Standedge Tunnel profile....

[rjs]

My boat is probably just outside the profile - it is bow high - when I refill the bow fresh water tanks after the winter it will probably be just under - from the 'tide' mark and calculations I suspect that the bow will sink by nearly 2 inches.

 

This will still be very close and not give much margin for error. I am considering adding temporary ballast when we reach Marston. The boat specs say the tank is 450 litres (100 gallons) or roughly half a ton or tonne when full. I shall be a long way from base, so I am considering using a number of 60 litre plastic boxes, filled with water, with the lid taped on and stored in the cratch area during the tunnel transit. The advantage is that I can stack these for the rest of the trip and so saving space.

 

So I have a number of questions which you might feel like commenting on:

 

How conservative is the BW profile - if the boat just fits, what is the 'safety' margin and are the tight bits most of the way or just in the odd spot?

 

How suitable is water as a ballast and my method of storage? or any alternatives?

 

The cabin roof front corners will be most at risk, so I would like to protect these from collision damage if I can. Any suggestions?

 

Richard

[Mac of Cygnet]

My boat is probably just outside the profile - it is bow high - when I refill the bow fresh water tanks after the winter it will probably be just under - from the 'tide' mark and calculations I suspect that the bow will sink by nearly 2 inches.

 

This will still be very close and not give much margin for error. I am considering adding temporary ballast when we reach Marston. The boat specs say the tank is 450 litres (100 gallons) or roughly half a ton or tonne when full. I shall be a long way from base, so I am considering using a number of 60 litre plastic boxes, filled with water, with the lid taped on and stored in the cratch area during the tunnel transit. The advantage is that I can stack these for the rest of the trip and so saving space.

 

So I have a number of questions which you might feel like commenting on:

 

How conservative is the BW profile - if the boat just fits, what is the 'safety' margin and are the tight bits most of the way or just in the odd spot?

 

How suitable is water as a ballast and my method of storage? or any alternatives?

 

The cabin roof front corners will be most at risk, so I would like to protect these from collision damage if I can. Any suggestions?

 

Richard

 

I'm sure Martin Clark could give you an idea if the detailed Pennine waterways profile is exact, but there are certainly a few pinch points, especially for a long boat. In any case, BW will measure you before you go through, and their decision is final; even if you think you fit you may be turned back - this happened to a boat one of the times I went through.

 

Although the cabin roof corners will indeed be vunerable (I protected mine with several layers of thick polythene and duct tape), other parts will almost certainly get a bashing from projections fairly low on the walls - BW were going to a bit of 'smoothing out' this winter, but I haven't heard about anything being done.

 

Can't comment on your ballasting method, but I think I would load up with stones from the many defunct stone walls on the way up.

 

Don't forget that although the Huddersfield Narrow and Standedge take 70ft boats, you can't use it as a through route if you are over 58ft, because of the short Huddersfield Broad locks.

 

Mac

[jenny wren]

We did the tunnel last year. Our boat is just 45ft, but we were travelling with a GT Marine NB at 59ft and quite square sides. BW cover you up with rubber sheeting, and the larger boat went in front of us, and to ballast it( it had a cratch that could not be taken apart) they brought a wheelie bin down and placed it in the well deck and then filled it with water, so that theboat came down to get them through. However out little Trundle was on the end and we have a cruiser stern and the railing got bashed, but you do have to sign a disclaimer. quite an experience! the Huddersfield narrow, while very beautiful does not work. but the BW beefy guys DO, and they worked very hard to get us along this canal. !

[gaggle]

its great though when doing the huddersfield.

[MartinClark]

The Huddersfield Canal does indeed work, but nobody pretends it's not a ruffty-tuffty experience.

 

Forget rubber sheets or being last in the convoy - boats are going through on their own from now on. If you bash the the stern railings in future that will be down to your own erratic steering!

 

It will remain to be seen whether BW will supply rubber sheets - my suspicion is that they won't, as they have caused problems in the past and there are quite a few of them on the bottom of the canal somewhere inside the tunnel!

 

The "Pennine Waterways' profile" isn't the Pennine Waterways' profile - it's the BW profile - the one that they will send you when you book a passage. They don't seem to have it on their own website, so I put it on mine so that we can have these discussions.

