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


IanD

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16 hours ago, tree monkey said:

To be fair all he is doing is a personal risk assessment for his own boat and using this thread to guide the process, it will be the correct decision for him because it's his risk assessment for you (and others) it's the wrong decision. 

 

I have similar discussions with many different people regularly, trees not boats, but it's the same process,  the person who has had a tree or branch failure will be more risk adverse than someone who hasn't, it's likely that their neighbours will also be more risk adverse as well despite my reassurances that their trees are fine and the % chance of a failure is low.

 

Equally some people will continue to be less risk adverse even if they have had an incident be it branch failure or boat incident, the point I am making is this is a personal decision no more no less

Which was precisely my point -- different strokes for different folks 😉

 

Anyone wanting to make a decision like this -- whether formally like an insurance agent, or informally as an individual -- does some kind of risk analysis. For example a professional fish filleter will wear a chainmail glove on their left hand because they're filleting fish all day every day, and no matter how careful they are there's a significant risk they'll cut a finger off sooner or later, where an amateur cook at home won't because this is a task they very rarely do -- maybe an average of a fraction of a minute per day even for a keen cook, so their risk is at least 100x lower. And probabilities all multiply up together, so the range between low and high risks can be even bigger than this -- for example for boaters with anchors.

 

Let's try and put some guesstimate numbers in -- note that these are all very rough guesses to try and work out low/typical/high risk cases, so there's no point worrying about whether they're accurate or arguing that they're "wrong"...

 

[if you're bored with this and hate maths and probabilities, look away now...]

 

Let's start with how much time boaters spend on their boats, how much they move around, and how much of this is on rivers or tidal waters.

 

A liveaboard who spends all year on their boat is "high risk", a holiday boater (like I'll be) is "low risk" because they probably spend 10x less time on the boat (I'm assuming 5 weeks per year), a retired non-liveaboard ("typical") might spend 4 months or so per year on their boat -- so high-risk is 3x bigger than typical, low-risk is 3x smaller.

 

Someone who spends most of the time on the move (e.g. a holiday boater -- let's say 6 days a week) is "high-risk", someone who moves the bare minimum to meet the CC rules is "low-risk" (e.g. 1 day per 14 days), a more typical CCer might move 2 or 3 days per week -- so again high-risk is 3x bigger than typical, low-risk is 3x smaller.

 

Then there's how much time they spend on rivers. I've done some looking back over the years and I reckon I spend something like 95% of my time on canals (meaning 5% on rivers). Someone whose home mooring is on a river could well spend 100% of their time on them, but let's assume 50% because they go off onto the canals too. An in-between typical figure might be 1 day per week of cruising (15%), so yet again hi-risk is 3x bigger and low-risk 3x smaller than typical.

 

[there's a pattern emerging that there's about 10x difference between individual high and low risk cases, which is actually often used as a rule-of-thumb for risk estimation...]

 

Now lets see how likely the boat is to get into the "no propulsion" case. Causes for this include prop fouling, boater error (fuel tap turned off!), inadequate design (skin tank too small) or maintenance (blocked fuel filter), fuel contamination (water or dirt) stirred up by boat rocking, and I'm sure there are several more. Let's assume that 3/4 of cases (75%) are down to the boat (because this is most often mentioned) and 25% to prop fouling. Out of those 75% due to the boat, most can be avoided with "normal" precautions and skill, and probably all of them by either a diesel boat with lumpy-water-quality precautions (like Alan might make) or an electric boat properly designed and tested to sustain full power for a couple of hours (like mine, hopefully). That means that if you do everything possible you'll still get 25% of failures (prop fouls), a "normal" boater might get 50%, and an uncaring/unskilled/inexperienced one 100% -- so this time high and low risk are 2x worse and better than typical.

 

Then there's what happens when you deploy the anchor -- or not. With no anchor you'll have a problem 100% of the time; an undersized (i.e normal=typical) Danforth might work (set and hold) a third of the time (could be more), an advanced anchor might work 90% of the time. Again high risk (no anchor) is 3x worse than a typical one, and an advanced one 3x better.

