Closest to disaster....

[Laurence Hogg]

Trying to reach the Ipswich and Stowmarket canal and not being told about the then unmarked tidal weir ............

 

 

Off 12 hours later to a massive crowd which gathered, reported next day with pictures in seven nationals and the Turkish Daily Times, also on the hour news from the radio - - - nothing ever happens in East Anglia and when it does it goes B I G !!

 

Edited December 20, 2011 by Laurence Hogg

[MartinClark]

Going up a lock near Chester I entred the lock and the boss started to fill it. After a while I noticed that the stern was down on one side and had a look round the boat to see where it was hung up - nothing. By now the stern was well down and I was really puzzled. She shut the paddles and we had a good look. It turned out that I had entered the the lock with a stern rope trailing in the water. This rope had got jammed between the bottom gates and was holding the stern downm.

 

I'm surprised that, when the boat was put into reverse to stop it when it entered the lock, the rope didn't wrap itself neatly around the propeller!

[bizzard]

Nothing like a few fullers to sort things out

Indeed Big Col,nearly every pub on the way to Leighton-Bizzard is a Fullers pub as you probably know,''London pride'' terrific stuff,and when i got back i worked it all out and had drunk far more L.Pride than ''diesel fuel'' used seriously.

[Doorman]

Rather bizarrely for some reason my first thought was that something had sunk in the lock and we were resting on top of it.

 

We too had a similar 'pratfall' on the Trent & Mersey, not once, but twice on the same day!

 

Having previously owned a rather stubby nosed little cruiser sterned narrow boat, our new 60' Hudson boat with its winklepicker bow was somewhat different when nestling within a lock chamber. Our experienced boating friends had always warned us of the dangers when descending a lock with its inherent cill obstacle and the potential to be left hanging upon it!

 

Their other snippit of advice was to keep the bow pressed up against the lock gate in order to maintain a gap at the stern of the boat. My wife, who steers the boat well, would enthusiastically keep the bow up front as instructed. The only problem was that we were used to the double locks of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, together with the stubby nose and 'egg whisk' propellor of the little boat. Also, as our bow fender would keep popping up and over the bow stem at every lock on Heartbreak Hill, I decided to leave it retracted near to the 'T' stud.

 

All of this amounted to a situation that frightened the little lives out of us two novices. As our pride and joy was descending Lock 49, I could see my wife at the stern slowly dropping in height, but yet I could still see the static bow in front of me. The boat lurched to one side, to my wife's terror! For an old fossil, I've never been known to be able to sprint as fast as I did that day. Down went the bottom paddles, followed by slowly opening the top ones in order to correct the boat's position.

 

Once I'd raised the boat to its original level and opened the safety valve on both mine and my wife's head to relieve the high blood pressure, we went about analysing what had gone so terribly wrong. In my naivety, I too believed that there was something submerged in the lock chamber and set about informing the poor young receptionist at The Red Bull Basin BW office. She must have thought that I'd been drinking moonshine or some other concoction and confirmed that a lengthsman would see to the problem.

 

Badly shaken by the experience, we pressed on believing that there was definitely something in that lock chamber (possibly Robin Evans's wallet). It was only until we reached Lock 47, where the same event unfolded before me, did I realise what we were doing wrong! By Chrissie throttling the boat against the chevron lock gates, at what she believed from experience to be the right amount of pressure, she was forcing the bow to wedge itself against between the gate and the lock wall. This had the disasterous effect of snagging the flared bow against one of the protruding blocks that make up the lock chamber wall. This time I was ready and far more vigilant, averting not only a second 'hung up' situation, but also another visit to the poor receptionist at the BW office, claiming that a serial car thief was dumping his loot in all of the locks on Heartbreak Hill.

 

As alarming an experience it was, it taught us to be extra vigilant at all of the locks that we pass through, no matter how many gongoozlers wish to distract you with "is it warm in winter?"

 

Mike

Edited December 20, 2011 by Doorman

[Ray T]

Trying to reach the Ipswich and Stowmarket canal and not being told about the then unmarked tidal weir ............

 

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A good opportunity to touch up the blacking.

[bargemast]

A good opportunity to touch up the blacking.

 

 

I think that for touching up the blacking, it's less nerve recking to have the boat hauled-out completely and somewhere safe.

