Cruising when the water is frozen

[Naughty Cal]

44 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Really? I find it very hard to believe that a sheet of ice skidding freely across unbroken ice would do anything other than bounce off a grp hull. If it went through, then the grp was already the consistency of tissue paper, and the boat unfit to be afloat.

I agree with this.

 

We had our GRP boat out ice breaking several times over the years we owned it. Never was there any damage on the hull. Scuffed antifoul paint at the worst.

[Andrew C]

1 minute ago, PCSB said:

They are heading up to Trevor on Friday and winding there, flag them down if you need any diesel/coal etc

 

The LLangollen is not frozen around Llangollen, though the basin was first thing this morning as it was positively tropical here at -6 

👍

[Richard10002]

A centimetre thick on The Bridgewater at Stretford. Saw one boat pass earlier today.
 

Fuel boat has called off deliveries until things warm up a bit. Liam would probably get through, but mooring alongside boats, and carrying bags of coal and bottles of gas, would be dangerous.

[doratheexplorer]

2 hours ago, Andrew C said:

I'm currently on the Llangollen and heading towards the Shropshire Union Canal and hopefully Chester before Christmas. Having only begun as a liveaboard this April, I've not encountered iced over canals before until seeing the arm at Ellesmere frozen. Is there a news source to go to to check if the Shroppie, (or any other canal) is navigable when temperatures drop below 0, or can any boaters around the area confirm the canal state please? I'm not keen on passing through Hurlesdon locks to find myself stranded🙁

I'd recommend you go for a walk down the canal.  2 miles each way should take an hour and a half or so and you'll get a good idea of whether the canal is frozen badly.  You can then report back on here.

 

Personally, I'll carry on through ice, the noises you get are super groovy, and IME most boaters love seeing someone come past.  Apart from anything else, it helps keep the channel clear for when the coal boat comes.  If the ice gets too thick to keep going, that's your sign to stop.

[Andrew C]

1 minute ago, doratheexplorer said:

I'd recommend you go for a walk down the canal.  2 miles each way should take an hour and a half or so and you'll get a good idea of whether the canal is frozen badly.  You can then report back on here.

 

Personally, I'll carry on through ice, the noises you get are super groovy, and IME most boaters love seeing someone come past.  Apart from anything else, it helps keep the channel clear for when the coal boat comes.  If the ice gets too thick to keep going, that's your sign to stop.

👍

8 minutes ago, Goliath said:

I’m not in the marina but out on the towpath, and only here on a detour for somewhere to weather out this cold spell.

So we’ve probably not met, but I’ll keep an eye out for Great Owl on my travels 👍

Changed the name when it was blacked to Snailaway mate. Heading south in April/May. Happy cruising..... or being stuck in ice 🤣

[blackrose]

2 hours ago, Goliath said:

No one complains though when the coal boat comes through with the coal do they?

 

 

Yes, plastic boats with petrol engines do.

[Bee]

Very nearly sunk a boat years ago, a wooden boat of some age and not in the best of health. Went into a lock and there was a piece of thin plywood floating in it, that pushed edge on straight through a soft plank at the bow at the end of the lock, That is the same danger with ice, a passing boat can force thin ice through soft spots at the waterline or conceivably ruin a plywood boat or a light grp boat. Thin ice edge on is strong and sharp. Personally I think it is irresponsible to move boats in ice unless it is necessary. It is also hard and slow work as the boat follows cracks in the ice 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Bee
cant spell

[Paul C]

5 minutes ago, Bee said:

Very nearly sunk a boat years ago, a wooden boat of some age and not in the best of health. Went into a lock and there was a piece of thin plywood floating in it, that pushed edge on straight through a soft plank at the bow at the end of the lock, That is the same danger with ice, a passing boat can force thin ice through soft spots at the waterline or conceivably ruin a plywood boat or a light grp boat. Thin ice edge on is strong and sharp. Personally I think it is irresponsible to move boats in ice unless it is necessary. It is also hard and slow work as the boat follows cracks in the ice 

 

Could you see how an alternate viewpoint might say, that a boat with a "soft plank on the waterline" shouldn't really be on the canals because it may be perceived as unseaworthy? And that the ice is "the straw that broke the camel's back" in terms of the event which did the damage to finally overwhelm and sink the thing?

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

18 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

Could you see how an alternate viewpoint might say, that a boat with a "soft plank on the waterline" shouldn't really be on the canals because it may be perceived as unseaworthy? And that the ice is "the straw that broke the camel's back" in terms of the event which did the damage to finally overwhelm and sink the thing?

