Mooring on pilings

[Ange]

There's been a few occasions recently where we've been moored on pilings - for us second in security to mooring rings - when another boat has moorerd next to us, followed by the sound of mallets hammering in mooring pins. WTF! Why are you hammering in pins when you have pilings! It's been private boats every time.

 

We are truly intigued - any ideas why?

[Chris J W]

They've no piling hooks?

 

Or perhaps they don't like the clatter you can get from hooks?

 

(I know you can use pins to hook on the piling ... but when I tried it ... ah-hem ... time to get the magnet out and fish the pin back out again! )

[quarryhunslet]

We tend to use chains when mooring on pilings as they seem to be the most secure method, but we also have the piling clips which look a bit like large paper clips, and fit around the crash barrier on the piling. These can come undone if your mooring ropes are not tied tight enough though.

 

Both of these methods tend to be silent providing you have fenders between the boat and piling, and have your ropes tight enough. You also get little or no movement when the speedboats pass you.

 

Mooring pins are Always the last resort for us as they give the least secure mooring especially in wet times when the bank is very soggy.

Edited April 17, 2010 by quarryhunslet

[lemontoes]

We only have one 'nappy pin' (the children's name not mine), so we use that along with mooring pins. Had meant to add a few neccessary items during the easter cruise, but lost and broke too many things that needed replacing! ........I saw some chains somewhere on the boat when we picked it up in September......I think I put them somewhere 'safe' until I worked out what they were for.

[alan_fincher]

Perhaps they are just "old school", and have always done it that way.

 

I've no idea when "piling hooks" and "goats chains" started to appear, but certainly 40 years ago, I never came across them, and if you didn't moor to stakes, you would actually try and pass a rope behind the top rail of the piling.

 

The modern alternatives now seem so obvious, but they didn't use to exist.

 

Personally I'm now a total convert to "goats chains", and since we got a couple, the piling hooks have remained out of use, (although I have almost never had them try and detach themselves). The goats chains have an added advantage that they shorten the length of rope required, so by passing a loop through them, and back over the boat's dolly or stud, (giving 4 thicknesses of rope between boat and chain), we end up with something that can be completely removed from the boat end with minimal fuss, leaving you only to remember not to forget to get the chains back from the piling.

 

Our local hire company supplies piling hooks, but when we came south again a few days ago, nearly all hirers had driven in stakes whilst against piling where the hooks would work. I suspect that the hire base not be explaining what they are for ? (When I say "driven" in stakes, I mean the boats were often only tied to a wobbly loop up to a foot above ground level, of course.... )

[MaryP]

If possible, it's chains for me every time as Springers rock (in every sense) and pull pins out!

[DHutch]

Who knows, maybe they just have never thought about.

- I would always use pilling to moor if it was there, using goat chains.

 

I've no idea when "piling hooks" and "goats chains" started to appear, but certainly 40 years ago, I never came across them, and if you didn't moor to stakes, you would actually try and pass a rope behind the top rail of the piling.

We i guess you dont invent something till atlease after the requiring technology.

- Early steel pilling ive seen used a section of angle iron along the top, which is shorter in height and without the sharp edge.

- Hence you can use a rope behind it without issue and it doesnt have the height to retain a modern pilling hook anyway.

- Along comes the w-section now used, people ropes get frayed away,and you have to come up with a new plan.

 

You can used a mooring pin though the w-section of piling fairly well to assuming it has an eye, rope through eye, round the top of the pin, round the outside (boatside) of the we section, round the lower end of the pin, and back to boat. If you ever caught short without any chain or hooks.

 

 

Daniel

[Keeping Up]

We use chains whenever possible; but not the type with a ring in each end they seem far too fiddly to use. Instead we have chains with a carabina clip which is much easier to put in place because you can clip it around the rope and the piling in one movement.