 

Peter.

[magpie patrick]

Was such a stupid thing to do and made me realise how quickly things could go wrong without thinking, needless to say I didn't try that again!

 

 

Glad you learnt without getting hurt. Whenevr I had new crew on Ripple I always made the point that 17 tonnes of steel hitting stone or concrete will sort itself out, do not try and fend it off.

 

Juno is another matter, she weighs 800 kilos and can be fended off, although the only time I have done this was for the other boat's benefit, our pulpit rail could break a narrow boat window and our engine had cut out.

 

My disaster or near miss was me not the boat. On my own, at night, on the Avon in central Bath. I was moving around the deck and must have steadied myself on the windscreen. It didn't take my weight, so I was now on my own, at night, in twenty feet of water. Juno is having a safety ladder fitted over Christmas...

[sharpness]

We nearly came unstuck once, up the Avon, about 4 or 5 locks down from Stratford. Despite the fright at so nearly losing the boat I cant remember which lock it was, just above the very narrow bit where it runs very fast when in flood, which it was. There was a sunken boat on the lock landing so we couldnt quite get the stern up to the end of the landing. I dropped a rope from the dolly onto the post & stepped ahore with the centre line to go & set the lock. Because we couldnt get the bow in because of the sunken boat the water thundering down over the weir got inside us and started to swing the boat round at enormous speed. Normally it would have held you on the landing. I never got the centre line secured & its a good job I didnt as now I think if I had she would have just rolled over, there was so much water coming down. As it was she slammed round and was left hanging on the stern line. Who says LB dolly's aren't welded on properly!!

To get out of it we managed with a lot of engine welly to work her backwards up the landing. I then set the lock and then with a spring from the bow let her go round again, with both of us aboard that time, ready to motor straight into the lock. We'd just got her right to go & 2 narrowboats came up river & straight into the lock!! Its a good job we turned her on the landing, we'd have met them in the narrow bit.

Chatting afterwards they were so relieved to find the lock set for them.

It was a fright, now I never use the centre line on moving water.

 

Steve

[matty40s]

We nearly came unstuck once, up the Avon, about 4 or 5 locks down from Stratford. Despite the fright at so nearly losing the boat I cant remember which lock it was, just above the very narrow bit where it runs very fast when in flood, which it was. There was a sunken boat on the lock landing so we couldnt quite get the stern up to the end of the landing. I dropped a rope from the dolly onto the post & stepped ahore with the centre line to go & set the lock. Because we couldnt get the bow in because of the sunken boat the water thundering down over the weir got inside us and started to swing the boat round at enormous speed. Normally it would have held you on the landing. I never got the centre line secured & its a good job I didnt as now I think if I had she would have just rolled over, there was so much water coming down. As it was she slammed round and was left hanging on the stern line. Who says LB dolly's aren't welded on properly!!

To get out of it we managed with a lot of engine welly to work her backwards up the landing. I then set the lock and then with a spring from the bow let her go round again, with both of us aboard that time, ready to motor straight into the lock. We'd just got her right to go & 2 narrowboats came up river & straight into the lock!! Its a good job we turned her on the landing, we'd have met them in the narrow bit.

Chatting afterwards they were so relieved to find the lock set for them.

It was a fright, now I never use the centre line on moving water.

 

Steve

 

very similar, but on a flat calm canal. I was coming back up the Leicester Line a few Easters ago, lovely weather. I reached Newton Harcourt and tied up with Centre line in a low pound below Spinney Lock. There was a boat behind me which sat in the bridge hole as there was a boat about to come down.

The couple coming down opened the bottom paddles to empty the lock, and the pointy end started to move away from the bank. I tried to grab the front rope, but the centre line, the shallow pound, and the flow of water just pulled the front away,and the centre line was pulling the boat over. I ran up to the gates and dropped the paddles as the lady didn't realise what was happening, then ran back down and released the centre line allowing the boat to float free and right itself from almost gunwhales under. The boat that was in the bridge hole was almost back to the previous lock, the flow had been that strong.

Lots of stuff inside, invluding microwave and tv were on the floor, but thankfully I hadn't lost my house, and tend to use the front rope too now, if I do not know the lock.