 

I would be surprised if it wasn't a little on the conservative side (after all, 7 ft wide boats passed though the tunnel in first year or two after it re-opened) but the BW staff will probably want to adhere to that profile as they know it works and don't want to take the risk of a boat becoming jammed again.

 

The tight bits are just in a places - but there are quite a lot of these places! There are. however, plenty of stretches that are comparatively easy, and even a few places wide enough to pass another boat.

 

I'm sure you meant to type "Marsden", Richard - if you find yourself at Marston, you'll be on the wrong canal! There are water points at each end of the tunnel so you will be able to fill your water tank before you go in. In fact, I think BW encourages people to do that.

[DHutch]

As said, BW measure you. And i presume they will continue to do this, with the piloted system, as they did with the tugged convoy system.

- They have a calibrated aluminum rod, and its basically a go/no-go gauge (dependent on width and height, as per the table) as far as i can see.

 

In terms of water ballest. It very common. The working boat foke have been doing it for years with empty oil cans full of water.

- You calcs/observations dont seem to far eather. For a 60-70 boat its about a ton-per inch, but you will raise the stearn slightly loading the front. So 1.5ton moving the bow 2inchs makes sence. Expect the stearn to raise about half an inch.

 

Only comments i would make. Is try and get the additional ballest as low as possable to keep stabilty.

- Also, spec you boxes/containers with some care, and dont expect to be able to stack many of them ontop of each other (compaired to how many you could stack if full of somthing else)

- Water is heavy and if you go for poundland bogof stackable boxes, or try to go 2/3/4 boxes high you might find them to collapse, which would be very awquard all round if it occures in the tunnel. Not lease the water all over the boat.

 

Quite like the wheelbin idea. Or else ofcause, the traditional oil drum as mentioned before.

 

 

Daniel

[Chris J W]

And if you've got little 'sticky out' side navigation lights like I've got ... take them off before you go through! The £20-odd quid it cost me to replace the lens on one of mine taught me (after the event!) to listen to the advice of Martin and the BW chaps.

[Neil TNC]

As said, BW measure you. And i presume they will continue to do this, with the piloted system, as they did with the tugged convoy system.

- They have a calibrated aluminum rod, and its basically a go/no-go gauge (dependent on width and height, as per the table) as far as i can see.

 

In terms of water ballest. It very common. The working boat foke have been doing it for years with empty oil cans full of water.

- You calcs/observations dont seem to far eather. For a 60-70 boat its about a ton-per inch, but you will raise the stearn slightly loading the front. So 1.5ton moving the bow 2inchs makes sence. Expect the stearn to raise about half an inch.

 

Only comments i would make. Is try and get the additional ballest as low as possable to keep stabilty.

- Also, spec you boxes/containers with some care, and dont expect to be able to stack many of them ontop of each other (compaired to how many you could stack if full of somthing else)

- Water is heavy and if you go for poundland bogof stackable boxes, or try to go 2/3/4 boxes high you might find them to collapse, which would be very awquard all round if it occures in the tunnel. Not lease the water all over the boat.

 

Quite like the wheelbin idea. Or else ofcause, the traditional oil drum as mentioned before.

 

 

Daniel

 

For the Dudley Tunnel, I bought 6 cheap plastic dustbins (amongst other things). We now use one for storing junk in the large rear cupboard, another for storing the anchor / chain / warp in ready mode and the others, well, as dustbins (London Borough of Splogington is too mean to give us wheelies)

 

For Standedge we fitted the height gauge easily, without even having the water tank right full. The BW bods were very worried that Earnest was exactly 6ft 10 ins wide at the top rubbing strake, I said that is what it is meant to be!

We took off our prone(ish) nav lamps and the cratch / cover. No damage on our passages, well not above the gunwales. The second time we did not worry about fitting our "half a square drainpipe" hand rail covers.

Our last time through, BW were paying out a bloke for damage to a window frame / broken hopper. At least that time it was only the one window on that boat they had to pay out for...and that was with a boat that fitted the gauge!

I believe that one reason that BW have gone for the self steer (your responsibility), is that thay have paid out rather more than they would admit for damage to boats.