 

Although I have a couple of "nappy pins" which we have collected on our travels, I never use them because I find them thoroughly unsatisfactory - if the rope works at all loose they are noisy and they become detached - but I do sometimes use the version which is just a length of rod with a couple of bends and an eye at the end - particularly as an easy way of attaching the third rope.

[nb Innisfree]

We use chains with a small shackle one end and a larger one the other end with the tightening 'ears' cut off to streamline it, a lot neater and easier to thread through the pilings + no ears means less chance of someone unscrewing them.

[DHutch]

We use chains whenever possible; but not the type with a ring in each end they seem far too fiddly to use. Instead we have chains with a carabina clip which is much easier to put in place because you can clip it around the rope and the piling in one movement.

Ours are just a loop of bog standard welded link chain about 3ft in lenght (circumference) joined with a threaded coupler that long since seized.

[Tiny]

Whether you use pins or chains in general the canal next to pilings is deep enough to moor closer than in other places. I could tell you a few places where this is not true due to boats passing and silting up the banks and there not being many boats actually mooring there so the silt is allowed to build rather than get pushed away. There was also a BW pactise on some canals to put in pilings then put in stuff behind on the towpath side and also dump rubbisgh stuff in the canal beside the piling.

 

Incidently - if you are interested in canal history how the (modern) piling is attached gives a guide to its age. Basically if there are bolts on the out bits - allowing you to hook or chain behind the bolt and not get you chain jammed then its ten years plus old stuff. If all the bolts are though the in to the bank ripples - meaning you have to hook/chain to the out bit with no bolt to hook behind - meaning boats passing fast can yank your chain into a vice like grip between two tightly (but not that tightly) chunks of metal then its newer stuff.

 

As we don't like getting chains jammed we use them on the old stuff but use 2 nappy pins plus a hook to spring the boat at the front on the new stuff. On stuff where even these might jam we have loads of bits of rope about a yard long to make a loop and if they jam we can leave them when we untie and move off.

 

If there is no metal we have rather a lot of (found) pins too.

 

We also have fenders to put between boat and bank when moored to stop banging and rubbing as we like our comfort. As we have acquired a lot of them too over the years we can adjust what we use to circumstances.

[magnetman]

I use crane hooks when mooring to piling. Never did like the 'nappy pins' I like the name.

 

there used to something about BW not permitting mooring with a connection to the pilings such as chains or hooks.

 

The best method I've seen was to use 3ft lengths of 3 inch channel section RSJ (or whatever size is right for the gap in the piling, its between 2 and 3.5 inches) with a shackle through a hole in the top. you just drop it down in the gap and it sits there till you want to go then you lift it out again. Sort of like using a mooring pin only its a bit more secure.

 

the only problem with this is other people tie to it thinking its a permanent fixture then you have to set them adrift when you want to go

[ditchcrawler]

I have seen some BCN boats using what looks to be about 2 foot of flat bar, probably half an inch thick and three inches wide with a ring on the end to attach the mooring rope to, this is then slid down behind the horizontal bar of the piling.

I have a photosomewhereandif I can find it I will post it later

[Dominic M]

Pre-dating the days of piling hooks (who invented them?) I used to tie a clove hitch round the top of the pin, drop it through the piling gap between rail and pile, and run the rope around the bottom of the pin and back to the boat. I still do. Piling hooks get bent, jammed, and aren't entirely secure either.

[windy miller]

A hire boat we had from Ashby Boats used short lengths of old mooring rope (about 3') with an eye spliced in each end - drop it through the gap in the pilings and tie up as usual. No rattling chains or pins when the neighbours pass by. A system I've used with sucess now we've got our own boat.

[ditchcrawler]

A hire boat we had from Ashby Boats used short lengths of old mooring rope (about 3') with an eye spliced in each end - drop it through the gap in the pilings and tie up as usual. No rattling chains or pins when the neighbours pass by. A system I've used with sucess now we've got our own boat.

