Actual use of anchors in emergencies on UK canal/river network

[Wanderer Vagabond]

1 hour ago, blackrose said:

I think you're right, having to deploy an anchor is rare, but that doesn't mean having an anchor and appropriate chain/rope can be ignored.

 

My engine started to overheat on the tidal Thames once between Brentford and Teddington because of a snapped fanbelt. Fortunately it happened at slack water between tides and I was travelling with another boat and had their phone number so they turned around and came back to give me a tow. Otherwise if I'd been alone I'd have had no option other than drop an anchor.

To be honest though, you were on the Tidal Thames not 100 miles out in the Atlantic. With a mobile phone you could call London VTS, Teddington/Brentford Lock, a passing boat or if things get really hairy even the RNLI (Chiswick, Teddington and Tower). This idea that we must save ourselves without any outside assistance becomes a bit unrealistic on inland waterways. Many of the anecdotes on here are along the lines of, "...I went to help someone who would otherwise have gone over a weir..." whereas there don't seem that many anecdotes along the lines of "The anchor saved my life". I'm not arguing against anchors, I carry one myself, but I'm also realistic about what it can and cannot do. Have done a lot of offshore sailing involving the use of anchors, I can't think of any situations when the anchor was deployed in an emergency since normally anchoring involves finding suitable locations to anchor and carefully deploying the anchor. Lobbing one over the side and hoping for the best probably isn't the best approach. There was another similar thread to this recently and I pointed out on that one that trying to deploy an anchor whilst being swept through London on the flooding tide between Limehouse and Brentford probably wouldn't have a good outcome. Assuming that everything on your boat was strong enough to take the strain of stopping an 18 ton narrowboat barrelling through London at 9mph (the speed we passed under Tower Bridge according to GPS) you now have a relatively small stationary boat anchored in the middle of a very busy waterway, what could possibly go wrong.

 

On other rivers deploying the anchor could easily make a situation worse, If you were cruising the Ouse to York (so going up on the flooding tide) and a problem arose so you flung the anchor over the side, you need to be sure that the river is going to be wide enough for your boat to pirouette around the anchor without getting caught up on the bank because if the bow was held by the anchor and the stern was caught on the riverbank, this may well put you across the river flow which really isn't what you want to be doing in a narrow boat.

[Tacet]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Are you aware that those booms (actually called Dolphins) are not designed to stop NB's going over the weir ?

 

Dolphins (the non-mammal type) are vertical piles set in the river.

 

Such as the mooring pile adjacent to many lower Thames locks but also in groups supporting bridge structures.  Often the latter are encased concrete and if they present a nice hydrodynamic shape to the flow, as in many London River bridges, you can watch them swimming well, as per their animal cousins.  I have no idea if that is the reason for their name, but it feels possible.

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Midnight said:

When travelling down on the ebb from Naburn (Cawood) to Selby on a friend's boat the engine stalled when the prop got a log stuck in it so I deployed the anchor. We did eventually stop and we were able to retieve the anchor when we got going again. 

But not 60kg, that's equivalent to  three bags of coal, or three standard Danforths. Anyway best to use a modern anchor, not something from a museum.

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by LadyG

[Momac]

22 minutes ago, Tacet said:

Dolphins (the non-mammal type) are vertical piles set in the river.

 

Such as the mooring pile adjacent to many lower Thames locks but also in groups supporting bridge structures.  Often the latter are encased concrete and if they present a nice hydrodynamic shape to the flow, as in many London River bridges, you can watch them swimming well, as per their animal cousins.  I have no idea if that is the reason for their name, but it feels possible.

Sounds like a good description 

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, Chris John said:

You sure they’re called dolphins? 

I've always referred to them as a string of sausages.

[Momac]

I don't think the string of sausages are necessarily intended to stop a  boat . More  a visual barrier that will allow debris to pass under.

 

[David Mack]

5 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

I did maybe six years on the Thames hire fleet and there was often a bit of flow early and late in the season.  As far as I can recall there was only one anchoring incident when a school party on two boats decided to go into Benson upper weir pool. Today the river would have been on yellow boards. One boat did suffer engine failure caused by a blocked cooling water inlet, so they deployed the anchor. For some reason I can't work out a pupil got the rope around his leg and got pitched into the river. He died, but the CQR anchor held. They were not very heavy CQRs, certainly lighter than the Danforth I had in the narrow boat.