[Naughty Cal]

The only time we have ever thought that our boat was at risk of not coming out of what we were doing was this year coming back out of Wells on our way home from the Broads. We had already had a great week on the Broads but had been holed up in Wells due to a Force 8 storm blowing out at sea. We were all fed up of being blown around in the harbour and were all getting cabin fever. The weather forecast was changing by the day and wasnt looking to get any better. The dutch chap on the yacht behind us was busy pacing the pontoons with his laptop trying to contact friends and family and let them know he was safe and well but would be late home.

 

Friday looked to be our only chance of leaving Wells that week, the storm,the storm had died down to a Force 5 turning 6. Failing that it was the train home, leave NC at the harbour and come back for her when the weather had calmed down (which we now know would have been a couple of weeks). On Friday morning we woke early to catch the tide and were met with a roar from the sand bar, we knew it would be a bumpy ride over the batr but none of us was prepared for quite how bumpy. The first vessel out a wind farm support boat was thrown around like a rag doll and at this point we realised quite how bad it would be, but it was too late to truna round and head back for the shelter of the harbour, we were commited to going.

 

At first it didnt seem too bad but as we motored further onto the bar the sea kicked up and we were riding waves bigger trough to peak than NC was long. To give her credit where its due she handled the waves beautifully and up until this point didnt give us cause for concern. The concern came when the navigabel channel switched direction so that we were beam onto some quiet large waves and we were now both worried for our and the boats safety. At the wrong moment we both spotted a huge rogue wave which was aiming at us beam on. This wave was much larger than the others and towered over the boat. We tooke the desicion to turn bow into the wave knowing that this could leave us in dangerously shallw water out of the channel and in these conditions would almost certainly be the end of the boat and maybe us. As we turned into the now cresting wave, we didnt know wether NC would hop over it or simply crash through it, our friends who had already tackled this monster turned around looking in vain for a glimpse of NC to see if we were alright (despite their many years at sea this caught them out and was much worse than they anticipated). Eventually after what seemed an eternity NC started to lift her bow and with the throttle on the stops she surged up the wave, clearing the cresting water at the peak of the wave before hurtling down the other side aiming straight at the port hand navigation buoy. In the end we surfed the backside of the wave and with no choice had to go the wrong side of the marker luckily managing to get back into the channel which was by now back to bow into the waves and head out to sea.

 

Once off the bar the sea although still on the rough side wasnt so bad, there was a large swell, but it took us a good 10 minutes to recover from our fright before we could pluck up the courage to see if she would get onto the plane and head for home. The waves were still on the large side around 2m but were swelly with long intervals between them which gave us good conditions to get some speed up and make it back to Boston in time for our locking. Despite the rough exit from wells we made it back and by the time we were approaching Boston the sea had ironed out to near flat, the wash providing excellent shelter from the rough seas beyond.

 

We will still go to Wells this wont put us off but we will keep a closer eye on the weather. This trip alos gave us a flavour of what NC is really capable of, although we far exceeded her design limits this day andwould aim to do the same again. Not your average inland boaters close disaster but ours all the same.

[Doorman]

 

It was a fright, now I never use the centre line on moving water.

 

Steve

 

We met a couple of boaters who had a very similar experience to yours, only their side doors were open at the time and water was gushing in before the chap did the same thing with the gate paddles.

 

From his experience, we never tie the centre line in such a way that it can't be released quickly and where the lock is a deep one, we tie the bow line up too!

 

It's anecdotes like yours that make this forum so valuable. Sometimes the obvious isn't so obvious at all!

 

Mike

[Doorman]

Maybe you should have coiled the stern line on the tiller?

 

 

COAT?

 

Or better still, around the prop!

 

Run for your life

[FadeToScarlet]

The only time we have ever thought that our boat was at risk of not coming out of what we were doing was this year coming back out of Wells on our way home from the Broads. We had already had a great week on the Broads but had been holed up in Wells due to a Force 8 storm blowing out at sea. We were all fed up of being blown around in the harbour and were all getting cabin fever. The weather forecast was changing by the day and wasnt looking to get any better. The dutch chap on the yacht behind us was busy pacing the pontoons with his laptop trying to contact friends and family and let them know he was safe and well but would be late home.