Which brings up the subject of insurance

Usually mentioned before the end of page one 

I would think the damaged boat, ie the moored boat damaged by ice, would have no claim against a moving boat on a navigation

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

 

(I see IanMac has dealt with it 😃, yeah me to skip read again)

Edited December 12, 2022 by Goliath

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, SandyD said:

Two Questions - 

 

Why are they constantly swaying the boat whilst going along in this video?

 

If there is still broken ice on the canal are people likely to get upset with other boaters travelling?

 

That was how traditional ice breakers were operated - they were built with a central rail to facilitate the action fro0m a significant crew.

I just wonder what the actual evidence is around this question. It perhaps seems intuitively obvious that ice might damage a boat hull but there are plenty of situations where intuition is wrong. IIRC, old ice breakers were just wooden boats specially adapted for a better movement through the ice.

[IanD]

2 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

That was how traditional ice breakers were operated - they were built with a central rail to facilitate the action fro0m a significant crew.

If you're just going straight ahead into ice the only thing that breaks it is the wedge action of the bows and hull, the force on the ice is edge on where it's quite strong. If you rock the boat from side to side then this helps break up the ice by flexing it up and down, ice is brittle.

 

Doing a *lot* of ice-breaking can cause some damage to your own boat, see my tale about what happened to Baron after ice-breaking all the way from Cosgrove to London in 1985... 😞

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, SandyD said:

Why are they constantly swaying the boat whilst going along in this video?

To break a channel through the ice wider than the boat hull. Otherwise you can only go in a straight line and steering is impossible.

9 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

IIRC, old ice breakers were just wooden boats specially adapted for a better movement through the ice.

And Spey in that video is a wooden narrowboat, with thin sheet iron/steel plating around the bow and along the water line, precisely to protect it from ice.

[Ian Mac]

32 minutes ago, David Mack said:

To break a channel through the ice wider than the boat hull. Otherwise you can only go in a straight line and steering is impossible.

And Spey in that video is a wooden narrowboat, with thin sheet iron/steel plating around the bow and along the water line, precisely to protect it from ice.

In fact she use to have two lines of ice sheeting one a liitle bit lower that the current one(well keep her part ballasted) and one along the top of the second plank/bottom of the top plank to protect the seam there when loaded. We decided over 50 years ago not to replace the top line of ice plating. We also discovered that she had boated without full ice plating and that the scar (over an inch deep) had been very carefully squared off and filled with searing timber.

Breaking a channel so you can steer is actually quite hard to achieve, even rocking only gives you an extra foot or so in thick ice  and you need more than that on most bends. It is only when in ice that you discover this, so you now have two constrains when steering, where the channel is and where you can/have broken the ice. Backing off and having another go is quite regular so not only is it slow anyway, you also spend some time going backwards.
    The video was of Leigh to the MSC docks for a film appearance, The Bridgewater guys where great and sung the tank for us, which was a real pain I believe as it was frozen over, so opening the gates was a pig. Normally we would allow 3 to 4 hrs took over twice as long.

[BWM]

2 hours ago, SandyD said:

Two Questions - 

 

Why are they constantly swaying the boat whilst going along in this video?

 

If there is still broken ice on the canal are people likely to get upset with other boaters travelling?

 

Ice breaking has traditionally been done that way, with several men rocking the boat as it is propelled through the water and ice.

 The boat pictured is a wooden craft too.

[Mike Todd]

25 minutes ago, Ian Mac said:

In fact she use to have two lines of ice sheeting one a liitle bit lower that the current one(well keep her part ballasted) and one along the top of the second plank/bottom of the top plank to protect the seam there when loaded. We decided over 50 years ago not to replace the top line of ice plating. We also discovered that she had boated without full ice plating and that the scar (over an inch deep) had been very carefully squared off and filled with searing timber.

Breaking a channel so you can steer is actually quite hard to achieve, even rocking only gives you an extra foot or so in thick ice  and you need more than that on most bends. It is only when in ice that you discover this, so you now have two constrains when steering, where the channel is and where you can/have broken the ice. Backing off and having another go is quite regular so not only is it slow anyway, you also spend some time going backwards.
    The video was of Leigh to the MSC docks for a film appearance, The Bridgewater guys where great and sung the tank for us, which was a real pain I believe as it was frozen over, so opening the gates was a pig. Normally we would allow 3 to 4 hrs took over twice as long.