[rjs]

Thank you for all the replies:

Apologies to Martin for keying Marston instead of Marsden

 

I have checked that the plastic boxes maintain their shape when full of water and intend to 'rest' the

second tier on wooden planks resting on the cratch steel lockers/seats. I may need to offset these slightly to counter

balance the effect of a full effluent tank which is asymetrical across the boat - but which would also help to lower the bow

slightly.

 

I've done some calculations based on the movement of the Centre of Gravity

 

If I assume the 55 foot narrowboat is a 15x2 metre rectangular based box and I measure the depth of the hull in water opposite the ends of the cabin, I can calculate the weight based on the displacement - 17 tonnes

 

I can also calculate the position of the cg from the stern using the trapezoid shape of the hull below the water level.

This gives about 7 metres from the stern. Filling the tank by 450 kilograms of water will lower the cg by 1.5 cms

and recalculating the cg from the stern will increase it by 20 cms to 7.18 metres

 

Using the new cg and new trapezoid area/volume I can calculate the new depths of the hull bottom at either

end of the hull. This increases the bow depth by 4.5 cms

 

If I double the amount of water this doubles the effect.

 

So lets hope that theory and practice match up!

 

Richard

[AlanH]

Best of luck. I'm not sure that I'd want to do it again - especially steering myself. There are plenty of very tight spots and your front cabin corners will certainly need protecting. Mine got dented even with the rubber mats on. The worst thing though for me though is the thought of concentrating hard for 1 3/4 hours. I get punch drunk going through Harecastle which is much easier and shorter.

[FadeToScarlet]

Just a thought- why not use coal or something useful as ballast, rather than just water? I store my coal in the forepeak of the boat, as far forward as I can get, and it makes an appreciable difference to the draft.

[PeterF]

Best of luck. I'm not sure that I'd want to do it again - especially steering myself. There are plenty of very tight spots and your front cabin corners will certainly need protecting. Mine got dented even with the rubber mats on. The worst thing though for me though is the thought of concentrating hard for 1 3/4 hours. I get punch drunk going through Harecastle which is much easier and shorter.

Reading the blurb from BW, you will get some short breaks as the BW chaperone needs to get off at each of the cross adit's to report back to base on their progress as they only have communications equipment at the cross adit's. You could also of course ask the BW chaperone to play dodgems with steer your boat whilst you take a rest.

[MartinClark]

Just a thought- why not use coal or something useful as ballast, rather than just water? I store my coal in the forepeak of the boat, as far forward as I can get, and it makes an appreciable difference to the draft.

You only want to be ballasted down when going through the tunnel itself. You will not want to be any deeper in the water than you have to for other sections of the canal, especially between locks 17w and 19w, between locks 30e and 26e and between locks 8e and 6e, as it can become rather shallow in these places.

 

You can easily dump the water but you wouldn't want to do that with your coal!

Edited March 9, 2009 by MartinClark

[Neil TNC]

You only want to be ballasted down when going through the tunnel itself. You will not want to be any deeper in the water than you have to for other sections of the canal, especially between locks 17w and 19w, between locks 30e and 26e and between locks 8e and 6e, as it can become rather shallow in these places.

 

You can easily dump the water but you wouldn't want to do that with your coal!

 

 

For a speedy passage you need Martin with his ace water juggling (in the pounds)

[rjs]

You only want to be ballasted down when going through the tunnel itself. You will not want to be any deeper in the water than you have to for other sections of the canal, especially between locks 17w and 19w, between locks 30e and 26e and between locks 8e and 6e, as it can become rather shallow in these places.

 

You can easily dump the water but you wouldn't want to do that with your coal!

 

But although the boat now weighs more and the centre of gravity is lower, the lowest part of the boat will have been raised. So in my example the stern which is the deepest part of the boat in the water would rise slightly less than the bow sinks but more than the centre of gravity sinks and so the overall effect is to need less depth of water to float in - a bit of a paradox - unless someone proves me wrong!

 

That said, I would want to dump most of the extra ballast as it will only get in the way while cruising. If I have a bag or two of coal on board then I could benfit from moving these forward for the tunnel passage as has been suggested.

[Keeping Up]

I measured our cabin roof corners today: height 5ft 3in and width 4ft 9in.

 

Loads of room!

[moggy]

hi are you looking for ballest concrete blocks i can supply them to you call me on 07901546541 ask for tony