 

Friday looked to be our only chance of leaving Wells that week, the storm,the storm had died down to a Force 5 turning 6. Failing that it was the train home, leave NC at the harbour and come back for her when the weather had calmed down (which we now know would have been a couple of weeks). On Friday morning we woke early to catch the tide and were met with a roar from the sand bar, we knew it would be a bumpy ride over the batr but none of us was prepared for quite how bumpy. The first vessel out a wind farm support boat was thrown around like a rag doll and at this point we realised quite how bad it would be, but it was too late to truna round and head back for the shelter of the harbour, we were commited to going.

 

At first it didnt seem too bad but as we motored further onto the bar the sea kicked up and we were riding waves bigger trough to peak than NC was long. To give her credit where its due she handled the waves beautifully and up until this point didnt give us cause for concern. The concern came when the navigabel channel switched direction so that we were beam onto some quiet large waves and we were now both worried for our and the boats safety. At the wrong moment we both spotted a huge rogue wave which was aiming at us beam on. This wave was much larger than the others and towered over the boat. We tooke the desicion to turn bow into the wave knowing that this could leave us in dangerously shallw water out of the channel and in these conditions would almost certainly be the end of the boat and maybe us. As we turned into the now cresting wave, we didnt know wether NC would hop over it or simply crash through it, our friends who had already tackled this monster turned around looking in vain for a glimpse of NC to see if we were alright (despite their many years at sea this caught them out and was much worse than they anticipated). Eventually after what seemed an eternity NC started to lift her bow and with the throttle on the stops she surged up the wave, clearing the cresting water at the peak of the wave before hurtling down the other side aiming straight at the port hand navigation buoy. In the end we surfed the backside of the wave and with no choice had to go the wrong side of the marker luckily managing to get back into the channel which was by now back to bow into the waves and head out to sea.

 

Once off the bar the sea although still on the rough side wasnt so bad, there was a large swell, but it took us a good 10 minutes to recover from our fright before we could pluck up the courage to see if she would get onto the plane and head for home. The waves were still on the large side around 2m but were swelly with long intervals between them which gave us good conditions to get some speed up and make it back to Boston in time for our locking. Despite the rough exit from wells we made it back and by the time we were approaching Boston the sea had ironed out to near flat, the wash providing excellent shelter from the rough seas beyond.

 

We will still go to Wells this wont put us off but we will keep a closer eye on the weather. This trip alos gave us a flavour of what NC is really capable of, although we far exceeded her design limits this day andwould aim to do the same again. Not your average inland boaters close disaster but ours all the same.

 

Think I'll stick to sewer tubes

[Doorman]

Fortunately we knew the (then) gaffer of the Lord Combermere in Audlem so Mum legged it down there and told him what had happened. He gave us a bag of frozen peas to put on Sis's head and when we had moored up in Audlem he gave us a lift to the local A&E.

 

Nothing's changed here then. The people of Audlem are still kind hearted folk

Edited December 21, 2011 by Doorman

[billS]

So - lots of rolling about on the centre line. Has a boat ever actually been sunk or capsized by this?

[Naughty Cal]

Think I'll stick to sewer tubes

 

Where is your sense of adventure

[Lesd]

I've just seen this one in a link from 'Retirement with No Problem' blog:-

 

http://waterwaynews.blogspot.com/2011/08/bw-recover-stricken-boat-photos.html

 

so you dont even have to have closed the lock gates before you can get into trouble, scary

 

Can anyone yell me what these folks should have done in this situation ? I can only think to have run back up stream to the previous lock and opened it up to get plenty of water down there asap.... Otherwise you must just sit there and watch this happen in slow motion !

[safsnowball]

Can anyone yell me what these folks should have done in this situation ? I can only think to have run back up stream to the previous lock and opened it up to get plenty of water down there asap.... Otherwise you must just sit there and watch this happen in slow motion !

 

 

There's a lengthy discussion on the circumstances of this sinking in this topic. Les linky

[Chris Pink]

I can only think to have run back up stream to the previous lock and opened it up to get plenty of water down there asap.... Otherwise you must just sit there and watch this happen in slow motion !

 

Briefly that's it run water down and open this lock's top paddles so water can more easily flow round the boat. Try and stem the bottom gates possibly if it goes on long enough.

 

But most of all get the boat unstuck. Which is not so easy if the action of the water going down has wedged it harder.

