New style of (sinking) pipe fenders-big problem in the making

[Starcoaster]

As some of you may have read, last Sunday, MtB and I were on the way to Brinklow with Reg, who was going in to be docked. We picked up something on the prop a couple of miles away that led to overheating, loss of propulsion, the tiller jumping about as if something was banging it, sideways prop wash, smoking and a highly laboured engine.

 

A reasonable period of time spent with each of us weed hatch mining and also, poking with a boat hook from both above and on the bank revealed absolutely nothing, and we attempted to carry on several times before having to punt and bowhaul it the last half mile or so because the engine gave up terminally.

As mentioned, Reg was fortunately on the way to be docked anyway, and when he was, Brinklow found a pipe fender on a long rope, which was wound entirely round the prop and so, causing the fender itself to come up and hit/obstruct the prop on every turn.

Mucho annoying, no?

 

However, here is where things get interesting/potentially very problematic on the wider scale.

This is apparently the second time in the last year that Brinklow has docked a boat and found this exact same problem-the other boat was docked specifically because there was no way to identify/remove the obstruction (rope and fender) with the boat still in the water.

 

The pipe fender found on both Reg's prop and also that of the prior boat is a specific type that, as far as I can see, is only available from Midland Chandlers, being this one:

http://www.midlandchandlers.co.uk/Catalogue/ProductDetail/fender-rubber-tubular-c-w-rope?productID=c75e7787-3b9f-43d7-8d96-a7e3782c97bc&catalogueLevelItemID=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000

Which, as the description says, is "Made from exceptionally tough and hard wearing extruded rubber. The side fender attaches to the boat by a single rope that passes right through the rubber tube. The rope is knotted above and below the tube and a steel washer on the bottom prevents pull through."

 

the big problem? These fenders sink when they fall off, rather than floating. This means that the fender itself lands on the bottom of the cut, but its trailing rope, which in the case of the one we got off Reg's prop, was several feet long-basically just floats about in the water serving as prop-bait until it catches itself a boat, and then completely fouls the prop with little chance of removing or even identifying it without docking.

 

Reg's engine is now borked to the tune of potentially several thousand quid due to this. While the previous boat that this happened to did not sustain engine damage, it did require dry docking to remove, and to give you an idea of the scale of the possible problem and its future potential for causing problems to other boaters, this is now two boats that have fallen to the same fate within the last year, as identified at just one boatyard.

 

Obviously, if people didn't cruise with side fenders down in the first place, particularly on gurt long pieces of floating rope, this wouldn't be happening at all-but people do, and we all know this, so one has to wonder about the wisdom or even liability issues of a company/manufacturer selling a product that will sink when dropped, leaving several feet of trailing rope there to catch on the prop, which then leads to their self-explained "exceptionally tough extruded rubber" fender beating the crap out of your prop gear.

Midland Chandler's website actually has a note on the item description for this fender advising people not to cruise with side fenders down, whilst their other styles of pipe fender do not mention this caveat, which makes me wonder if they are actually already aware of the issue, but selling them anyway!

 

I have the thing in my possession, and it really is very heavy and hard-I'd totally feel confident in using it if I felt the need to knock someone out with one crack!

 

You read it here first...

 

Edited September 20, 2015 by Starcoaster

[Arthur Marshall]

If it was wrapped round the prop, why couldn't you spot it through the weed hatch? (Not criticising by the way, just interested ).

I've seen a few of these, picked up a couple to use so they must have been playing at the time. Shan't use them now though...

[vulpyfox]

most of these like mine clip to the gutters using wooden or plastic brightly coloured gutter clips, this part floats well and serves as a warning if lost (it also helps to retrieve it should you lose one overboard) however some people just tie them up to the boats side fittings, they can be ripped off or come untied, I guess this is when the problem starts, I have salvaged 2 of these, one was on a bank the other was stuck on my prop with a few meters of rope, I managed to cut it free with a knife and retrieve it. Its not the worst thing I've had stuck around tipsy's prop, get yourself a cheap snake camera unit with inbuilt leds, they can save you a lot of money when it comes to prop jams http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LCD-2-4-Video-Inspection-Borescope-1m-Endoscope-Pipe-10mm-Camera-Snake-Scope-/111299062279?hash=item19e9f0ea07

[bottle]

Had one just like that at the Napton flight, it was brand new and even swinging it about on my boats prop did not mark it.