So in this incident deploying the anchor (by an inexperienced crew) resulted in a fatality. Whereas not deploying the anchor would likely have resulted in lesser consequences. Not a great advert for using the anchor, especially by the inexperienced, which almost by definition most narrowboaters will be in this respect.

[Chris John]

6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I've always referred to them as a string of sausages.

Wouldn’t like to visit your butchers then 🤭

[howardang]

2 hours ago, MartynG said:

Sounds like a good description 

Thanks for posting this. You have saved me having to do it!

 

Howard

 

[enigmatic]

4 hours ago, MoominPapa said:

https://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2012-11-01/narrow-boat-sinks

 

MP.

 

tbf, that boat was travelling on a particularly strong stream and an anchor would have been even less help than the dolphins/sausages/booms once their stern got dragged away from the lock entrance...

 

On a day it's safe to travel it looks more like this

 

Wouldn't want to rely on dolphins/sausages/booms to keep me away from Trent weirs though

 

[LadyG]

8 hours ago, David Mack said:

So in this incident deploying the anchor (by an inexperienced crew) resulted in a fatality. Whereas not deploying the anchor would likely have resulted in lesser consequences. Not a great advert for using the anchor, especially by the inexperienced, which almost by definition most narrowboaters will be in this respect.

Assuming a boat hired by a school would have mostly untrained children, lifejackets could have been used, the type used by the CRT to protect their staff and lock volunteers. All sail training organisation use them, all dingy sailors use them, in fact most people who are at risk.

If anyone skippers a boat they have a responsibility to act responsibly, just like any car driver .

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

29 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Assuming a boat hired by a school would have mostly untrained children, lifejackets could have been used, the type used by the CRT to protect their staff and lock volunteers. All sail training organisation use them, all dingy sailors use them, in fact most people who are at risk.

If anyone skippers a boat they have a responsibility to act responsibly, just like any car driver .

 

 

 

Fine in theory, but that did not happen in practice, remember this was over 50 years ago, things were very different then. The OP wanted to know about anchoring in an emergency, that was the only emergency anchoring I had experience off and the anchor held.

 

I suspect most emergency anchoring is down to lack of maintenance in one way or another.

[Midnight]

11 hours ago, LadyG said:

But not 60kg, that's equivalent to  three bags of coal, or three standard Danforths. Anyway best to use a modern anchor, not something from a museum.

 

 

Oh I don't remember you being there at the time. Apologies it's an age thing.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

2 hours ago, LadyG said:

Assuming a boat hired by a school would have mostly untrained children, lifejackets could have been used, the type used by the CRT to protect their staff and lock volunteers. All sail training organisation use them, all dingy sailors use them, in fact most people who are at risk.

If anyone skippers a boat they have a responsibility to act responsibly, just like any car driver .

 

 

Just a small correction, dinghy sailors don't use lifejackets, we use buoyancy aids since the nature of the sport says that there is a possibility of capsize. You don't want an automated lifejacket to go off every time you fall in and then have to wear a 'Mae West' for the rest of your sail.

[GUMPY]

12 hours ago, Tacet said:

Dolphins (the non-mammal type) are vertical piles set in the river.

 

Absolutely.

I thought this last night but wasn't brave enough to post as I didn't want to get shouted at by AdeE telling me I was wrong when I wasn't.

9 hours ago, enigmatic said:

 

tbf, that boat was travelling on a particularly strong stream and an anchor would have been even less help than the dolphins/sausages/booms once their stern got dragged away from the lock entrance...

 

On a day it's safe to travel it looks more like this

 

Wouldn't want to rely on dolphins/sausages/booms to keep me away from Trent weirs though

 

The fact that that gate is normally closed and opens without warning didn't help the couple.

[LadyG]

13 hours ago, LadyG said:

But not 60kg, that's equivalent to  three bags of coal, or three standard Danforths. Anyway best to use a modern anchor, not something from a museum.

