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Angels of the Cut


Collie

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Thank you to the angels of the cut - in particular this time, on the Oxford Canal. A big thank you to whoever re-moored my boat some time in the past 48 hours. I can see that both bow and stern pins had dragged out so she must have been drifting badly.

 

I'm sure you were cursing the incompetent moorer - that was me. blush.png Honest! I've tried everything but she still sometimes drags. I haul her up as tight as I can, I moor with a spring at the stern. I wallop those pins in as hard as I can into the hardest ground I can find (short of solid rock).

 

So - once again - thank you to all the people up and down the country who have re-moored for me over the past three years. I don't know who you are, but I will try to do better in future.

clapping.gif

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We've just caught up with the tug from Hawne Basin in Halesowen who've towed away Tara, turns out some local yoots (insert appropriate bad words here) were trying to break in then set her adrift and threw the mooring pins in the cut!

 

So she's now on a free 7 day mooring in the basin. There are still some nice folk about.

 

I walk the dog for miles up the cut round by me and will always look out for other peoples boats, be it misbehaving yoots or loose lines.

 

Lee.

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Thank you to the angels of the cut - in particular this time, on the Oxford Canal. A big thank you to whoever re-moored my boat some time in the past 48 hours. I can see that both bow and stern pins had dragged out so she must have been drifting badly.

 

I'm sure you were cursing the incompetent moorer - that was me. blush.png Honest! I've tried everything but she still sometimes drags. I haul her up as tight as I can, I moor with a spring at the stern. I wallop those pins in as hard as I can into the hardest ground I can find (short of solid rock).

 

So - once again - thank you to all the people up and down the country who have re-moored for me over the past three years. I don't know who you are, but I will try to do better in future.

clapping.gif

I found that getting some longer pins has avoided that problem for us.

 

(Ours are 1.1Metre long)

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I am probably stating the obvious and don't mean to cause offence or teach you to suck eggs, but are you tying the ropes as close to the ground as possible rather than at the top of the pin as I have seen sometimes (particularly if it is one of those pins with a eye at the top.)?

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I am probably stating the obvious and don't mean to cause offence or teach you to suck eggs, but are you tying the ropes as close to the ground as possible rather than at the top of the pin as I have seen sometimes (particularly if it is one of those pins with a eye at the top.)?

Pins need to be driven in so that the top of the pin is further away from the boat than the bottom. (Of the pin, that is!) This makes the mooring line stay close to the ground where it works best. (How are the eggs tasting, Babushka?)

 

N

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I am probably stating the obvious and don't mean to cause offence or teach you to suck eggs, but are you tying the ropes as close to the ground as possible rather than at the top of the pin as I have seen sometimes (particularly if it is one of those pins with a eye at the top.)?

I bang the pins right down till the ring is settled on the earth. Then I tie a white plastic bag over the top. But you are right - that thing of leaving the pin sticking up too high was one of my earlier mistakes.

I found that getting some longer pins has avoided that problem for us.

 

(Ours are 1.1Metre long)

Haven't measured them. They are pretty standard looking length. I've had to buy a couple new, since sometimes pins go walkabout. (Do people really steal them?)

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Pins need to be driven in so that the top of the pin is further away from the boat than the bottom. (Of the pin, that is!) This makes the mooring line stay close to the ground where it works best. (How are the eggs tasting, Babushka?)

 

N

Thanks for that fresh egg - I didn't know. I think I often bash the pins in sideways, or any old which way, but always at an angle. You could have found the solution! Also since it goes wrong so much, I have tended to moor in places where I don't need to use pins, so I haven't had that much practice. I like my chains and paperclips, but sometimes I just have no choice (like now).

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I bang the pins right down till the ring is settled on the earth. Then I tie a white plastic bag over the top. But you are right - that thing of leaving the pin sticking up too high was one of my earlier mistakes.

Haven't measured them. They are pretty standard looking length. I've had to buy a couple new, since sometimes pins go walkabout. (Do people really steal them?)

 

Some people will steal anything. Many years ago I had a Calder and Hebble spike stolen from the roof of the boat at Salterhebble.

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As an angler I have tied up several boats that were loose but as a boater I have had my boat re tied a few times so maybe it's a karma thing

smile.png nice idea.

 

Some people will steal anything. Many years ago I had a Calder and Hebble spike stolen from the roof of the boat at Salterhebble.

karma again - I found a pin lying on the towpath the other day. Nobody nearby owned it, so it is mine, mine, all mine.

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http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Superhuge-Stakes-x-2-Heavy-Duty-Tent-Gazebo-Marquee-Pegs-1-1m-x-25mm-NEW-/161282982981?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item258d370445

 

Something like this. It won't come out in a hurry. A sledgehammer to put them in is helpful too.

I trust there are no fibre-optic cables in that towpath :unsure:

Nope. Old bits of concrete, but the sledgehammer gets the pins through them. Its my residential mooring, so they don't come out very often.

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Interestingly there are some occasions when it really is impossible to keep the pins in the ground. My particular example was at Seend on the Kennet and Avon. I fished out a couple or pins from the cut (one of which was about 3'6" long and used them to augment my own pins. I knocked two pins in at the bow (one pin knocked through the eye of the other on both mooring points) with two more pins knocked at 45 degree angle on the centre mooring point so when I left the boat it had six pins holding 4 mooring lines and yet when I returned a week later the boat had been moved about 100 yards along the cut and I was missing 2 mooring pins. Since I had fished 2 mooring pins from the cut with a magnet it was no real loss but, in all honesty there was no way that the boat was going to remain moored unless I could access two exploding harpoon heads (like they use in whaling!) to fire into the ground!! The location I had moored was down from the Barge Inn and the problem was a stream of hirers coming down from Foxhangers on a mission to get to Bath and back in the week that they had hired the boat for. My relaxed attitude was that the boat was going to drift at some point during the week because of this so either they would have to wait for me to return (a week later) or re-moor the boat for me, fortunately someone re-moored the boat otherwise the cut would have been closed for the week. Since this was as a result of boats thrashing past my moored boat I don't consider whoever re-moored it as any sort or 'angel' just a pragmatist. I have also frequently re-moored boats that have broken free since the option is either to do so or sit and wait for the owner to return (who is going to do that??). Aren't we all here to help each other?

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