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Bizarre stuff around props


canaldrifter

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Well it can't be unusual because it's happened to us twice -

 

Brolley's have featured twice in our three 'fouled prop' incidents...

 

This is one.

 

IMG_0448.JPG

 

One other was when hiring in August last year on the L&L same type of item around the prop.

 

The third was in 2003 on our first ever canal holiday - as we turned Rosemary at Nelson to come back we managed to foul a metal coat hanger....

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We've had a brolly and half a motorbike tire - nowt more exotic than that, but the tire was well timed. My dad was visiting us for his first cruise and I had just been explaining about the weed hatch when the power dropped. He was most impressed at the practical demonstration. :lol:

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A friend of ours got a Lycra cycling? suit around the prop shaft which melted and stopped the engine. It took three of about two hours to cut it off. Shame the cyclist was still in it ;)

 

I would have thought your friend would have allowed the poor wet cyclist to get out of it before cutting it off. :unsure:

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I expect this has been done before here, but what is the most bizarre or difficult thing you had stuck around the prop?

 

A complete tent outside Bancroft basin on the Avon while trying to reverse out of the boat yard there.

Managed to stop all the tripboats and lesiure traffic while l tried to moor--didnt cut out the engine maybe due to Axiom prop but easier to get off that l thought!!

 

Simon

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We had a 10 yard length of wire corred washing line in Eldonian Village on the way into Liverpool.

 

This was then followed up by a 6ft alligator in Wigan which actually stopped the engine. Took some cutting of but the wife has a lifetimes supply of handbag material.

 

It was actually an inflatable raft.

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Worst one I've had was on the T&M. Entering a lock I suddenly lost all propulsion when a tyre from a mower or go-cart wrapped itself entirely around the prop. I looked like it was made to fit and was a bugger to get of with the steel wire as I didn't have anuthing to cut it with. Also had a fisherman's tent completed with poles sticking out at all angles. Four months to go and I will be back.

 

Cheers

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Completely off topic I know, but couldn't help laugh at that angler's statement. We once approached Dover Lock on the L&L

canal, looking to moor there for five minutes, awaiting a call from a BW member of staff, advising us whether it was prudent to continue our journey due to low water levels in Wigan.

 

As we approached the mooring bollards, an irate angler, who was fishing right next to a bollard, kicked off about how this was the third time his 'patch' had been disturbed by inconsiderate boaters. As this rather large man was about to blow a safety valve, I remained quiet and simply moored the boat on the next bollard. After getting the all clear from the BW chap, we set off on our journey, only after pushing the throttle near to its limit creating enough turbulence to send his potential catch some distance along the cut!

 

Some fishermen have a strange opinion as to what the canals are primarily used for :banghead:

 

Year back, when boating at the end of January I got this same line from a BW man who had moored in a bridge hole while he had his breakfast (buy the smell of bacon) at 10-30am. His mate moved the boat as he refused - after which the bacon man and I exchanged obscenities as we moved on. I metr the same guy a year and a bit later with me on a different boat. He, showing off to mates pushed off from the bank and, completely ignoring us, cut diagonally across us. I swed up and passed an inch off the wave causing him to land on his bum on the deck and his mates to have hysterics and give us a thumbs up.

 

But stuff round the prop. The most normal that managed a strange twist was a tyre which fitted neatly in a figure of eight shape over two of the four arms of that propeller. Having just fallen over a bollard in the uncut grass by a lock I was not well pleased, grabbed it in both hand and stretched it enough to get it off. Having got it off the adrenaline reduced and I couldn't stretch it an inch!

 

But the strangest was the back seat of a morris minor who springs so grabbed the prop that the engine cut immediately - right in the centre of Barnton Tunnel. We were running at 3mph at the time and the boat simply hit the wall in a shoer of sparks which went on and on as we slowed to a stop over 20yards. Down the weed hatch with a torch I was amazed I immediately recognised the seat as being from a Morris Minor. Getting those springs off took much longer - they were very well made and so stretched and twister one round another that it was like doing one of those guess the route to the puzzles but using a torch and bare hands to undo the puzzle by observation and brute force. As I finished the seat sunk back into the depths to await its next victim!

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Not the strangest stuff (see my earlier post) but on our very first hire boat trip we had on just left Alvechurch and were slapp bang in the middle of Wast Hill Tunnel when the engine cut out. Started engine again and engaged forward, engine cuts out. :help:

Vaguely remembered something about a weed hatch being mentioned at the hand over and went to find a torch, meanwhile we are banging off the tunnel walls side to side as the boat carrys on slowly slowing down.

Found the weed hatch and spent the next ten minutes cutting off a whole load of BW blue rope :banghead:

Obviously it didn't puts us off, but talk about being put in at the deep end.

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Not quite on the prop thank goodness was an old telephone pole insulator and a bit of wood, the only problem was it was opposite a building site and had got tangled in a coil of the plastic tape they bury 6" above water pipes and because water pipes are also plastic they put a wire down the length of it. It was like pulling in a "longline" but with no cod on it, just rubbish. At the time we has a semitrad and I ended up standing on a pile of this stuff until we found a container to put it in. There was yards of it. I often wonder how much the prop would have held before the wire broke if it had have caught.

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Just up from Brentford on the GU in August, managed to get a full sack of ladies clothing round the prop whilst leaving a lock. Bra, panties, G string and tight jeans. What a treat! I've never been very good at unfastening bras.

 

Bra's panties often difficult to remove, but surely "G" strings can just be pushed aside!

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We picked up a red silk dress on the River Lee - it was one of the few things that made the Kelvin 'grunt' a bit! It was extremely difficult to remove because it was tightly wound round the prop shaft. When we did get it off (all in pieces), we noted that it looked quite new and still had its shop labels attached - it was a size 20!

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