 

All this then has to be multiplied by the absolute risk -- how often all this happens, and how often the result is catastrophic (sinking/drowning) as opposed to ending up in the trees. But let's leave that until later... 😉

 

If you take all the above factors and multiply them together -- because that's how probabilities work -- then we get the following:

 

Typical risk case (extended CCer, moves 3 days a week, 1 day per week of cruising on rivers, decent design/maintenance, Danforth) : risk = 1x

Highest possible risk case (liveaboard, on the move all the time, half the time on rivers, poor design/maintenance, no anchor) : risk = 160x higher (let's call it 100x since all numbers are guesswork)

Lowest possible risk case (holiday boater, minimum moving, mostly canals, excellent design/maintenance, advanced anchor) : risk = 160x lower (let's call it 100x since all numbers are guesswork)

 

Of course these are the extreme cases which are never likely to occur together (e.g. holiday boater who hardly ever moves, liveaboard who moves every day) and I'm sure that anyone can work out the numbers for their own case, but with more realistic cases you still end up with high-risk cases being maybe 10x worse and low-risk maybe10x better than typical. Funnily enough, that's where we started with the fish-filleting... 😉

 

None of this is my opinion -- though the numbers are my guesstimates, and might well be wrong -- because the methods used to work out risk are factual and well-known.

 

To get the absolute risk we'd need to know how many canal boats end up sinking or drowning people on rivers due to engine/anchor failure, and I expect the number is pretty small (does anyone know?) -- if it was more than one or two per year it would be all over the forums. Statistically most of these will be "higher-risk" boaters -- those who spend a lot of time on rivers and/or are incompetent or bad at maintenance -- but even for them the odds must be pretty small, we could guess that there are maybe a few hundred boaters like this, so perhaps the risk of a disaster per boater is a fraction of a percent per year? So even for them, over a lifetime of boating the odds are they'll never have a disaster like this -- but given the consequences, an anchor is a very good idea. However if you're a "lower-risk" boater the chances are much *much* smaller, far smaller than many other things in life that we accept without thinking.

 

So whether an anchor is a good idea or a waste of space is completely dependent on the individual and their circumstances, because the risk can certainly vary by at least 100x -- and this is true even before you consider the "always look on the bright side of life" or "if something can go wrong it probably will" difference in attitude, which is basically down to how risk-averse people are, which varies massively.

 

For some people -- like Alan -- the "correct" answer is a modern high-performance anchor, and knowing how to deploy it.

 

For some people -- like me 😉 -- an anchor is almost certainly a waste of space, it would almost certainly (probability again...) never be deployed in an emergency even if I boated till I was 100.

 

For many people it's not going to make a fat lot of difference, the odds are that they'll never deploy it but a few will be unlucky, and for those cases even a Danforth (which they'll most likely have) is better than no anchor at all. A modern anchor is considerably better still but it's down to the individual whether they can afford one and think it's justified.

 

Which means that boaters should make their own informed decision depending on their circumstances and attitude to risk -- there is no single "right answer" for everyone... 😉

 

P.S. Going by earlier posts I expect the usual complaints and insults (Boring! Wrong! Muppet! Non-boater! Stupid! I know better than you! Shut up!) from the usual suspects. It won't make what I've just written any less true, though... 😉

Edited by IanD
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Just now, fladda said:

 

Sorry my poor use of boating terminology. I should have just just called it an 'anchor', as per the original poster.

 

No need for an apology, how many purely inland boaters know what a sea anchor is, although some know what is does from throwing a bucket on a rope tied to the front T stud when reversing. The little bit of extra knowledge will help people avoid showing their ignorance and may help in a quiz or something.

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1 hour ago, IanD said:

 

 

Which means that boaters should make their own informed decision depending on their circumstances and attitude to risk -- there is no single "right answer" for everyone...

 

Oh I see you have changed your stance a little from:

"......... 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."

 

Anyone going onto a tidal (or strong current) river without an anchor is taking an big risk. 

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4 hours ago, Midnight said:

 

Oh I see you have changed your stance a little from:

"......... 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."