Again IIRC, the early ice breakers were quite short so presumably the following carrying boats has to have a specific technique as well . . .

[BWM]

An old ice breaking team, i wouldn't want to carry out a risk assessment on this!

[Tam & Di]

White Heather - quite a while before we owned it in the 70s. It's still around so the ice didn't do it irreperable harm  😁

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Tam & Di

[Dav and Pen]

We often had to ice break in this phot of Crane on the Braunston summit we were going to the dock for a survey as it had been sold. Slow going but not so bad on the straight but I have had difficulty on Heyford wide trying to get a load to David at Stoke Bruerne finished up with lot of backing up and making the Chanel wider.

[nbfiresprite]

5 hours ago, MtB said:

 

There's another dimension to it too. Cruising through light ice is likely to draw the ire of other boaters as opinion nowadays amongst boaters seems to be that the moving ice sheets you'll be creating, damage the blacking on moored boats as you pass. 

 

This is total bollux obviously, but it doesn't stop people believing it.

 

Watch and see how this thread develops now! 

 

 

 

Back in 2002 jusr after new year on the canal in Oxford, a dayboat hired from College Cruisers sunk a wooded hulled cruiser after a sheet of thick ice was pushed though the waterline while the hire boat forced it's way through the ice heading north for a pub run.     

 

[Tam & Di]

We ran a loaded pair on the GU with limejuice for Roses, and in thick ice it meant working the boats through singly at some locks as it wasn't possible to get the gate fully open. It's always a problem pair boating, as the tow line goes slack if the motor runs into a particularly thick patch, and you have to watch you don't get the line round the blades. In short pounds such as in the parks I'd have to run up the pound just with the motor to break the ice, and then reverse back to pick up the butty.

What is really great is when the ice has not quite formed and it snows - the snow lies on the surface and curls up like enormous prawn crackers when you break though it.

Ditchcrawler's link to Spey made me feel quite nostalgic.

 

Tam

 

 

Edited December 12, 2022 by Tam & Di

[furnessvale]

5 hours ago, Goliath said:

No one complains though when the coal boat comes through with the coal do they?

 

I suggest, just to wind things up another notch, it’s only those on linier moorings who never move that do the complaining.

I used to steer both fuel boats and restaurant boats.  With both sorts I have had to explain on numerous occasions that the livelihoods of people depended on their moving, in the case of the restaurant boat, up to five people.

 

I have also explained the necessity of ice boards for those of a delicate disposition.  Interestingly, I was talking to a friend the other day who said he had been berated by another boater for navigating through ice.  This other boater went on to say that he had berated me for exactly the same thing about 10 years ago with the restaurant boat. On neither occasion was he deploying ice boards!  Some people never learn.

[ditchcrawler]

26 minutes ago, Tam & Di said:

We ran a loaded pair on the GU with limejuice for Roses, and in thick ice it meant working the boats through singly at some locks as it wasn't possible to get the gate fully open. It's always a problem pair boating, as the tow line goes slack if the motor runs into a particularly thick patch, and you have to watch you don't get the line round the blades. In short pounds such as in the parks I'd have to run up the pound just with the motor to break the ice, and then reverse back to pick up the butty.

What is really great is when the ice has not quite formed and it snows - the snow lies on the surface and curls up like enormous prawn crackers when you break though it.

Ditchcrawler's link to Spey made me feel quite nostalgic.

 

Tam

 

 

Here is another Tam  

 

[Mike Adams]

2 hours ago, Tam & Di said:

White Heather - quite a while before we owned it in the 70s. It's still around so the ice didn't do it irreperable harm  😁

 

But then it did have a proper ice breaking bow. I think crashing around the Paddington Arm these days with several inches of ice would result in a problem for at least some of the towpath residents. That picture must date back to the 30's or 40's and I have never seen it before.

[Tacet]

6 hours ago, David Mack said:

Really? I find it very hard to believe that a sheet of ice skidding freely across unbroken ice would do anything other than bounce off a grp hull. If it went through, then the grp was already the consistency of tissue paper, and the boat unfit to be afloat.

I've broken plenty of ice with a GRP boat with no real harm caused. 

 

In my view, the risk of damage to boats, both moored and moving, has become overstated.

[Mad Harold]

8 minutes ago, Tacet said:

I've broken plenty of ice with a GRP boat with no real harm caused. 

 

In my view, the risk of damage to boats, both moored and moving, has become overstated.

There is quite a lot of sphericals spoken about grp boats.

Mainly by steel boat owners.