Jump to content

Narrowboat at sea adventure


rgreg

Featured Posts

I recently purchased the DVD "Carry on up the Lune" from Laurence Hogg (of this Parish) and what a superb watch it is. In 1995 an intrepid crew sailed a 70ft narrowboat from Ellesmere Port and up the Irish Sea to Glasson Dock via the Mersey Estuary and Preston, being 12 miles off shore at times. They returned from Glasson Dock to the Dee Estuary where they entered Chester; a journey of 75 miles on one tide. This has to be up there as one of the (if not THE?) greatest sea-going adventures ever made by a narrowboat. Hats off to these chaps. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, rgreg said:

I recently purchased the DVD "Carry on up the Lune" from Laurence Hogg (of this Parish) and what a superb watch it is. In 1995 an intrepid crew sailed a 70ft narrowboat from Ellesmere Port and up the Irish Sea to Glasson Dock via the Mersey Estuary and Preston, being 12 miles off shore at times. They returned from Glasson Dock to the Dee Estuary where they entered Chester; a journey of 75 miles on one tide. This has to be up there as one of the (if not THE?) greatest sea-going adventures ever made by a narrowboat. Hats off to these chaps. 

Went to a talk a few years ago on taking a NB to the Isles of Scilly and the North Cornwall ports!

Tim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, rgreg said:

They returned from Glasson Dock to the Dee Estuary where they entered Chester; a journey of 75 miles on one tide

That is some going - averaging over 6 miles an hour, half the journey with the tide, and half the journey against the tide.

Its always a 'bit lumpy' at distance from the shore, I am not sure I'd want to be 12 miles offshore ( xx hours from safe haven) in a NB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may be the most adventureous, but certainly not the first. Dennis Jewiss went to sea in the "William" in the 1960's, and blew a big end trying to get back into the Wash against the tide, and Chris Coburn has been across to Europe several times in "Progress". reported in this post :-

 

Edited by David Schweizer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And then there was the bloke who thought he'd cross the Atlantic in a bath tub. 

Having spent quite a lot of my life at sea, folk doing voyages in inappropriate vessels... Oh sod it, as long as they didn't put anyone else in danger and gave generously to the RNLI, why not? (Rhetorical question - I'll make my mind up later)

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

And then there was the bloke who thought he'd cross the Atlantic in a bath tub. 

Having spent quite a lot of my life at sea, folk doing voyages in inappropriate vessels... Oh sod it, as long as they didn't put anyone else in danger and gave generously to the RNLI, why not? (Rhetorical question - I'll make my mind up later)

Having crossed the North Sea in a F10 on a 40ft yacht, I'm sticking to the cut in this NB.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Before coming to live in France I had a chat with Chris Coburn about what might be necessary to prepare our then 70ft Hudson tug for a channel crossing.   He said that the usual changes would not be necessary as the tug deck would prevent the forward well deck from filling and having a day tank would mean that there would not be the usual problem of dirt being stirred up in the diesel and blocking the filters. Steve Hudson was also keen to be on board for the crossing, but in the end we decided against it as I thought the boat having a JP3 would be too difficult to control in the river sections of French waterways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Luckily for our RNLI and Coastguard taking a flat bottomed bath tub to sea is an extremely rare occurrence as common sense usualy kicks in before the event :rolleyes: Russian roulette is a similar game.

Poor comparison - at least with Russian Roulette you have 5 out of 6 chances of surviving.

  • Greenie 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not something I'd do but how many narrowboats actually have got into trouble in what are apparently unsuitable water because the boat itself was unable to cope? Not just the crew, I could make a pigs ear out of a calm day on the Solent in a proper boat but the actual vessel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interestingly, on the film the skipper, Chris Coburn, comments on how surprisingly stable a narrowboat is in lumpy water due to the amount of hull beneath the waterline and is quite resistant to rolling. The biggest threat is from water ingress and fuel issues, hence the extra modifications they made to defend against these. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, rgreg said:

Interestingly, on the film the skipper, Chris Coburn, comments on how surprisingly stable a narrowboat is in lumpy water due to the amount of hull beneath the waterline

Surprising - with only 24-30 inches I would have expected some 'roll'. I have 4' 6" draft on the cruiser and still feel the effects.

Our 'Cat' draws about 2 feet and the roll is noticeable - 1st one hull goes up, then down, then the other hull goes up and down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Surprising - with only 24-30 inches I would have expected some 'roll'. I have 4' 6" draft on the cruiser and still feel the effects.

Our 'Cat' draws about 2 feet and the roll is noticeable - 1st one hull goes up, then down, then the other hull goes up and down.

They don't roll in this position 

 

blimey.jpg

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I came down the tidal Trent on one occasion on a 40' nb when it was well in flood with apparently 13' of "fresh", the waves were bouncing off my windows and every other wave the prop was spinning out the water, took 15 hours to get from Keadby to Cromwell .... never again! Personally i think anyone who does this by choice definitely needs to take more tablets!

Rick 

 

  • Greenie 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Surprising - with only 24-30 inches I would have expected some 'roll'. I have 4' 6" draft on the cruiser and still feel the effects.

Our 'Cat' draws about 2 feet and the roll is noticeable - 1st one hull goes up, then down, then the other hull goes up and down.