 

Anyone going onto a tidal (or strong current) river without an anchor is taking an big risk. 

Nope, haven't changed my stance at all -- it's pretty much what I said in the long post just above, if you only go out onto rivers a bit of the time you don't *need* an anchor -- but if you want one in case of the tiny chance of it being useful, fill your boots.

 

My opinion ("I think it shows...) is still that in this case (not all) it's a waste of space and money, your opinion may be different -- and that's fine 🙂

 

I disagree with your second line made as a statement, as do the facts -- for an individual boater the risk is very small, otherwise we'd see loads of sunken boats or drownings given the number of boats out there who do venture onto rivers, given the number of times anchors reportedly don't work very well (or at all).

 

As I said before, you don't seem to understand risk (or the difference between opinion and fact), regardless of claiming that you do... 😉

 

Now I expect more insults... 😞

Edited by IanD
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On 28/09/2022 at 17:16, Sass said:

on a similar note, is there such thing as 'too many; tyres and inflatable things hanging from your boat to protect it, providing you're not doubling them up? it seems so sensible yet a lot of boats seem to not have many and im wondering if there's a reason?

3 is too many, because fenders (I assume we're talking about the ones dangling from the side, not the front/rear rope or similar ones which don't dangle but are secured by chains normally clear of the water) are used to reduce or eliminate the sound of the metal hull hitting the bank when moored for long periods, eg overnight. In theory you could have one big one and somehow balance the rope tension, but in practice 2 is enough to keep the hull clear - so long as they're wide enough - and if a 3rd were deployed, at least one of the fenders wouldn't touch the side so it would be redundant. And since they're pulled up while cruising, why not detach-reattach them (there's easy and quick ways to do this) so you only need 2, not 2 per side. ETA then with the extra space freed up, you could maybe have 2 further ones for when the shelf is big, like on the Shroppie. What with storage space always being at a premium.

Edited by Paul C
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1 hour ago, Midnight said:

No insults coming however are you saying you would be happy to take your new boat up to York without an anchor? Have you ever been on a tidal river?

Yes. Yes.

 

Not under flood conditions obviously, it would be stupid to take a 60' boat with 20hp and a top speed of maybe 7kts onto a river in those circumstances. But even if you did, I'm not convinced an anchor would be that much use if it did all go a bit Pete Tong... 😉

Edited by IanD
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1 hour ago, Midnight said:

No insults coming however are you saying you would be happy to take your new boat up to York without an anchor? Have you ever been on a tidal river?

To be honest, as one who has gone from Selby up to Naburn (and other tidal rivers besides) I'm not sure that deploying an anchor on that stretch is that advisable. Bearing in mind you are either going up on the flooding tide or coming down on the ebbing tide, if you throw the anchor over the side the first thing that the boat then has to do is spin around the anchor to face into the current. Get the stern caught on the bank and you are in all sorts of trouble. Deploying the anchor from the stern would involve rapidly changing the point at which the anchor is secured to the boat and now you have the stern secured (assuming the anchor bit) with the current now running at the back of the boat, which on my boat is a whole lot lower than the front. I see anchors as a possible assistance under the right conditions, but not as a life saver. When we have anchored whilst offshore sailing it has never been under emergency conditions, (which are exactly the conditions when everything is likely to go wrong). We choose our anchorage carefully and pay out the line, equally carefully; lobbing it over the side and hoping for the best has never been a 'procedure'.

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3 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

To be honest, as one who has gone from Selby up to Naburn (and other tidal rivers besides) I'm not sure that deploying an anchor on that stretch is that advisable. Bearing in mind you are either going up on the flooding tide or coming down on the ebbing tide, if you throw the anchor over the side the first thing that the boat then has to do is spin around the anchor to face into the current. Get the stern caught on the bank and you are in all sorts of trouble. Deploying the anchor from the stern would involve rapidly changing the point at which the anchor is secured to the boat and now you have the stern secured (assuming the anchor bit) with the current now running at the back of the boat, which on my boat is a whole lot lower than the front. I see anchors as a possible assistance under the right conditions, but not as a life saver. When we have anchored whilst offshore sailing it has never been under emergency conditions, (which are exactly the conditions when everything is likely to go wrong). We choose our anchorage carefully and pay out the line, equally carefully; lobbing it over the side and hoping for the best has never been a 'procedure'.

