Hassle In Middlewich

[SamKingfisher]

Please do re-tie my boat if it comes adrift - but why stop there? Give it a wash please, also some of the paintwork needs a touch up if it isn't too much trouble. :-)

[Hawkmoth]

It's trespass not salvage, assume I would react. Assume also I wouldn't move yours, would not take responsibility

I think it's about time you reconsidered your membership of the canal community.

[IanM]

Strikes me we need Biz on the case.

 

We need some sort of boat capture and retrieve device that allows levitation over a boat, re tying of the lines and drawing into the side, all of.course without making any physical contact with the vessel...

Just magnetise the piling along the edge

 

However may be an issue for grp boats...

[Mac of Cygnet]

Just magnetise the piling along the edge

 

However may be an issue for grp boats...

 

After I was cast adrift on the Rochdale while I was in the Rose of Lancaster, and had to cross by the lock above, and get through 2 barbed wire fences in the dark to retrieve the boat (which fortunately hadn't drifted down to below a security fence), I made up a Boat Retrieval Kit, consisting of a Sea Searcher magnet on a very long line which I could throw across onto the boat roof and pull it across. A small grappling hook would have been as good or better but I didn't have one.

 

I've carried this when off the boat one or two places where casting adrift has seemed a possibility and retrieval very difficult, but don't want to use it except in earnest as it would most likely at the very least do a bit of paint chipping in the process.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

 

After I was cast adrift on the Rochdale while I was in the Rose of Lancaster, and had to cross by the lock above, and get through 2 barbed wire fences in the dark to retrieve the boat (which fortunately hadn't drifted down to below a security fence), I made up a Boat Retrieval Kit, consisting of a Sea Searcher magnet on a very long line which I could throw across onto the boat roof and pull it across. A small grappling hook would have been as good or better but I didn't have one.

 

I've carried this when off the boat one or two places where casting adrift has seemed a possibility and retrieval very difficult, but don't want to use it except in earnest as it would most likely at the very least do a bit of paint chipping in the process.

As a sort of variation on your idea, I'd tend to get a length of rope with a large 'monkey fist' knot tied in the end of it, large enough to jam in the T-bar at the front. As you say a Sea Searcher is likely to chip lumps out of your paint (assuming that sod's law doesn't come into play and you put it through one of the windows ) whereas a 'monkey fist' knot shouldn't do too much harm and it was designed for rope throwing.

[cotswoldsman]

A few winters ago I was moored on the G&S during a big storm. When I woke in the morning looked out of the window to check the weather and noticed the towpath had changed sides during the night. When I stepped out of my boat I was securely tied about 400 yards from where I went to sleep facing the other direction.

[Peter-Bullfinch]

Sounds like too much scrumpy at the pub lock in John. Maybe it was Stan and he swam back to his own boat afterwards!

[Alan Saunders]

I too have secured several boats that were adrift and hope that others would do the same for my boat. OTOH, I would never move a moored boat to make room to moor my boat unless the owner was present and agreeable.

 

Just 'nudging' a drifting boat out of the way is unacceptable, especially for a commercial boat (they would no longer get my trade); leaving the problem for others to deal with is totally unacceptable.

 

On one occasion we were the first to come across a boat sideways across the cut. I gently nudged its bow with my bow-fender but I could not move it, even at full power. I joined our lines to make a long line sufficient to reach the bank. My brother boarded the boat to attach the line to the bow stud and helpers on the towpath were able to pull the vessel in and secure it.

 

According to some, this was 'trespass'. Obviously we had better called BW/CRT to remove the obstruction at huge expense and a considerable delay.

 

Alan