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Anyone know what this is ?


Timx

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What we do:

 

Drop "Nappy Pin" (Pedants please note inverted commas) into a suitable gap in the "armco" preferably near a bolt.  At the stern thread line through loop pull; tight and tie off on boat.  Then at bow pass rope through loop doubled and over T stud.  Pull tight (4 thickness of rope a bit like using a pulley) tie off on the T stud.

 

EDIT to add:  At as near 45 degrees as possible.

Edited by Jerra
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For many years we have found goats chains infinitely preferable to piling hooks / nappy pins.

 

My one objection to goats chains is that when inserting them in the piling you have to get down low enough to rab the bottom end you have passed through, and invariably I seem to end up kneeling in wet grass, mud, (but hopefully not worse!).

 

That, and regular fights with the gap blocked off by vegetation, (often stinging nettles).

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15 hours ago, Chewbacka said:

Sounds like a goat chain to me

At the time the chains  for live stock were not to my mind heavy enough for the job hence the ones I got made up possibly made of more robust nature present day

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18 hours ago, Jerra said:

I must be doing something wrong!   I have never had a "nappy pin" fail and haven't heard the knock when boats pass.   What am I doing wrong?

 

Setting the ropes at a reasonable angle  to the boat and pulling the ropes tight before tying them. ?

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I've used both types and never had one come off (that I can remember anyway).  If put on correctly, I'm not really sure how that is even possible unless the whole section of armco is torn away.

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My experience of both types, is that they need  vertical tension, as well as horizontal tension, the trick being not to have them too far from boat.

Great for temporary mooring, but goat chains for longer times.

 

Bod   

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7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

And that angle is?

 

Around 45° both lines angled away from the boat, or 90° between the lines at each end if using springs.

 

Never had any issues with using them since they firdt became popular in the 1990's.

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1 minute ago, cuthound said:

 

Around 45° both lines angled away from the boat, or 90° between the lines at each end if using springs.

 

Never had any issues with using them since they firdt became popular in the 1990's.

This is where 'reasonable' become subjective. I'd be going for a much shallower angle than that

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45 minutes ago, RLWP said:

This is where 'reasonable' become subjective. I'd be going for a much shallower angle than that

 

I find to shallow an angle, or too slack lines,  results in the pin clanging against the piling. 

 

I think it needs the vertical pull that a shorter line gives to stop the pin clanging.

 

Perhaps different boats need different angles? IIRC MtB's Reginald is a tug, so the T stud would be lower than one on a conventional bow, which could account for Mike's problems when using piling hooks.

 

Edited by cuthound
To add the last sentance
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43 minutes ago, cuthound said:

Perhaps different boats need different angles?

 

I'd suggest that if a degree of vertical pull is required to stop them detaching at the bottom, then for any given "horizontal" angle to the piling chosen, that vertical component will vary dependent on how high up the stud or dolly is on the boat it is being attached to.

 

Put another way, if you are mooring the front end of an empty unconverted "Town" class narrow boat much of the pull will vertical, but if you are mooring the back end of a low slung tug, there may be no vertical pull at all, because the dolly is no higher than the top loop of the hook.  It is the latter case where I think they are far more likely to be detached - nearly every boat I see where one end has broken away on "hooks", it is the back end that is drifting free.

 

I'm sure they will hold some boats better than others, but other than quick insertion and removal, to me they seem to be in every way inferior to chains. (And we used to use the hooks until we realised the advantages of not doing so).

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54 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

I find to shallow an angle, or too slack lines,  results in the pin clanging against the piling. 

 

I think it needs the vertical pull that a shorter line gives to stop the pin clanging.

 

This ^^^^^^

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1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Ooo that reminds me, I once had a Ford Angular. A great car.

 

P.S. Where's yer bin, Rusty??!

Blimey, i didn't fink you was that old! 

 

I've bin decrusting me barnacles. 

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We used piling hooks for years and unlike Nappy Pins never lost one. When you remove the rope from a piling hook, it falls onto the top of the piling, wheras Nappy Pins require two hands to stop them sliding down the back of the piling and into the water. We did have a pair of Nappy Pins with rings and short looped ropes attached to them so that, when we arrived at a chosen place, the looped end could be placed onto a mooring dolly and the pin dropped onto the piling to hold the boat close to the bank before the boat's mooring ropes and hooks could be deployed. A very useful idea learnt from another boater which made mooring a lot easier on a busy waterway.

 

With regard to mooring rope angles it would seem that each boat varies. We had a high bow and found that the boat held best with a rear line almost at right angles, and a forward line at 45 degrees. We always dropped fenders down against the piling and preferred ropes to be tight, which prevented a lot of backwards and forwards movement when other boats passed.

Edited by David Schweizer
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3 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

Nappy Pins require two hands to stop them sliding down the back of the piling and into the water.

I have never noticed that problem.  I untie the line from the boat take the slack on to the towpath with me.  Hold the rope in my left hand and unhook the "nappy pin" with my right.  Place rope with "nappy pin" still attached on board.  I then remove the "nappy pin"  from the rope when on board and the boat is moving (or if I am helming the crew do) no good for single handers I know.

  • Greenie 1
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9 minutes ago, Jerra said:

I have never noticed that problem.  I untie the line from the boat take the slack on to the towpath with me.  Hold the rope in my left hand and unhook the "nappy pin" with my right.  Place rope with "nappy pin" still attached on board.  I then remove the "nappy pin"  from the rope when on board and the boat is moving (or if I am helming the crew do) no good for single handers I know.

I think you have demonstrated what I stated very well, removing them requires two hands. I wanted to be able to remove both the rope, and stow the pin quickly at both ends, before the boat had floated across the canal into the bushes.

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