[mrsmelly]

Working on the principle that it is far cheaper to learn from other people's mistakes than from your own (and can be far more entertaining!) how close have you ever come to disaster? and how did you avoid it?

 

To set the ball rolling I'll relate my own pratfall which dates from a trip with family along the Trent and Mersey. Always aware of the risks of cilling a boat we always pushed the boat as far forward in the lock as possible when going down. On this occasion my son was steering the boat whilst my wife and I operated the lock. All going to plan, wife closed rear gate of the lock as I opened the paddle(s) on the front gate. What I had failed to notice was that the bow of the boat was touching the lock gate and as the water drained from the lock the bow was not going down (the stern was!). Instant panic and shut all paddles to see what was happening. Rather bizarrely for some reason my first thought was that something had sunk in the lock and we were resting on top of it. The rather more prosaic reason turned out to be that the bow fender was caught on one of the cross beams of the lock gate. Solution was straightforward to refill the lock and push it off the gate but I learnt the lesson that if you are not watching what you are doing things can go wrong very rapidly. I would like to think that the fender would have broken before the boat began to sink but I wouldn't like to bet my house on it!

 

Having exposed myself to the expected ridicule, what is the closest YOU have come to disaster?

 

Only a few days after purchasing our first narrowboat I tied up going down hill in a wide lock, the rear end rope jammed on itself and before I had realised it the boat was nearly clear of the water and the rope like a piano wire. Luckily I am x royal Navy and we were trained from day one to allways have an axe handy when doing rope work/tieing up etc and I had one on the cabin roof next to ma windlass. One whack and it parted the rope and we dropped a foot or so into the water. No harm done lesson learned. I still allways have an axe to hand it will part any rope under load even if not very sharp believe me.

[JDR]

Trying to reach the Ipswich and Stowmarket canal and not being told about the then unmarked tidal weir ............

 

The thing I find hard to reconcile about that photograph is how nonchalant the crew look. It's almost as if the guy on the roof is saying to his mate "well I've had a cuppa and a bit of a think about it and on balance I think I agree something's probably not right." Did Progress require any remedial steelwork after refloating?

[jonathanA]

Our near misses are not as dramatic as some, but were nerve racking at the time...

 

Probably the worst was on a hire boat, in gargave locks on the L&L - wifey was at the helm with me doing the lock.

 

We were sharing the locks with another less experienced hire boat crew and i had been giving them a little bit of instruction/keeping an eye on what they were upto. Next thing my wife was shouting in panic and the boat was leaning over at an alrming angle and there was some crashing sounds from inside. a bit of the bow had caught on a protuding bit of stone in the lock as the water level rose suddenly the boat 'popped out' like a cork and rolled in the other direction (more sounds of crashing and breaking from inside)

 

no serious damage done although every wine glass and half a bottle of rather nice red were smashed on the galley floor....

 

lesson here as said before by others - you really can't afford to take your eyes off for a momnet - it all happened quickly and the angle of the deck was such that I think my wife was lucky she had the tiller to hang onto or could easily have been thrown overboard.

 

It certainly scared the other half for along time and even now if we're in a wide lock going up she likes the centre rope passing round a bollard and back to her

[sharpness]

So - lots of rolling about on the centre line. Has a boat ever actually been sunk or capsized by this?

I have no doubt whatsoever that had the centre line been secured, with the force ot the Avon in flood and the boat broadside on she would have been sunk. From personal experience I know of no boats sunk in this way but I was told but I cant confirm that the boat sunk at the lock landing had sunk for that reason. I was also told that when we came upon it it had already been raised once but had sunk again in the same way but unfortunately the owner had ended up needing hospital treatment when his hand was trapped behind a rope.

No doubt someone can remind me which lock it was now.

 

Steve

[David Mack]

It certainly scared the other half for along time and even now if we're in a wide lock going up she likes the centre rope passing round a bollard and back to her

 

But how would this have helped in the situation you described?

 

David

[AMModels]

You don't need a fender to get hung up in locks:

 

 

Mike

 

Thank god its not just me whos done that Mike, descending wolverhampton 21 with Sagitta I had exactly the same thing happen but just as we noticed what was going on she dropped free and ran back into the top gate, unseated the rudder and left me very red faced.