 

Hell of a noise when it was spinning.

 

Luckily found the rope round the prop and managed to get it off.

[Guest]

The dog house had 4 fenders that look very similar to that

 

We never lost one but equally we latterly cruised where this would be unlikely.

 

Bad news about Reg's engine too, out of interest why wasn't it stopped on realising there was an issue.?

[Bunny]

We picked one of these fenders up just before the last lock going down the claydon flight about a month ago , its the 2nd one we have picked up round the prop . The rope wrapped it's self around the prop on both occasions , we must have been lucky, because after some helfty pulling the fenders pooped up on the weed hatch. But we too lost steering , by the thumping underneath we guessed whatever was there was lumpy. Bunny

[dmr]

We got one last year.

It sort of knotted round the skeg so we towed it along behind us, but everytime we went into reverse it went into the prop.

Went down the weedhatch and nothing to be found cus it had sank.

Eventually guessed at what was gong on and got to it from outside the boat with the hook, and managed to lift it enough to get to it via the weedhatch.

Solution is to educate boaters not to cruise with the fenders down, and make those gunnel mounted fender hooks a BSS failure!.

 

..........Dave

[paddles up]

These have been available for at least 15 years from many different places, not just MC.

If you can get the lanyard off the blade then I don't see the problem, it is after all, only rope.

[David Schweizer]

I am very sorry to har that Reg's Engine has been damaged, but at least Brinklow will know what to do with it, however, Mike's experience prompts a question. Why do boats no longer seem to have split prop shafts with shear pins? we had that arrangement on Pisces which meant that any serious obstruction on the prop caused the shear pin to break, rather than compromiose the engine/gearbox, It happened quite regularly, and it was my job to line up the shaft and drive out the old pin with a new one, and being "old school" our captain would not turn the engine off whilst I was doing it!!

[Guest]

I am very sorry to har that Reg's Engine has been damaged, but at least Brinklow will know what to do with it, however, Mike's experience prompts a question. Why do boats no longer seem to have split prop shafts with shear pins? we had that arrangement on Pisces which meant that any serious obstruction on the prop caused the shear pin to break, rather than compromiose the engine/gearbox, It happened quite regularly, and it was my job to line up the shaft and drive out the old pin with a new one, and being "old school" our captain would not turn the engine off whilst I was doing it!!

Interesting. Having been brought up on outboard motors, shear pins were the norm., but I was surprised to find inboard motors usually had no shear pin. I have often thought that one could be incorporated in the drive coupling to the propshaft?

[Starcoaster]

The main problem that we had with finding it is that the rope was wrapped around the bit of the prop where it meets the shaft, not around the blades. It was so snug that we could not feel it, and never saw or felt the rope whilst trying to work out what the problem was. When we stopped each time to do this, the fender itself sank again, and so could not be felt or seen, and whilst we could have possibly got lucky by managing to hook the rope at some point with the hook, we didn't-had we known what the issue was, we might have known better what to aim for, instead of just deciding there was nothing to be found.

that being said, because of the location in which the rope had wrapped round the prop at the shaft, not on the blades, I am not confident that even if we had been aware of the potential for it to be fender rope, we'd have been able to have cut or untangled it anyway without docking.

 

We only tried/succeeded to get maybe half a mile further of starting, overheating and stopping before we hauled/poled it to the dock, having by that time decided that possibly it was the engine, prop shaft or gearbox itself that was failing. However, by the time we stopped trying, the overheating had already caused damage.

This was, MtB says, due to a combination of the engine itself as well as the fender problem, but again, we'd not have been able to get the thing off anyway without docking.

 

The split shaft/shear pin question is one I can't answer, maybe Mike can. I am just going to have a look for some of the pics of Reg out of the water earlier this year that show the prop/rudder arrangement.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Starcoaster

[vulpyfox]

I rely on the sound and vibration of the engine,frame. I can soon tell if something is upsetting tipsy's old air cooled lister....

