Middlewich Branch breach - Shropshire Union

[Boater Sam]

We moor above Stanthorne lock. The level was only down a foot in the morning so the planks at Aqueduct didn't do much. Its still a lot of water.

[MoominPapa]

11 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

One thing that is fairly certain is that no boater would accidentally leave all 4 paddles open. It's not possible to get through a lock that way.

During the last Middlewich FAB festival we attended, three or four years ago. the paddles at Wardle lock and Kings lock were opened in the early hours of a couple of nights.  It was me who re-closed the Wardle ones one night, having woken up on a list. I recall that someone moored above Kings lock was hospitalised by injuries caused exiting a grounded and leaning boat. We left down Wardle lock the morning after the second incident and had to remove stones with which someone had attempted to jam the paddle-gear. So Middlewich may have had at least one resident who considered noctural paddle-opening a valid pastime. I wonder if he or she is still around?

 

MP.

 

[Boater Sam]

Its probably the same scrote that smashed all the windows of the boats moored aground on the towpath side between the locks the next night. He/She needs swimming lessons with a 56lb weight.

[dor]

2 hours ago, Boater Sam said:

We moor above Stanthorne lock. The level was only down a foot in the morning so the planks at Aqueduct didn't do much. Its still a lot of water.

It certainly is a lot of water as it is a long pound.  The problem for a marina is that the level doesn't have to drop much for the stern ropes to tighten and make the knots almost impossible to undo.  Shortly after Aqueduct Marina was opened it leaked into an uncharted culvert and the level in the marina and pound dropped several inches.  I and others rushed round slackening off mooring ropes to stop the knots locking.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

3 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

One thing that is fairly certain is that no boater would accidentally leave all 4 paddles open. It's not possible to get through a lock that way.

I don't think that anyone would accidentally leave all of the paddles open, for whatever reason, it was done deliberately. I've thought about the suggestion in Speedypete202 posting where he thought that there was a possibility that someone had done it to try to refill the pound, any my view is that it would be unlikely. For someone to want to do that it would almost certainly have to be a boater since no-one else would bother. A boater who thought about doing that is going to be a boater who would want to know why the water had gone down in the first place so, before trying to refill the pound, would have checked Wardle Lock to make sure that all the paddles weren't also open on that one since you aren't going to fill a pound if the water is just running straight through it. I'm beginning to think that CRT's theory just may have grounds.

13 minutes ago, dor said:

It certainly is a lot of water as it is a long pound.  The problem for a marina is that the level doesn't have to drop much for the stern ropes to tighten and make the knots almost impossible to undo.  Shortly after Aqueduct Marina was opened it leaked into an uncharted culvert and the level in the marina and pound dropped several inches.  I and others rushed round slackening off mooring ropes to stop the knots locking.

Isn't that why they suggest that you should tie your boat up with either a figure of eight around a cleat or a lighterman's hitch/boatman's hitch since neither knot can lock.

http://www.animatedknots.com/lightermans/index.php

 

[dmr]

47 minutes ago, dor said:

It certainly is a lot of water as it is a long pound.  The problem for a marina is that the level doesn't have to drop much for the stern ropes to tighten and make the knots almost impossible to undo.  Shortly after Aqueduct Marina was opened it leaked into an uncharted culvert and the level in the marina and pound dropped several inches.  I and others rushed round slackening off mooring ropes to stop the knots locking.

Maybe basic training should be compulsory, there should never ever be knots in a mooring line and they should never be secured in such away that they lock under tension.

[larryjc]

In my yottie days we always used a round turn and two half hitches to secure to a shore cleat/pin  because that can always be undone with tension on the line.  This is what I use nowadays as well.  That Lightermans hitch looks overcomplicated to me.

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

Well in the marina we use two short lines with a splice at each end of just the right length, so if our level dropped alarmingly you would kneed a knife. I would never consider that on a river

[Wanderer Vagabond]

9 hours ago, larryjc said:

In my yottie days we always used a round turn and two half hitches to secure to a shore cleat/pin  because that can always be undone with tension on the line.  This is what I use nowadays as well.  That Lightermans hitch looks overcomplicated to me.

