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Is it normal for someone to move your boat without your permission, to the offside of the canal, tie it to trees and take your mooring pins?


lionfish

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Hi - I m new to the canals and boating world. 

I am continually cruising atm before bidding for winter moorings in a week or two. Sometimes I need to leave my boat moored up for a week. Moorings in Marinas are hard to find, I feel I have to go towpath. 

I was on the Liverpool and Leigh canal just past the Pennington Warf Swing bridge and came back to my boat to find it tied to trees on the other, inaccessible side of the canal. They had left my wonky stake/pin on the roof and the two good ones were gone. 

I had picked a spot with plenty of room for a wide beam or narrow boat to get past. 

I m glad my boat wasn't vandalised, but feeling a bit sad and down about it. Not feeling to keen on the Leigh, Wigan area now. 

Can I please make friends with some boaters around this area who could keep an eye out. 

Edited by lionfish
Don't make negative assumptions
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have you tried putting a magnet in the canal where the boat was moored? could be it pulled its pins and they're now underwater, a passing boat found you drifting and moored it back up with what was to hand?

 

or i'm totally wrong and some scrote has had it away with your pins :( 

  • Greenie 3
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Its my guess you havnt moored it well and its come adrift and some kind soul has tied it to an available spot. Try to use chains on armco if possible when leaving the boat as pins are never a good idea unless you have some very heavy long ones, not the usual crap sold by boat yards.

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Thank you for the replies. 

I will aim to pick a spot with armco next time and use chains and hooks. 

I m still learning so happy to take some advise. 

First time this has happened so I didn't know what the most common causes are.

 

I went for a scramble and climb to get to it Halsey.

  • Greenie 3
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Yes it’s easy to think that someone did a bad thing to you, but the reality is that it could be that somebody did a good thing for you. If your boat came adrift and someone felt they should re-tie it, perhaps the only option was either to donate their own stakes, or tie it to something available ie the trees on the offside.

  • Greenie 1
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If my memory serves me right there is no Armco on the Leigh branch and pins are about the only option apart from a few rings like at Astley. Also, because the water there is deeper boats tend to go past a bit faster than they might do elsewhere and pins can easily be pulled out. Perhaps not the best place to leave your boat unattended. As others have said, the boat was probably drifting and another boater secured it as best they could . 

If you have to use pins, make sure the rope is through the loop so that if it ends up.in the canal you can get it back.

 

Haggis

 

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I found this image useful and am ordering some chains now. Haggis and Nick you're both right, there isn't a lot of Armco and chances are someone actually did me a solid. The mind loves a negative bias and to jump to the worst possible conclusion. I ll keep working on that. Your responses have helped me feel a lot more positive about the whole situation. Hopefully I can use some new mooring tactic to avoid it happening in future. 

image.png.7bd105c6d0e1b4c4242621fc201a1c57.png

  • Greenie 4
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I have some heavy duty pins made by the blacksmith at Stoke Bruerne.

I use these as a last resort preferring to use chains to Armco.

When I use the pins I always loop the line through the rings on the pins and tie off on the boat.

Edited by Ray T
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I did loop the rope through the pin hoop and tie it off on the boat. I think that's why I was so willing to jump to the conclusion it had been untied and moved with intent. All the extra ropes had been left on the roof of the boat. 

 

Ray I think I know the blacksmith, I brought this boat up the Grand Union via Blisworth Tunnel. 

Edited by lionfish
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27 minutes ago, haggis said:

If you have to use pins, make sure the rope is through the loop so that if it ends up.in the canal you can get it back.

... or if you have pins without loops then put a clove hitch on the pin before taking the line back to the boat.

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26 minutes ago, lionfish said:

I did loop the rope through the pin hoop and tie it off on the boat. I think that's why I was so willing to jump to the conclusion it had been untied and moved with intent. All the extra ropes had been left on the roof of the boat. 

 

Ray I think I know the blacksmith, I brought this boat up the Grand Union via Blisworth Tunnel. 

Of course another possibility is that someone did steal your pins. And someone else then came along and helpfully tied your boat up to the only thing available - the offside trees.

  • Greenie 1
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42 minutes ago, Ray T said:

I have some heavy duty pins made by the blacksmith at Stoke Bruerne.

I use these as a last resort preferring to use chains to Armco.

When I use the pins I always loop the line through the rings on the pins and tie off on the boat.

As have I and well built proper pins they are to, saying that one got bent on the GU and yes they were driven right in

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1 hour ago, lionfish said:

Thank you for the replies. 

I will aim to pick a spot with armco next time and use chains and hooks. 

I m still learning so happy to take some advise. 

First time this has happened so I didn't know what the most common causes are.

 

I went for a scramble and climb to get to it Halsey.

 

Please, not hooks. Both C type and nappy pins will fall out once the  ropes slaked a bit. Use goat chains around the whaling bar.

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As soon as I found out about them, I've only used goat chains or rings, except when we randomly tried tying up before the start of the 2018 BCN challenge somewhere with no rings or armco. I found my stakes, unused since 2011 but not the hammer which I hid sometime ago because my son had an annoying habit of hitting things with it. Peter X and I knocked the stakes in as best as possible with a 1" spanner iirc, so pretty badly, however they held all night with some passing traffic.

 

Would mud weights be of any extra benefit if you have to use stakes?

 

Rob

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I still find it weird that anyone can comfortably leave a multi thousand pound investment, full of desirable stuff, totally insecure and unattended for weeks at a time on the towpath. It reaffirms my faith in human nature that hardly any get vandalised, broken into or stolen. 

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36 minutes ago, The Gravy Boater said:

Another option where there is no arnco is to use ground anchors. They're like corkscrews you put into the soil and are much more secure than pins. 

I think rond anchors as used on the broads would be better than stages because the pull will be at more than 890 degrees to the bit in the ground. I am sure ground anchors would work as well but they would not take kindly to areas of rock, concrete etc  below the surface

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3 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

I think rond anchors as used on the broads would be better than stages because the pull will be at more than 890 degrees to the bit in the ground. I am sure ground anchors would work as well but they would not take kindly to areas of rock, concrete etc  below the surface

Interesting... https://www.jonesboatchandlery.co.uk/rhond-anchor

 

I've been using these... https://www.midlandchandlers.co.uk/products/spyra-base-boat-mooring-kit-2x-400-2x-250-as-043

 

It does sometimes take a while to get one in if there are large stones.

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2 minutes ago, The Gravy Boater said:

Interesting... https://www.jonesboatchandlery.co.uk/rhond-anchor

 

I've been using these... https://www.midlandchandlers.co.uk/products/spyra-base-boat-mooring-kit-2x-400-2x-250-as-043

 

It does sometimes take a while to get one in if there are large stones.

The Rhond (thanks for the spelling) anchors I am more familiar with have a curved fluke to the tip tends to run under the right angle on the shank. I get the impression that that the curved type will have a tendency to dig themselves in when pulled.

Edited by Tony Brooks
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1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I still find it weird that anyone can comfortably leave a multi thousand pound investment, full of desirable stuff, totally insecure and unattended for weeks at a time on the towpath. It reaffirms my faith in human nature that hardly any get vandalised, broken into or stolen. 

Good point!

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