Edited September 20, 2015 by vulpyfox

[Starcoaster]

Voila:

 

 

 

 

The arrow pointing to the area where as I understand it, the rope wound round. It was definitely not detectable on the blade itself, which we could turn by hand via the weedhatch.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Starcoaster

[vulpyfox]

yup that's quite a common wrap around point for ropes, best thing is you know where to look next time ^.^

(and you know there will be a next time!!!!)

 

Try grabbing one of them little snake cameras I linked you to further up, they are great for hide and seek games in the weed hatch

[steven wilkinson]

We picked one up one of these as we entered a lock, just south of Star City (no idea what that's called) in July. The noise it made was unbelievable.

[trackman]

Very sorry to hear of the damage to Reg, that's seriously bad. Hope the repair bill isn't too horrific and insurance covers it.

 

As said by others, these are widely available & good fenders. We have 3, the originals came from Alvecote, can't recall where I got the third. I won't be stopping using them, but then again we'd never boat with fenders down for the obvious reasons this sorry tale highlights!

 

As regards finding the wretched thing, on our boat the length of prop shaft forward of the prop itself is where most things end up if we pick up something. It's rare for anything to remain solely on the prop itself. Fishing line is the worse thing to get off from there I find, as I usually use a hook from the bank and it's too fine to catch readily that way.

[dmr]

Yup, that is a very common place to get tightly wrapped rope. Sign of this can be the engine working much harder without the clatter sounds that go with something in the blades. Whenever I go down the hatch I always have a feel there, Even if it there is no rope there is ALWAYS some fishing line.

That skeg is truly beautiful.

 

............Dave

[Starcoaster]

It really is lovely-looking, isn't it.

Simon Wain and the team at Brinklow Boats get the credit for that!

[tree monkey]

It really is lovely-looking, isn't it.

Simon Wain and the team at Brinklow Boats get the credit for that!

did you really think 3 years ago you would ever say lovely in reference to a bit of blacked boat hull? it is lovely though

[junior]

Post edited completely after having read the whole OP.

 

Reason: bad taste.

 

Good luck getting sorted Mike. Having dribbled over the boat in Hawne Basin last year Reginald has been my second favourite tug on the cut.

Edited September 20, 2015 by junior

[ditchcrawler]

Got mine on the Weaver but it was a rope one, had to cut the rope to get it off. The effect was intermittent.

Sorry I don't have the photo on my computer but its on my blog at

http://nbharnser.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/devils-garden-thursday-14-may-2015.html

Edited September 20, 2015 by ditchcrawler

[magnetman]

Yes the skeg is very nice.

 

Shame about the engine but why did no-one notice it overheating? . I'm not sure what engine it is but even engines without "worry gauges" will give some sort of indication of overheating before damage is caused AFAIK.

 

Hope it can be sorted out anyway. Not the gleniffer is it?

[Sea Dog]

Sorry to hear this - the hassle was bad enough without the engine damage.

 

Is the problem the sinking fender or the floating rope (which is awful anyway, but seems hard to avoid on this type of fender)?

 

There was a thread recently where some argued against stowing fenders whilst cruising. Seems to me that, with fenders left dangling, it's inevitable the odd one will get caught going into a lock or similar resulting in a snap-off. Maybe some good will come of this thread by encouraging seaman-like precautions.

 

Anyway, fingers crossed for Reg's engine.

[Leo No2]

I think the real issue is that that rope floats but the fender doesn't - imagine picking one up in the middle of Blisworth or Braunston Tunnels - an environment where they can easily be torn off if you smack the sides. No need in IMHO to cruise with side fenders down.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Leo No2

[micky1010]

Just curious why shaft mounted rope cutters are not in wide use on canal boats as they are on seagoing yachts such as the below?

 

They are commonplace on yachts due to the likelihood of getting a trailing rope on the prop or from a lobster pot or fishing line and you don't have the option of a weed hatch on a yacht or being able to wade in and clear the prop, they work very well at chopping any ropes or weeds that would get wrapped round otherwise.

Apart from the risk to fingers while prodding around through the weedhatch I cannot see any reason why you could not use them and as long as you know it is there you should be able to avoid it while having a grope through the hatch.

 

http://www.yachtingmonthly.com/gear/propeller-rope-cutter-test-30012