 

 

I'm not entirely convinced that a round turn and two half hitches can always be undone with tension on the line, particularly if the tension is the weight of a boat pulling it. You'll always get the first half hitch undone but with a ton or so of tension on it the second hitch will lock off (out comes the knife). When sailing I've always been told to tie a round turn and then a figure of eight over the cleat,  followed by another round turn. It sounds corny but I do remember one particularly shrill yottie lady shouting at her crew,"REMEMBER,OXO, REMEMBER OXO" when they were tying up, I did see what she meant though.

Most knots can look overcomplicated until you actually tie them and realise they aren't that tricky. I used to have that problem with bowlines where about 1 in 4 used to just unravel instead of making the knot until someone showed me a different way of tying them; I can now tie them blindfolded, behind my back and with a 100% success rate.

[TheBiscuits]

7 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I'm not entirely convinced that a round turn and two half hitches can always be undone with tension on the line, particularly if the tension is the weight of a boat pulling it. You'll always get the first half hitch undone but with a ton or so of tension on it the second hitch will lock off (out comes the knife). When sailing I've always been told to tie a round turn and then a figure of eight over the cleat,  followed by another round turn. It sounds corny but I do remember one particularly shrill yottie lady shouting at her crew,"REMEMBER,OXO, REMEMBER OXO" when they were tying up, I did see what she meant though.

Most knots can look overcomplicated until you actually tie them and realise they aren't that tricky. I used to have that problem with bowlines where about 1 in 4 used to just unravel instead of making the knot until someone showed me a different way of tying them; I can now tie them blindfolded, behind my back and with a 100% success rate.

The rabbit goes round the tree ... which is feck all use on a cleat

Which reminds me ...

 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

The rabbit goes round the tree ... which is feck all use on a cleat

 

 

Yes, that was the way I was originally taught, unfortunately if the rabbit then goes down the hole the wrong way it all unravels

[TheBiscuits]

Just now, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Yes, that was the way I was originally taught, unfortunately if the rabbit then goes down the hole the wrong way it all unravels

Ah, but that is not a knot

 

[furnessvale]

On 25/03/2018 at 17:39, archie57 said:

I would think that "Rings" are increasingly difficult to navigate in a week due to the ever-increasing number of linear moored boats, past which we are expected to slow down.......

I love that word.  I do slow down, somewhat, but I equally expect permanently moored boats to be properly tied up.

George

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, furnessvale said:

I love that word.  I do slow down, somewhat, but I equally expect permanently moored boats to be properly tied up.

George

What about the temporarily moored ones, which make up the majority,  particularly those using pins in soft ground?

[Jess--]

2 hours ago, furnessvale said:

I love that word.  I do slow down, somewhat, but I equally expect permanently moored boats to be properly tied up.

George

I suppose if a boat comes away after you have passed it you can argue that it wasn't permanently moored

[Tom and Bex]

18 minutes ago, cuthound said:

What about the temporarily moored ones, which make up the majority,  particularly those using pins in soft ground?

Really? I would say permanent moorings make up the vast majority of moored boats. Boats moored on pins seem a very rare sight, although I do understand this will vary by area and waterway. And regardless of permanent moorings or not, unless using pins is the only option, there really is no excuse not to be securely moored!

And yes I do slow down for moored boats. Even more so if they're moored using pins, or the ropes are so slack they are trailing in the water!

[Rob-M]

14 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I'm not entirely convinced that a round turn and two half hitches can always be undone with tension on the line, particularly if the tension is the weight of a boat pulling it. You'll always get the first half hitch undone but with a ton or so of tension on it the second hitch will lock off (out comes the knife). When sailing I've always been told to tie a round turn and then a figure of eight over the cleat,  followed by another round turn. It sounds corny but I do remember one particularly shrill yottie lady shouting at her crew,"REMEMBER,OXO, REMEMBER OXO" when they were tying up, I did see what she meant though.