When on my friends boat on the ebb I walked along the roof brought the anchor to the stern and dropped it in. There are a lot of sharp bends below Cawood so the alternative would have seen us in the willows on the outside of such a bend. With the flow against the side pushing the boat against the lower branches its likely the boat would list and take in water. That's what happened to another friend who had the same issue with a large underwater branch stopping his engine and was smashed against Selby road bridge. Fortunately the tide rose enough to eventually turn the boat backwards and upright through the offside arch just as the fire brigade were climbing down to rescue him and his crew.  I've also accompanied yet another mate up the Ouse when a branch stopped the engine. Fortunately that time we were on the long straight above Turn Head so had time to clear the prop before the anchor was deployed. I think I've done that stretch about 30 times and had two incidents and know of at least two more. To suggest going up there is such low risk that an anchor isn't required doesn't stack up. In my experience there's  a 1 in 15 chance of a problem with debris.

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8 minutes ago, Midnight said:

When on my friends boat on the ebb I walked along the roof brought the anchor to the stern and dropped it in. There are a lot of sharp bends below Cawood so the alternative would have seen us in the willows on the outside of such a bend. With the flow against the side pushing the boat against the lower branches its likely the boat would list and take in water. That's what happened to another friend who had the same issue with a large underwater branch stopping his engine and was smashed against Selby road bridge. Fortunately the tide rose enough to eventually turn the boat backwards and upright through the offside arch just as the fire brigade were climbing down to rescue him and his crew.  I've also accompanied yet another mate up the Ouse when a branch stopped the engine. Fortunately that time we were on the long straight above Turn Head so had time to clear the prop before the anchor was deployed. I think I've done that stretch about 30 times and had two incidents and know of at least two more. To suggest going up there is such low risk that an anchor isn't required doesn't stack up. In my experience there's  a 1 in 15 chance of a problem with debris.

You kind of illustrate my point for me, although I didn't say that it was such low risk that an anchor isn't required. What I said was that if you deploy your anchor and, whilst the boat spins around it, your stern catches on the bank you could be in a whole lot more trouble being held at the bow by the anchor, at the stern by the bank and across the current. I should also say that on Turnpost Corner on the Trent I had a similar situation whereby the boat ran through the trees on the Port side as I went around the corner, sinking was never an option although it could have cleared the roof boxes off the boat.

 

My own view on safety would be that walking along the roof of a narrowboat, that is presumably now not under control, whilst carrying an anchor, doesn't sound remotely 'safe' to me:unsure:

Edited by Wanderer Vagabond
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2 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

 

My own view on safety would be that walking along the roof of a narrowboat, that is presumably now not under control, whilst carrying an anchor, doesn't sound remotely 'safe' to me:unsure:

Maybe  "safer" that rolling over in the river

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16 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Maybe  "safer" that rolling over in the river

That's what was going through my mind at the time. 😜

 

I just love the keyboard experts. When in that situation theory doesn't necessarily match reality.

26 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

 

My own view on safety would be that walking along the roof of a narrowboat, that is presumably now not under control, whilst carrying an anchor, doesn't sound remotely 'safe' to me:unsure:

 

Beats the shit out of walking along the gunwhale 🤣

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I can assure you that in the unlikely event that my anchor is in the wrong place I won't be carrying on the roof, or the gunnel, but I know another way!

 

 

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

Maybe  "safer" that rolling over in the river

I remember poor old Tony, an ancient who could barely afford a tin of paint, falling off his boat while carrying a battery, he was very, very reluctant to let go that battery!