 

I'm not suggesting it was, I'm sure no one would buy such a thing (if it exists), for a narrowboat.

 I think the idea of the thread is to get details, of an incident so we can build up a picture of successful or unsuccessful outcomes.

 

[IanD]

This has all proved very interesting... 😉

 

I'm sure some people will disagree, but what I think it shows is that a narrowboat (or wideboat...) that spends most of its time on the UK canals and ventures out onto rivers some of the time doesn't *need* an anchor as a safety measure in case of emergencies, it's just a pointless waste of space and money and a trip hazard.

 

Even the respondents like Alan and others who had many years experience on rivers said they never had to deploy one in anger, and for the (very rare) cases where somebody else deployed one the cure was sometimes worse than the disease.

 

It's also worth pointing out that most of the incidents leading to the need to anchor in a hurry seem to be engine failures, and many of these will be down to poor design or maintenance (e.g. overheating when run at high powers for some time) or fuel problems (e.g. water or dirt in the fuel, stirred up by the boat rocking in waves). A well-maintained boat with clean fuel (like Alan's) is far less likely to suffer from this -- and an electric/hybrid even less so, assuming it was designed and tested to run at full power for a couple of hours... 😉

 

For anyone who is still really worried about this -- or spends a *lot* of time on fast-flowing rivers, or often needs to moor away from the bank -- there seems little point having the standard Danforth + (possibly too short) chain/rope, because it's heavy and difficult to deploy (even a 20kg one is really too small for a 60' narrowboat, plus 10kg or so of chain) and poor at setting and holding, and if you need (or think you need...) an anchor then you need a better one -- for example a Fortress plus the recommended 3m of chain weigh about 10kg and is several times more effective, as are other modern anchors favoured by other posters.

 

So either no anchor (for most narrowboats) *or* a proper job (for the few that really want/need one) seem the two ways to go, depending on personal preference and boat usage.

 

And to answer MartynG's question -- yes I'm considering not having an anchor at all, given the above facts 🙂

 

(and I'm sure this will result in condemnation from some people -- but hey, it's my boat not yours, I'm not saying you should do the same)

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by IanD

[Midnight]

4 hours ago, IanD said:

.... I think it shows is that a narrowboat (or wideboat...) that spends most of its time on the UK canals and ventures out onto rivers some of the time doesn't *need* an anchor as a safety measure in case of emergencies, it's just a pointless waste of space and money and a trip hazard.

 

 

 How do you arrive at that conclusion? I can tell you for sure if the boat I travelled on down the tidal Ouse that stopped because of a branch in the prop hadn't had an anchor we would have ended up helpless on the ebb tide. Probably wedged under the willows on a corner which would likely cause the boat to list heavily and possibly sink. On tidal rivers or rivers carrying fresh you definitely need an anchor. The one we had to deploy was a standard Danforth, the boat was 55ft.

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 How do you arrive at that conclusion? I can tell you for sure if the boat I travelled on down the tidal Ouse that stopped because of a branch in the prop hadn't had an anchor we would have ended up helpless on the ebb tide. Probably wedged under the willows on a corner which would likely cause the boat to list heavily and possibly sink. On tidal rivers or rivers carrying fresh you definitely need an anchor. The one we had to deploy was a standard Danforth, the boat was 55ft.

 

I came to that conclusion based on what people had reported -- which was not having to ever use an anchor like this in spite of many years spent on rivers. Yes it's theoretically possible and happens to a very small number of people, usually because of engine problems, *very* occasionally because of a fouled prop -- but how much help an anchor actually is if that happens and how bad the result is if you don't have one (or fail to deploy it, or it doesn't do its job) is debatable to say the least -- "probably", "likely" and "possibly" were your terms.

 

To me, saying you *need* an anchor (on a narrowboat which spends most of its time on canals) implies that the chance of something going wrong is significant and the chance of it saving you if this happens is high, but neither seems to be the case here -- it's not like a seat belt.