Only problem with rope is that it can jam in the metal

[RLWP]

To be fair, so can piling hooks, which is why I always use a "slot" just the other side of a bolt in the horizontal rail.

 

Richard

[DHutch]

To be fair, so can piling hooks,..

Can goat chains.

- Typically i also aim to go adjacent to a bolt/tieback and rarely have a problem.

- But i do once remember having to 'snatch' my chain out with the weight of the boat.

 

 

Daniel

[Radiomariner]

The answer to jambing piling hooks is a sturdy pair of boots with steel toe caps!

[NB Alnwick]

The answer to jambing piling hooks is a sturdy pair of boots with steel toe caps!

 

That doesn't always work - we left our boat at Napton a couple of years ago and when we returned, we found that the chain was solidly jammed between the piling and the 'Armco' section retaining steel. The latter had distorted to accommodate the jammed chain and this provides more evidence of the sort of damage that boats, travelling too quickly, can cause to the canal infrastructure. All efforts to remove the chain proved useless - we even (rather irresponsibly in retrospect) tried pulling it out with the boat but only succeeded in snapping a 22mm mooring line. Eventually I just cropped the protruding sections and left about six inches of chain jammed behind the 'Armco' . . .

 

There is a strong argument that tying up to piling can damage cause damage to the piling but, it is my view that, if moored craft are passed with reasonable consideration, the piling will not be damaged and, in any event, where damage does occur, it will be because the force exerted (as a result of boats passing too fast) would have been more than sufficient to wrench mooring pins out of the ground or even dislodge fixed mooring ring or bollards - all of which may have caused equal damage to the canal bank.

[Speedwell]

there used to something about BW not permitting mooring with a connection to the pilings such as chains or hooks.

When we first started hiring, in the dim & distant past, mooring to piling was seriously frowned up, so we never got into the habit. I do tend to put the stakes behind the angle of the piling especially if the holding is poor.

Arthur

[Tiny]

Only problem with rope is that it can jam in the metal

 

 

Or get shredded it two anglo WELSH BOATS go past having a race. (I mentioned this to the bloke at the AW yard Wootton when buying postcards and he got real stroppy saying I should have stopped them and grabbed their keys(?) then coming out and yelling at us to slow from tickonver when we moved off as 'Its people like YOU who go too fast - not our hirers.

[quarryhunslet]

Or get shredded it two anglo WELSH BOATS go past having a race. (I mentioned this to the bloke at the AW yard Wootton when buying postcards and he got real stroppy saying I should have stopped them and grabbed their keys(?) then coming out and yelling at us to slow from tickonver when we moved off as 'Its people like YOU who go too fast - not our hirers.

In my experience it's usually "Black Prince" boats that race past as the "Anglo Welsh" ones are usually on their last legs unless you get one that has just had a new engine fitted.

[Speedwheel]

There's been a few occasions recently where we've been moored on pilings - for us second in security to mooring rings - when another boat has moorerd next to us, followed by the sound of mallets hammering in mooring pins. WTF! Why are you hammering in pins when you have pilings! It's been private boats every time.

 

We are truly intigued - any ideas why?

 

They sound terrible as they clank and clatter

They easily come loose or break (or are easily released by neerdowells)

You have to tie the rope at a downwards rather than outwards angle meaning the boat moves more when others go passed.

Some of us like big hammers!!

[Ange]

Thanks for all the replies - lots of food for thought there! We seek out pilings if we can't find mooring rings and use the nappy pins - thanks to whoever coined that phrase - love it! We called them piling hooks before but nappy pins is far better. We're admittedly very new to this having moved aboard last summer, but so far the nappy pins have been fine - we haven't noticed any clanking and the pins have come out when we want them to. Saying that, the consensus seems to be chains, so we'll do some research in that area.

 

The answer to my question does seem to be that you'd only use pins when you're on pilings if you were ignorant of better alternatives - I'd like to ask the next boater but it's difficult to approach the subject without appearing critical and getting their backs up (particularly private boaters!)