Having something in your pocket that can cut a rope is obviously a good idea, this kind of event might be rare but it could have been disastrous, and I'm sure there are other equally rare ways of sinking a boat because you couldn't cut a rope. It's not much consolation looking at a sunk boat and saying "Well the chances of that happening were a hundred-to-one against..."

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On 24/06/2020 at 14:26, bagginz said:

The photos are a little misleading.  Mooring lines normally have an eye spliced onto the end.   Pass the working end through the eye to make a loop.  Put that loop over the dolly and pull tight. 

 

Once you see how it works you can move onto expert level and turn the eye back on itself - as David Mack mentioned upthread

Sorry , I understand the loops. I sometimes do the David Mack thing when I arrive and tie to a lock landing. 
 

It’s the way in which people tie the

front and back in the locks that I can’t picture
does the steterer control from the back and another member of crew control the front ? Are they on the front of the boat or up on the lock. 
 

I’ve only ever done them single handed and followed the lock keepers advice. 

5 hours ago, Detling said:

Obviously ignoring the sign saying use a rope at both ends, engine off. 

 

Why do feel the need to say that?

I switched the engine off as instructed

and followed the advice of each lock keeper. 
 

Edited by Goliath
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1 hour ago, Goliath said:

 

It’s the way in which people tie the

front and back in the locks that I can’t picture
does the steterer control from the back and another member of crew control the front ? Are they on the front of the boat or up on the lock. 
 

 

 

With crew:

Often the lock keeper will pass the stern line around a bollard and back down to you at the stern.    The same for the bow line for a second crew member positioned on the bow. 

 

 

Single handed:

The lock keeper will pass the stern line around a bollard and back down to you at the stern      And an extended bow line around a bollard adjacent to the bow and pass the bow line back to you again at the stern - so you have to manage two lines - one in each hand.    ( I extended my bow line by attaching a spare mooring line to it using a sheet bend - works perfectly fine.

 

- But after doing this for a while I decided for two main reasons that: 

 

I prefer to come alongside in the lock, chuck the stern line up to the lockie, switch engine off, then walk up the stairs with the bow line, secure it on the front bollard,  check the stern line on the back bollard, then stand between the two bollards and manage the slack on both lines from the lockside.   

 

I have far more control and I find it too much of a handful trying to keep 2 long lines taut while on the boat - especially without a 3rd hand to steady myself.   (the safety maxim "one hand for you, one for the boat" cannot be applied )   Plus one is at a mechanical disadvantage attempting to keep the 2 much longer lines taut from the back of the boat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by bagginz
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