Edited by LadyG
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2 hours ago, Midnight said:

When on my friends boat on the ebb I walked along the roof brought the anchor to the stern and dropped it in. There are a lot of sharp bends below Cawood so the alternative would have seen us in the willows on the outside of such a bend. With the flow against the side pushing the boat against the lower branches its likely the boat would list and take in water. That's what happened to another friend who had the same issue with a large underwater branch stopping his engine and was smashed against Selby road bridge. Fortunately the tide rose enough to eventually turn the boat backwards and upright through the offside arch just as the fire brigade were climbing down to rescue him and his crew.  I've also accompanied yet another mate up the Ouse when a branch stopped the engine. Fortunately that time we were on the long straight above Turn Head so had time to clear the prop before the anchor was deployed. I think I've done that stretch about 30 times and had two incidents and know of at least two more. To suggest going up there is such low risk that an anchor isn't required doesn't stack up. In my experience there's  a 1 in 15 chance of a problem with debris.

So if that's your experience, make sure you have an anchor -- it's your choice 🙂

 

Other people have said that they've boated on rivers for many years and never had to deploy an anchor in an emergency.

 

YMMV... 😉

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9 hours ago, IanD said:

So if that's your experience, make sure you have an anchor -- it's your choice 🙂

 

Other people have said that they've boated on rivers for many years and never had to deploy an anchor in an emergency.

 

YMMV... 😉

It's a bit like wearing a crash helmet when cycling - you don't need one until you fall off!

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11 hours ago, MtB said:

This one didn't go under the dolphins! Or sausages. Or porpoises, or whatever they are called today...

 

 

article-2226937-15D03131000005DC-832_634

 

 

 

Looks like the stern did go under the boom causing the boat to sink.

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13 hours ago, MtB said:

This one didn't go under the dolphins! Or sausages. Or porpoises, or whatever they are called today...

 

 

article-2226937-15D03131000005DC-832_634

 

 

Mind you all those pipe fenders didn't help much did they? 

 

 

 

They should use that pic as a warning of what can happen if you enter a lock with your fenders down.

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12 hours ago, IanD said:

So if that's your experience, make sure you have an anchor -- it's your choice 🙂

 

Other people have said that they've boated on rivers for many years and never had to deploy an anchor in an emergency.

 

YMMV... 😉

I hope you are not basing your decision on the few responses you received on here. The forum has a very small percentage of boaters on its books and some of those who may have had a problem didn't post because either they couldn't be bothered or they don't read your many lengthy posts ☺️

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13 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

They should use that pic as a warning of what can happen if you enter a lock with your fenders down.


It's actually a warning of what can happen if you boat on the Nene without registering for the EA's alerts; and/or neglect to get the stern secured first when you arrive at a short landing stage while heading downstream.

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25 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:


It's actually a warning of what can happen if you boat on the Nene without registering for the EA's alerts; and/or neglect to get the stern secured first when you arrive at a short landing stage while heading downstream.

I nearly ended up in the same situation at maybe the same lock ,

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19 hours ago, Paul C said:

3 is too many, because fenders (I assume we're talking about the ones dangling from the side, not the front/rear rope or similar ones which don't dangle but are secured by chains normally clear of the water) are used to reduce or eliminate the sound of the metal hull hitting the bank when moored for long periods, eg overnight. In theory you could have one big one and somehow balance the rope tension, but in practice 2 is enough to keep the hull clear - so long as they're wide enough - and if a 3rd were deployed, at least one of the fenders wouldn't touch the side so it would be redundant. And since they're pulled up while cruising, why not detach-reattach them (there's easy and quick ways to do this) so you only need 2, not 2 per side. ETA then with the extra space freed up, you could maybe have 2 further ones for when the shelf is big, like on the Shroppie. What with storage space always being at a premium.

In practice I find that it is a bit more complex than you imply. A moored boat does not just go in-out, remaining parallel to the bank. Rather, there are forces that twist and turn it so that a hard clang from the bank would be inevitable with just 2, although there are times when I deploy fewer than our standard (max) 3. Plenty of times none are required as the underwater profile prevents the side from touching the bank!

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3 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:


It's actually a warning of what can happen if you boat on the Nene without registering for the EA's alerts; and/or neglect to get the stern secured first when you arrive at a short landing stage while heading downstream.

If I remember rightly, the lady had actually got off the boat onto the landing stage but was unable to hold it against the flow, I assume on the centre line.Scary stuff.

 

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