I think there will be the advantage of weight in the narrowboat hull, but there is bound to be some roll in lumpy water. I know when crossing the Ribble Link you feel this to some degree in less calm conditions, but the Irish Sea is a different animal! Having said that, it looked like they had reasonable conditions at sea; the Mersey Estuary looked the worst.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, rgreg said:

I think there will be the advantage of weight in the narrowboat hull, but there is bound to be some roll in lumpy water. I know when crossing the Ribble Link you feel this to some degree in less calm conditions, but the Irish Sea is a different animal! Having said that, it looked like they had reasonable conditions at sea; the Mersey Estuary looked the worst.

There lies the problem. Having been to sea in very serious boats/ships in severe gales and indeed in the arctic circle in Hurricane force there is no way I would ever go to sea in a glorified skip however much preparation had been made and mods done to it. Even the Irish sea can turn within an hour from calm to bloody awful and trying to dash for cover in a skip...........no thanks. Horses for courses etc etc.

  • Greenie 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Weather forecasting is much better than it used to be. When we were based in Port Grimaud in the 70s we were always being caught out in a mistral because Meteo France only ever forecast them after they had started, but now with Ugrib etc. there is good accuracy almost everywhere using sites such as Passage Weather.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

There lies the problem. Having been to sea in very serious boats/ships in severe gales and indeed in the arctic circle in Hurricane force there is no way I would ever go to sea in a glorified skip however much preparation had been made and mods done to it. Even the Irish sea can turn within an hour from calm to bloody awful and trying to dash for cover in a skip...........no thanks. Horses for courses etc etc.

The services used to operate a Landing Craft Logistic (LCT) between North Uist and St Kilda, which is 52 nautical miles NW of Stornoway heading out to Iceland. An LCT is a flat-bottomed boat, i believe around 200 tons. The cruise takes around 8 hours. they use an LCT because the ship has to beach land, no jetty on the Island.

 

On many occasions the seas are too high which means the LCT can beach and has to either standoff, so this is a flat bottom boat, in the Irish Sea, in storms, or return to Uist, You'd think that having jettisoned the contents of gut on outbound trip the return trip couldn't really get any worse, you would, in fact, be so very wrong, stuff of nightmares.  

So to conclude, based on my previous experience, would I take my NB on a journey on lumpy waters, not all the time I have a hole in my arse.

 

  • Happy 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, rgreg said:

Interestingly, on the film the skipper, Chris Coburn, comments on how surprisingly stable a narrowboat is in lumpy water due to the amount of hull beneath the waterline and is quite resistant to rolling. The biggest threat is from water ingress and fuel issues, hence the extra modifications they made to defend against these. 

I think a square edged flat bottom boat is actually quite resistant to rolling - up to a certain point then it just capsizes.  V bottom and rounded chine boats that go to sea tend to roll a bit but they tend not to turn over. Anyway, I will not be trying to prove how stable a long, narrow vessel really is. Can never understand how old sailing ships stay upright either, all that weight and leverage of sails up high, recipe for disaster if you ask me. Don't think I have any salt water in my blood.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have sailed / motored quite a few miles in my time and the Irish Sea is one of the worst seas.

It is relatively shallow and (even tho' 60+ miles wide) the sea is 'squashed' between the two land masses.

The tides running over some of the shallow ridges make for very broken seas.

The weather can 'blow-up' within an hour - I remember when we were on the South side of Anglesey, having ice-creams at Trearddur Bay, beautiful calm day, we headed about 5 miles offshore and turned to the North and hit 20 foot high waves, there was no way to stay on the plane so we 'dropped off' and slowly crept along at about 3-5knts and headed into Holyhead.

Another time we were coming back from the IoM and the weather changed about half-way back , the waves were breaking over the fly-bridge, a most uncomfortable trip back.

 

We were fortunate that having a fast boat (both Ireland and IoM were about 60 miles from our mooring and we could do either of them in 3 hours) we could 'get home' or to a safe-haven if the forecast turned bad, but if it happened suddenly you had to just do what you could.

No way would I take a squashed sewer tube out to sea.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
  • Happy 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Bee said:

I think a square edged flat bottom boat is actually quite resistant to rolling - up to a certain point then it just capsizes.  V bottom and rounded chine boats that go to sea tend to roll a bit but they tend not to turn over. Anyway, I will not be trying to prove how stable a long, narrow vessel really is. Can never understand how old sailing ships stay upright either, all that weight and leverage of sails up high, recipe for disaster if you ask me. Don't think I have any salt water in my blood.

Sorry to disagree with you Bee, but I do have the St Kilda T-Shirt, trust me, they rock and roll like a 60's band.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Bee said:

I think a square edged flat bottom boat is actually quite resistant to rolling - up to a certain point then it just capsizes.  V bottom and rounded chine boats that go to sea tend to roll a bit but they tend not to turn over. Anyway, I will not be trying to prove how stable a long, narrow vessel really is. Can never understand how old sailing ships stay upright either, all that weight and leverage of sails up high, recipe for disaster if you ask me. Don't think I have any salt water in my blood.

I hear that they are now building ships out of steel! How can this be right? Everybody knows that steel doesn't float so nothing good will come out of it! However, as we all know, the Brits are a nation of sailors so should be OK at sea, whatever craft they use....shouldn't they? :captain:

 

Howard

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.