Most knots can look overcomplicated until you actually tie them and realise they aren't that tricky. I used to have that problem with bowlines where about 1 in 4 used to just unravel instead of making the knot until someone showed me a different way of tying them; I can now tie them blindfolded, behind my back and with a 100% success rate.

I watched someone starting out through Portishead Lock a few weeks ago on a training session and their lady trainer told them to "Remember OXO" and then demonstrated how a simple round turn, cross over the cleat and another round turn was sufficient to secure the boat and didn't require the mass of spaghetti that the guy had attempted to tie.

[cuthound]

7 minutes ago, Tom and Bex said:

Really? I would say permanent moorings make up the vast majority of moored boats. Boats moored on pins seem a very rare sight, although I do understand this will vary by area and waterway. And regardless of permanent moorings or not, unless using pins is the only option, there really is no excuse not to be securely moored!

And yes I do slow down for moored boats. Even more so if they're moored using pins, or the ropes are so slack they are trailing in the water!

The majority of permanently moored boats surely reside in marinas which a boat traverising a canal doesn't need to slow down for.

[furnessvale]

1 hour ago, Jess-- said:

I suppose if a boat comes away after you have passed it you can argue that it wasn't permanently moored

I do slow down passing moored boats BUT not to tickover on every occasion as some seem to demand.

I have a sliding scale in which type of mooring, and depth and width of canal are factored in.

A boat on a shallow relatively narrow canal moored on pins on the towpath for the night will command the most respect, probably tickover.

On the other hand, a boat on a permanent linear mooring on a wide deep canal will not be getting tickover.  If it comes away after I have passed it wasn't tied properly.  I cannot recall when, if ever, a boat has come away on my passing, but I do admit that poorly tied boats move about.

On my own permanent mooring I had a large tree fore and aft with very long lines, plus four deeply driven scaffold poles more adjacent to the boat.  The occasional boat passing on a breaking wash would hardly disturb me but I would consider his speed a tad excessive.  When I shared my mooring with another boat, the two were fastened together and the long lines placed fore and aft of the connected pair, so both boats moved as one.

I have little patience for long lines of moored boats eg Golden Nook, where owners cannot be bothered fastening each boat fore and aft to its neighbours so all boats move (or are restrained from moving) as one.

George

Edited April 4, 2018 by furnessvale

[Cheshire cat]

Back on topic, has anyone from C&RT published a plan yet that goes beyond rescuing the stranded boaters? Has the Springer been rescued from upstream of the breach? 

[Arthur Marshall]

26 minutes ago, Cheshire cat said:

Back on topic, has anyone from C&RT published a plan yet that goes beyond rescuing the stranded boaters? Has the Springer been rescued from upstream of the breach? 

I'd got the impression from other posts that the Springer was unlicensed and the guy living on it has been rehoused.  I may be in error.

[WotEver]

37 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I'd got the impression from other posts that the Springer was unlicensed and the guy living on it has been rehoused.  I may be in error.

I formed the same impression. 

[Pie Eater]

1 hour ago, Cheshire cat said:

Back on topic, has anyone from C&RT published a plan yet that goes beyond rescuing the stranded boaters? Has the Springer been rescued from upstream of the breach? 

The Springer was still there on Sunday when I walked the section. There were also 2 more narrowboats which the owners must have decided to stay put on the offside until the breach is repaired.

1 hour ago, Cheshire cat said:

 

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by Pie Eater
Duplicate

[Minormatt]

Can anyone explain the need for the exhausts on to boats to be bunged during the refloating?  Im sure there must be a good reason - but I can't think what!

[Mike Hurley]

6 minutes ago, Minormatt said:

Can anyone explain the need for the exhausts on to boats to be bunged during the refloating?  Im sure there must be a good reason - but I can't think what!

So the engine does not get flooded, shortly followed by the rest of the boat.