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

[alan_fincher]

I have a 12ft pole which is, well, a wooden pole with blunt ends. I also have an 8ft implement with a combined metal hook and pointy bit on the end (not sharpened) that I've always thought of as a boat hook. Please could someone tell me the correct terminology?

In "boatman speak", if the former were longer (maybe more like 15 or 16 feet) that is your "long shaft", wheras the shorter one is a "cabin shaft", (or sometimes "short shaft").

 

The latter serves many purposes, not just clearing fouling of the "blades", and was, (for example) often used to close bottom gates on narrow locks from the boat. Some balance beams still show evidence that such use has continued after recent replacements.....

[Dorman]

Worse thing we picked up was a complete tent on the Avon outside Bancroft Basin. Did get off through the weed hatch. Had a tyre on the prop on the BCN but got it off quite easily--must have been lucky

[Paul C]

I haven't said it is, though. Just challenging the suggestion that it isn't easily achieved on a modern narrow boat not of working boat proportions.

 

To some considerable extent the efficacy of a weed hatch depends on the type of boat, and its design....

 

1) How easy to remove and replace

2) How quick to remove and replace

3) How accessible the "hole" then is

4) How accessible the prop then is

 

I suspect with a cruiser stern boat designed for hire you are probably at the upper end of usability and effectiveness.

 

It is far from true with all boats, particularly many "modern trads" with fairly shallow counters, where there is nothing removable in the rear deck. For some of these you need to be a contortionist, and simple use of a shaft may well be a quicker, drier, less traumatic option, particularly if your "haul" includes barbed wire, fishing hooks, or similar.

 

When we bought a boat, one of the key things was accessibility to the weedhatch. I'm sure there are some howlers out there, but I'd not have a boat without useable access to its weedhatch.

[Athy]

Why do muppets cruise with fenders down?

 

For the same reasons that non-muppets do, no doubt.

[Guest]

I have a large collection of old iron boathook heads

 

Mostly found with the magnet.

 

Below is a picture of one of the things I believe Tony Dunkley is talking about. Its easier to appreciate these things with it in your hand but this example had been sharpened between the spike and the outside of the hook so that it can be used to 'stab' debris off the prop or shaft.

 

Someone commented earlier that there are far more man-made objects in the cut these days which is a fair observation but a decent cabin shaft used carefully can do wonders.

 

Or break off then I find it a few decades later. I particularly like the direct link with a pissed off working boatman that my finds give me its very human

 

Have a look at my gallery if you like this sort of thing

Yellow arrows show where it has been sharpened. A bit crude as using mobile phone editing software.

(I am going to edit that picture to show where the thing has been sharpened down- in about 3 minutes time)

Interesting, thanks for posting.

[MtB]

For the same reasons that non-muppets do, no doubt.

 

 

But cruising with side fenders down is definitive proof of monumental muppetry, as n e fule kno

[GreyLady]

Worse thing we picked up was a complete tent on the Avon outside Bancroft Basin. Did get off through the weed hatch. Had a tyre on the prop on the BCN but got it off quite easily--must have been lucky:D

I might bob down their myself I could do with a 4 berth Tent, I hope their is some more floating about.

[Heffalump]

 

No, don't agree. I've never had a 'bladeful' that would have been better, or easier, got off by groping about down a hole in the counter bottom.

How do you know? You've never tried.

[GreyLady]

Is their an alternative to the long rubber fenders ?

 

As a new boater would I be expected to have no fenders at all while learning how to handle my Narrowboat ?

[Thorfast]

Is their an alternative to the long rubber fenders ?

As a new boater would I be expected to have no fenders at all while learning how to handle my Narrowboat ?

The odds of you coliding with a bridge Hole, lock gate, or most other obstacles in the exact place where you have a fender hanging (except for bow and stern) are very Remote....I only use pipe and side fenders when I'm moored against something hard.

[Sea Dog]

Grumpy, that's what the rubbing strakes are for. A dangling fender when underway is likely to get trapped at such places and when that happens it's the fender rope versus many tonnes of boat - the boat wins, the rope snaps, and another one of these hazards is created.

[GreyLady]

The odds of you coliding with a bridge Hole, lock gate, or most other obstacles in the exact place where you have a fender hanging (except for bow and stern) are very Remote....I only use pipe and side fenders when I'm moored against something hard.

Thanks for explaining that to me, I am going on a Boat Handling Course before I get on my own, but I just wondered if it was normal to have the fenders on while moving the boat.

Grumpy, that's what the rubbing strakes are for. A dangling fender when underway is likely to get trapped at such places and when that happens it's the fender rope versus many tonnes of boat - the boat wins, the rope snaps, and another one of these hazards is created.

