Breasting up

[paddy r]

Thanks to everybody for their suggestions. We are now moving around quite a bit. I have found the following to be worth remembering;

stern to stern is better, but the short butty needs to be slightly forward, as it seems to restrict the flow around the prop;

breasting up one side appears to be better than the other. I put this down to the prop direction, not sure if this is right, but just my observation;

go cart tyres between both boats help when it is really weedy;

cross strapping is definately easier, but you have to be careful of the tail starting to wag the dog! We got around this by tieing the tiller straight on the butty

 

Thank you again

Paddy

[Tam & Di]

My only experience of the Severn was coming down with a 70 foot pair in flood conditions. We started out breasted up (seemed more stable as well as sociable) but soon found that the build up of debris between the boats was really hurting our speed and fuel consumption. We singled out to cross straps mid-stream and flew down to Gloucester.

 

The Severn is prone to floating debris, particularly after heavy rain or when Spring tides reverse the flow above Gloucester.

 

If we took a pair out onto the Thames tideway we put tyres down between them (high enough not to be in the water) to allow debris to float clear. In addition to tying the bows from tee-stud to tee-stud we also took lines from the mast looby of each to the fore stud of the other. We'd also take a line from the backend rail of the motor round under the pair and back, as if they're only tied at deck level they can heel in towards each other, and if you've got any load on you don't want that. That would probably be rather ott for a couple of cruisers, but is worth thinking about if you're out on a river and there's a lot of fresh running. From the sound of the OP's post he will only have a very light load on his little butty, but I certainly wouldn't want to have it on cross straps with a lot of weight on as it makes the motor very difficult to control.

[Pluto]

A Charlie Atkins story about narrow day boats on the Bridgewater coal traffic relates that one boatmen was not good at tying his boats together in the usual fashion for that canal. Charlie offered to do it for him, and instead of using rope, just bashed a couple of spikes through the adjacent sides of the two empty wooden day boats. The boatman thought getting to the staithe was magic, with no problem of the boats drifting apart. However, loading was a different matter........