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centre-line mooring


spadefoot

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I now need to retract my last post as we have now actually moored using out stern line and centre line only. Although it was only for a couple of hours while one of us went off to the shops.

 

There's a trip boat company in Ware on the Lee that has a public mooring at the end of their reserved bit on the hard standing, mind you it's great for a 50 ft boat, but as we are 57 it was a wee bit too short but by only using the centre and stern lines we were able to tie up to the provided rings, do our shopping and then carry on cruising or the rest of the day.

 

Worked a treat :)

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Despite all of your protests I will continue to use my centre line for a temporary mooring. Single-handed, at a lock landing I often stop the boat with a single turn of the centre line around a bollard or through a ring then a round turn before tying the centre line to the stern bollard. Sometimes the boat remains close alongside but more often the bow drifts out leaving me an easy entrance into the lock.

 

@Bettie Boo, you do not have to 'spring' your fore line forward and your aft line aft! Overhanging a 50' mooring by 7' you should take the bow line back to the nearest attachment point then compensate with an equivalent spring from the stern.

 

Alan

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Just out of curiosity, are there any recorded instances of a narrow boat being capsized by any use of mooring lines? I'm willing to accept that in extreme or flash flood conditions it may happen (has it?) but in average canal conditions how likely is it? By my reckoning you'd need to get the boat to lean to such a degree as to dislodge the ballast blocks in the bilge but, as with a sailing boat, above a given point it takes a lot more effort to make a boat lean any further until you reach the critical point of capsize. I'm not arguing either for or against using the centre line since I will moor however I think is appropriate I was just wondering.

 

Here's a recent experiment (12 degree heel). Centre line not in use!

 

measuring-angles-properly_4035_16251.png

Edited by Scholar Gypsy
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Here's a recent experiment (12 degree heel). Centre line not in use!

 

measuring-angles-properly_4035_16251.png

Good job that the protractor was abeam to the wind or you would have some serious leeway...............

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centerline_mooring_1.jpg

 

One for the centre-line moorers amongst you.

 

This chap tied up behind us after we had gone to the pub, luckily it was not quite dark when we returned to the boat, his black rope stretched across the well troden bankside, the grass to the right is quite long and full of hoss sh!te and not where you would usually walk.

 

Full marks for a totally pointless way of mooring with an added man trap! I guess the hi-viz bag on the centre-line rond anchor was a token effort but not alot of use really.

 

Sadly, I didnt get a chance to point out the error of their ways as we left before they got up.

Edited by gazza
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Even without the centre line hazard, that's a really poor way of mooring. I'm amazed by the number of boats we pass who've moored with their bow and stern ropes at 90 degrees to the bank. That's guaranteed to have the boat moving backwards and forwards when anything goes past. If people moored with the ropes a couple of feet in front/behind their boat, there would be a lot less complaining going on.

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Even without the centre line hazard, that's a really poor way of mooring. I'm amazed by the number of boats we pass who've moored with their bow and stern ropes at 90 degrees to the bank. That's guaranteed to have the boat moving backwards and forwards when anything goes past. If people moored with the ropes a couple of feet in front/behind their boat, there would be a lot less complaining going on.

Good init? :)

 

Rhond anchors can tend to swivel about so the only thing the centre-line was going to do was trip up the unwary in the dark!

 

As you say, the slow down brigade are usually guilty of not knowing how to moor up correctly.

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As i pay my dues, i had a word with my MP and he has assured me that they are going to deal with all the CMers, licence dodgers and general p takers and pump out users first ... so i will be safe to enjoy my lovely warm, dry pramhood cover for a very long time to come :P

 

Rick

Hope it's a Silver Cross pramhood, and dummies are supplied free

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Even without the centre line hazard, that's a really poor way of mooring. I'm amazed by the number of boats we pass who've moored with their bow and stern ropes at 90 degrees to the bank. That's guaranteed to have the boat moving backwards and forwards when anything goes past. If people moored with the ropes a couple of feet in front/behind their boat, there would be a lot less complaining going on.

Yes but then what would you complain about! (sorry only joking because I completely agree with you, it never fails to amazes me how often boats are badly moored)

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99.9% of the time I wouldn't use the centre line for mooring, but I did last night as we were at the end of Coventry basin and nobody could pass us there. There was a handy ring for the centre line so I tied it slack. No real reason other than I could on this occasion. Normally I find it a horrible way of mooring, causing the boat to roll when others pass. I agree that it is bad to have bow and stern lines at 90 degrees to boat, and that is how most of the "slow down my children are playing next to boiling water" brigade moor in my experience.

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When we were untied outside the NIA last year it was only when the scrote tugged on the centre line and the boat rocked a little we realised what was happening. I got out just in time to see him pedalling away and dragged the boat back in by - you've guessed it, the centre line.

We were tied up with the centre line because of awkward bollard spacing but I see nothing wrong with using as many or as few ropes as we wish.

It's nobody else's business, pure and simple.

 

Head in the sand attitude. Should the water level rise the centre line could hold the side of the boat down rolling it to the side. If your vents go under water your boat will sink. These thing are not poo poo'd out of hand there is usually a good reason why we do/don't do this stuff!

  • Greenie 1
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Head in the sand attitude. Should the water level rise the centre line could hold the side of the boat down rolling it to the side. If your vents go under water your boat will sink. These thing are not poo poo'd out of hand there is usually a good reason why we do/don't do this stuff!

As I asked before, are there any documented cases of this actually having happened on a canal (rivers being a different risk) rather than just a potential risk? It does after all take a lot of effort to tilt a boat beyond 20 degrees which is what I'd need to put the exhaust/vents under water and if I were aboard I hope I'd notice that degree of cant.

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I never use the centre line when moored.

Apart from when on a lock landing while working the lock

Whilst being neutral about using the centre line, sometimes I will and sometimes I won't, I did have a bad experience mooring up on a lock mooring with it. I think it was at Hanham Lock coming back from Bristol and moored by the centre line whilst I operated the lock. The flow of water from the emptying lock pushed the boat backwards on the Lock Mooring and the centre line ripped off a poorly positioned ventilation mushroom from the roof (positioned slightly behind and to one side of the roof anchorage point for the line). I now have two lines from the anchorage point and tie up with one forward and one astern of the anchorage point to stop this happening again.

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