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Leaves at Hockley Heath


Laurie Booth

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1 hour ago, Laurie.Booth said:

This is a long shot.

 

North Stratford Canal.

 

Next Wednesday I want to go from Lady Lane to Hockley Heath and I need to know how bad the leaves are on this route as Clarrie suffers badly with leaves. Anyone been there in the last few days? 

I will probably regret asking...but how does Clarrie suffer badly from leaves?

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Not much use for the OP, but the L&L between Wigan and Blackburn is very bad for leaves at the moment.

 

They should all start to sink in the next few weeks, which will help no end.

 

For those that don't suffer from leaves, I can only assume you don't cruise a lot at this time of year.  The floating leaves wrap themselves into a ball around the propeller, and you gradually lose propulsion and steering.

 

To work around this I "sprint & drift" by knocking the boat into neutral and drifting for 10 or 20 seconds and watch the clump of leaves get washed off the prop.  Yesterday I had to do this about every 3 minutes to make any progress!

 

Sometimes constantly varying the revs between tickover and normal cruising speed can reduce the leafball problem, but not yesterday - I am sure there were more floating leaves than water on some of the corners.

Edited by TheBiscuits
grammar!
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I find frequent short bursts of reverse are required to disperse the leaves from around the prop.

 

Whatever you do don't go looking down the weedhatch to see why you aren't progressing normally. The sneaky little bu**ers wait until you have got the lid off before sinking to the bottom, so all you find is a clear prop! ?

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1 minute ago, cuthound said:

I find frequent short bursts of reverse are required to disperse the leaves from around the prop.

 

Whatever you do don't go looking down the weedhatch to see why you aren't progressing normally. The sneaky little bu**ers wait until you have got the lid off before sinking to the bottom, so all you find is a clear prop! ?

I find that bursts of reverse slow you down too much when the leaves are so bad you have to keep doing it every few minutes - try the neutral for 10+ seconds "sprint & drift" technique, which has the same effect but without costing as much forward momentum.

 

Yes, the "what was the point of that" weedhatch game was one that I discovered the first Autumn after getting a boat. 

 

If the leaves seem particularly worse than you would expect, it's amazing how the tiniest bit of plastic round the prop seems to suck the leaves into a ball, so it is worth making sure the prop is clear before setting off this time of year.

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Knowing that stretch I find it hard to think that it would not be covered in leaves, but other than a quick blast of reverse (or even just a neutral, I will give that a try), I can’t see why it would be that big an issue, it is not exactly very far!

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13 hours ago, max's son said:

is suffering from leaves worse than suffering from wind

A lot worse.

11 hours ago, Horace42 said:

I will probably regret asking...but how does Clarrie suffer badly from leaves?

The leaves clog up the propeller 

:(

9 hours ago, MartynG said:

A boat cannot suffer  - it is not a conscious being.

 

 

 

Clarrie is a conscious being.

:)

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4 hours ago, john6767 said:

Knowing that stretch I find it hard to think that it would not be covered in leaves, but other than a quick blast of reverse (or even just a neutral, I will give that a try), I can’t see why it would be that big an issue, it is not exactly very far!

If the stretch is badly covered with leaves this short trip will take about 4 hours,

:(

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On 11/11/2018 at 09:49, max's son said:

is suffering from leaves worse than suffering from wind

Leaves at Hockley Heath?

Just a few seconds in neutral and one or two turns of the prop astern sorts that.

 

But the bloody pigeons!

That takes a lot longer to sort the paintwork and cabin top in the morning.

 

James

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The mainline Gu between Kingswood and Knowle was full of them a couple of days ago, I thought there were stoppages on the stretch you are considering though?

Edited by BWM
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1 hour ago, cheshire~rose said:

 

 

Of course... on The Turnerwood Flight of The Chesterfield Canal there are so many leaves that we just enjoy them:

 

46124039_329747044484378_413162206187120

 

Photo by Marcus Hill-Jones

The would be perfect for a jigsaw

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On 11/11/2018 at 10:45, Laurie.Booth said:

This is a long shot.

 

North Stratford Canal.

 

Next Wednesday I want to go from Lady Lane to Hockley Heath and I need to know how bad the leaves are on this route as Clarrie suffers badly with leaves. Anyone been there in the last few days? 

The best way to deal with it is to coast briefly in neutral every so often, particularly under bridges. The Brumtug I used to use was really bad at collecting leaves or food wrappers, and it was noticeable when it happened. After several visits to the weed hatch I accepted that it was a question of going into neutral on a regular basis.

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