Thanks Sea Dog, I guess its a case of if you crash it you scratch it then. Bugger!

[Naughty Cal]

Thanks for explaining that to me, I am going on a Boat Handling Course before I get on my own, but I just wondered if it was normal to have the fenders on while moving the boat.

 

Thanks Sea Dog, I guess its a case of if you crash it you scratch it then. Bugger!

No.

[dmr]

Thanks for explaining that to me, I am going on a Boat Handling Course before I get on my own, but I just wondered if it was normal to have the fenders on while moving the boat.

 

Thanks Sea Dog, I guess its a case of if you crash it you scratch it then. Bugger!

 

Its good manners to put the fenders down if you are coming alongside another boat (and bad manners not to).

They can be very useful on some (but not all) moorings, but otherwise should not normally be used, and certainly not in a lock.

We have been jammed in locks twice when sharing wide locks with boats who did not want to lift their fenders.

We do often leave the rearmost fenders down in a lock, especially if going a bit diagonal in a wide lock, but these are within easy reach from the steering position and also almost within the main profile of the boat, and even so these have caused trouble on a few occasions.

 

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

 

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

[Tony Dunkley]

I have a large collection of old iron boathook heads

 

Mostly found with the magnet.

 

Below is a picture of one of the things I believe Tony Dunkley is talking about. Its easier to appreciate these things with it in your hand but this example had been sharpened between the spike and the outside of the hook so that it can be used to 'stab' debris off the prop or shaft.

 

Someone commented earlier that there are far more man-made objects in the cut these days which is a fair observation but a decent cabin shaft used carefully can do wonders.

 

Or break off then I find it a few decades later. I particularly like the direct link with a pissed off working boatman that my finds give me its very human

 

Have a look at my gallery if you like this sort of thing

Yellow arrows show where it has been sharpened. A bit crude as using mobile phone editing software.

(I am going to edit that picture to show where the thing has been sharpened down- in about 3 minutes time)

 

That's spot on, every word of it, especially the bit about the thoughts and mood of the last person to use that particular shaft head before it broke off.

I've still got a shaft head that was given to me a long time ago by an ex GUCCCo boatman. It was standard company issue and sharpened in exactly the same way as the one in the picture, but possibly a little smaller, although the spikes were generally tapered more gradually to a sharper point, and that was to enable the shaft head to be pushed into whatever was round the boss or tailshaft.

Having got the point in as far as it would go, rotating the shaft to and fro a little whilst pushing would sometimes help, it was withdrawn just an inch or two and then jabbed back in hard and quickly. Repeated a few times this would separate, loosen and partially cut whatever was there. Once the shaft head would go in far enough for the hook to have passed beyond the tailshaft and boss the cabinshaft was rotated one or two turns whilst still pushing lightly on it to make the hook pick up the bit of rubbish that had been freed. Pulling back would then either bring something out, or if it didn't the pushing, jabbing and rotating was repeated until it did.

Clearing the blades like this is something that's only slightly more difficult to describe than to do, and with a little practise it soon becomes something that's very quick and easy to do, but provided only that the cabinshaft you're using is the right weight and length and fitted with the right sort of sharpened shaft head.

What I have just described is precisely what is being done in the photo that RayT posted in #61, and the rubbish and rope that can be seen on the edge of the lockside will have been removed in less time, and probably with less effort, than it would it take to even get the lid off a weedhatch.

 

Ps. For the benefit of anyone who may think that todays rubbish is in any way more diffcult to cope with than it used to be, in the years that I was using a cabinshaft with this GUCCCo shafthead, it successfully removed almost every type of rubbish imagineable,

from fencing wire,natural, synthetic and wire rope, carpet, rubber hose and sheet, weed, fishing line, tarpaulin, plastic sheet and bags, and clothing, or any combination of those things, plus some other unidentifiable stuff that I'd really rather not think about.

The only thing it wasn't any use against was a whole spring mattress, collected round the blades near Wash Lane bridge when passing through Nuneaton loaded for the Jam Hole. We had been breaking ice all the way from Atherstone and picked up the mattress whilst holding back to have another run at the ice ahead. It was enough to stop a National dead and had to be cut off with hacksaw, which was done by getting in the cut.

Sawing it up through a weedhatch, even if we'd had one, would have been far more difficult, if not impossible.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Tony Dunkley

[Tony Dunkley]

 

Perfectly possible with a "modern" leisure boat, but because the shaft will be nearer to the uxter plate than on a typical working boat, the "angle of attack" will need to be a bit shallower.