 

I'd be happy without one. If I was unhappy without one, I'd pay for a Fortress. If you don't agree then that's fine, have a Danforth and be happy with your choice 🙂

Edited September 28, 2022 by IanD

[Midnight]

9 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

I came to that conclusion based on what people had reported -- which was not having to ever use an anchor like this in spite of many years spent on rivers. Yes it's theoretically possible and happens to a very small number of people, usually because of engine problems, *very* occasionally because of a fouled prop -- but how much help an anchor actually is if that happens and how bad the result is if you don't have one (or fail to deploy it, or it doesn't do its job) is debatable to say the least -- "probably", "likely" and "possibly" were your terms.

 

To me, saying you *need* an anchor (on a narrowboat which spends most of its time on canals) implies that the chance of something going wrong is significant and the chance of it saving you if this happens is high, but neither seems to be the case here -- it's not like a seat belt.

 

I'd be happy without one. If I was unhappy without one, I'd pay for a Fortress. If you don't agree then that's fine, have a Danforth and be happy with your choice 🙂

 

You are always right IanD so I suggest when you get your nice shiny new boat don't bother with an anchor and try a few trips up and down the tidal Ouse and tidal Trent.  Keep an eye out for floating debris on the way. You probably will be okay but possibly you will encounter a problem with aforementioned debris when you do, you will likely need an anchor.

I suggest in your case you will only need third party insurance too. 

[IanD]

32 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 

You are always right IanD so I suggest when you get your nice shiny new boat don't bother with an anchor and try a few trips up and down the tidal Ouse and tidal Trent.  Keep an eye out for floating debris on the way. You probably will be okay but possibly you will encounter a problem with aforementioned debris when you do, you will likely need an anchor.

I suggest in your case you will only need third party insurance too. 

 

If this was such a big problem as you're making out there would be loads of narrowboats every year sunk in rivers or dangling off anchors in an emergency, and that simply isn't the case. There are lots of things in life where people have to evaluate risks and decide what to do about them, this is just another one. You seem to think that having an anchor is a magic bullet should such a problem occur, and again the evidence suggests that this ain't always so, sometimes it has little effect (especially a Danforth...) or can even make things worse.

 

I didn't say I was always right, I said it was my opinion, and if you disagree you can do something different. Is that so hard to understand?

 

Talking down to people in a condescending "I'm clever and you're an idiot" manner -- and in italics -- is not going to make you many friends though... 😉

Edited September 28, 2022 by IanD

[LadyG]

I wonder if someone had a massive insurance claim, which could run in to millions if loss of life involved, would insurance cover total loses if they thought the owner had not provided sufficient safety equipment?

[IanD]

24 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I wonder if someone had a massive insurance claim, which could run in to millions if loss of life involved, would insurance cover total loses if they thought the owner had not provided sufficient safety equipment?

 

If that was how insurance worked, any careless driver or one not wearing their glasses would be personally liable for multimillion pound damages if they ran somebody over, since they didn't provide the "sufficient safety equipment" of a careful driver... 😉

 

The situation with employers/employees is different, if the employer fails to provide safety equipment they can (rightfully) be sued -- and usually they then claim on *their* insurance policy...

Edited September 28, 2022 by IanD

[Midnight]

22 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I wonder if someone had a massive insurance claim, which could run in to millions if loss of life involved, would insurance cover total loses if they thought the owner had not provided sufficient safety equipment?

I wouldn't worry. IanD is such a clever-sod, know-all he will never have any problems at all.  

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, Midnight said:

I wouldn't worry. IanD is such a clever-sod, know-all he will never have any problems at all.  

Have you ever considered making helpful or constructive comments as opposed to personal abuse?

 

Do you understand the concept of risk?

 

Why is what I decide to do for myself any of your business? Perhaps you should tell me not to drink because that reduces life expectancy?

 

(which it does, by much *much* more than not having an anchor -- but it's nothing to do with you...)

 

I started this thread to try and find out some actual facts about whether anchors were really a useful safety precaution or not for a mostly-canal narrowboat, and some people helped me form an opinion on that -- which is that they're not.

 

If you disagree with it, that's fine by me, that's your opinion -- but it would be nice not to descend into a tit-for-tat personal abuse war yet again... 😉

Edited September 28, 2022 by IanD