 

In my experience (any boat) the boat often needs to be sret well away from where you are working from. A proper cabin shaft will typically be bout 8 feet in length, (which many modern "equivalents" are not of course), and an 8 foot shaft would I'm sure allow you to clear a "typical" prop foul on Tawny.

 

I'm intrigued what the end of Tony's proper shaft would look like though. Most of us are of course limited to one of the standard Aquafax / Midland Chandlers type offerings. I don't suppose you have any pictures, please, Tony?

 

Sometimes working boatmen clearly used something far longer - here is Ron Withey working on the blades of our "Flamingo" in 1970.

 

 

[picture from Robert J Wilson's"Epilogue"]

 

 

 

I've no means of putting up any pictures, Alan, but there's some info about suitable cabinshaft heads in the post above, responding to Magnetman.

Cabinshafts varied in length quite a bit depending on what they were intended for. About 11' long with a 2'' diameter shaft was the right sort of size for clearing the blades in most circumstances.

That photo of yours is at Fenny lock and Ron Withy's using a long shaft to do a bit of 'raking out'.

When Ron came back ' Willow Wrenning' for the last time, the first orders he got were to load for Blue Line at Atherstone. We loaded on the same day and Ron was a few hours behind when I broke down whilst hammering 'Hyperion''s engine to death getting over a load of junk that had been dumped in the cut under the Galleon bridge below Cosgrove. Ron got through as well a few hours later but I'm fairly sure he picked up a bladeful in the process. That photo could well be him getting the last remnants of it off, whilst Janet had nipped up the shops.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Tony Dunkley

[johnmck]

The biggest problem today is the variety of plastic based items that foul the prop, be these bags or ropes. Not a material our forbears encountered. Weed hatch works for us!

[Neil2]

Tony, as usual, may well have a point it doesn't hurt to be reminded that there might be an alternative, better, method of doing something that got lost in the name of so called progress.

 

And when your hatch refuses to stay watertight is when you start to wonder if they really are such wonderful things.

 

But on the Northern canals I think it's a no brainer. Just the Leeds Liverpool through Blackburn is unthinkable without a weed hatch. Providing you can get down the thing, of course.

[Laurence Hogg]

The best thing I had done to "Barnet" was to have the large weedhatch fitted below the lift up deck and footstep. Access to the prop in around two minutes, plenty of room to work and hours saved "raking out". If I have another working boat it will get the same treatment, its simply backward thinking not to install one, if the boats were being built today it would be a standard feature.

 

[dave moore]

A Norton Canes job, Laurence?

 

Dave

[ditchcrawler]

 

In 56 years of operating power driven vessels of many different types, I've never once had to resort to grovelling about down a weedhatch, which is just as well, because none of the boats I've either worked or used have ever had one. They are time consuming and not very easy to use, and this incident with MtB's boat shows that they really aren't much use either.

I bet horse boat owners said something very similar about diesel engines

[Laurence Hogg]

A Norton Canes job, Laurence?

 

Dave

Yes Dave, all NCD.

[tree monkey]

I have a large collection of old iron boathook heads

 

Mostly found with the magnet.

 

Below is a picture of one of the things I believe Tony Dunkley is talking about. Its easier to appreciate these things with it in your hand but this example had been sharpened between the spike and the outside of the hook so that it can be used to 'stab' debris off the prop or shaft.

 

Someone commented earlier that there are far more man-made objects in the cut these days which is a fair observation but a decent cabin shaft used carefully can do wonders.

 

Or break off then I find it a few decades later. I particularly like the direct link with a pissed off working boatman that my finds give me its very human

 

Have a look at my gallery if you like this sort of thing

Yellow arrows show where it has been sharpened. A bit crude as using mobile phone editing software.

(I am going to edit that picture to show where the thing has been sharpened down- in about 3 minutes time)

I've got a new one made by the blacksmith at Stoke Bruerne to that design, just need to find a decent shaft for it

[pquinn]

So far we have pumpout v cassette

Bow thrusters,

Eco fans,

Fenders up or down,

Fake rivets,

The correct spot to place a mop on your roof,

and now its weedhatchs or poking sticks.

 

This boating lark sure is complicated.

[Guest User]

So far we have pumpout v cassette

Bow thrusters,

Eco fans,

Fenders up or down,

Fake rivets,

The correct spot to place a mop on your roof,

and now its weedhatchs or poking sticks.

 

This boating lark sure is complicated.

 

You missed off:

 

Tunnel lamp - an old car lamp of a few watts pointed upwards or an ex-Trinity House gazillion watts pointed blindingly straight ahead

 

LCx