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Post by metanoia on Jul 16, 2023 20:21:40 GMT
Use my centre line every time I step off but never use it to tie up, except on lock landings or service points. Amazed when I see the "three lines" moored - often gives away a "dumped boat". Why would you? Honestly, you could lose your best china off the shelf like some of the very best most educated experienced boaters here who sometimes have to do it on their own We all know how very much "tippage" a tied centreline causes - I often cringe when I'm lockside (helping others, as you do) and look up/down to check my boat only to see it violently rocking and rolling as they exit/enter at speed. I tend to slide in gently, step off with the centre line, tie up the stern (in case I need to step back on) with the engine still running then tie up at the bow. Put centre line back on roof. Switch engine off. Let dog off, take tiller off, put kettle on.....
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Post by Mr Stabby on Jul 16, 2023 20:28:31 GMT
When I have crew and we moor up, the other person holds the centre line while I tie up. When I'm single handing it's pretty much the same except that I secure the centre line to the piling with a nappy pin while I tie up.
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Post by metanoia on Jul 16, 2023 20:38:29 GMT
Why? Unless it's exceptionally windy or really, silly busy I've never found the need to do that.
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Post by metanoia on Jul 16, 2023 20:40:44 GMT
Depends on how long you faff about, I suppose.
It's only a little narrowboat - not a full blown sea going tanker..................
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Post by dogless on Jul 25, 2023 11:19:38 GMT
Speaking of tippage (just struck me as a boat raced by) one of the reasons I dislike Bancroft basin for mooring is the short jetties, where I have to tie front and centre lines.
It's really windy in the basin and as my centre line's anchored on the roof (not sensibly on the gunnel) strong gusts cause that twisting feeling.
Of course Jane loves the basin and so we compromise and do what she likes.
Boats tied tightly by centre line from the roof must seriously exaggerate the twist when boats pass briskly, which may explain the 'Slow down' shouts.
Just a thought.
Rog
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Post by thebfg on Jul 25, 2023 16:28:14 GMT
On the rare occasions I've worked solo I learned to tie the centre line so the boat was secured whilst I managed to tie bow and stern ... embarrassing running between bow and stern lines like a see-saw was then avoided. Of course with no other boats about I wouldn't bother with the centre as there was little movement, and either way I wouldn't leave it tied once moored. Rog In the time taken to tie the centreline, you could tie say the bow and make the line length appropriate (not necessarily tight). Then go to stern and pull the boat back so that bow line comes tight and tie it off. I suspect that, just like the thumbs up thread on the other channel, this issue depends on when you started boating. In the 60s when I started boating everyone had cruisers. They didn’t have centre lines. Then Chris’s dad bought Zenobia 1 (47’ steel narrowboat) in the early 70s. It didn’t have a centre line and of course traditional working narrowboats didn’t have centre lines. They hadn’t been thought of. We managed to do some long trips including over the L&L and another year, to Ely (both from Lapworth) without a centre line. Very bold! Can’t say I noticed centre lines on other purpose built leisure steel narrowboats at the time. Stopped boating late 70s. Then in about 1990 went back to boating and borrowing Chris’s boat, which was now Zenobia 2, a 57’ narrowboat, and it had this new fangled thing, a centre line. Quite a novelty. When we got Telemachus in 2011 it had a centreline. And then we added another one. Luxury! So centrelines came in somewhere between about 1978 and 1990. Canals were built around 1750. So somehow, people managed without centrelines for over 200 years and it is only in the last 30 years or so that they have become the mandatory source of faffing about that they now are. is that called progress? 30 years ago I suspect you never felt you needed a mobile phone, but I bet you carry one now.
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Post by on Jul 25, 2023 17:03:01 GMT
Working motor narrow boats had a rope on a sliding bar at the front of the cabin.
Ok so this was not exactly a centre line but performed a very similar function due to the design of the vessel.
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Post by Telemachus on Jul 25, 2023 17:06:24 GMT
In the time taken to tie the centreline, you could tie say the bow and make the line length appropriate (not necessarily tight). Then go to stern and pull the boat back so that bow line comes tight and tie it off. I suspect that, just like the thumbs up thread on the other channel, this issue depends on when you started boating. In the 60s when I started boating everyone had cruisers. They didn’t have centre lines. Then Chris’s dad bought Zenobia 1 (47’ steel narrowboat) in the early 70s. It didn’t have a centre line and of course traditional working narrowboats didn’t have centre lines. They hadn’t been thought of. We managed to do some long trips including over the L&L and another year, to Ely (both from Lapworth) without a centre line. Very bold! Can’t say I noticed centre lines on other purpose built leisure steel narrowboats at the time. Stopped boating late 70s. Then in about 1990 went back to boating and borrowing Chris’s boat, which was now Zenobia 2, a 57’ narrowboat, and it had this new fangled thing, a centre line. Quite a novelty. When we got Telemachus in 2011 it had a centreline. And then we added another one. Luxury! So centrelines came in somewhere between about 1978 and 1990. Canals were built around 1750. So somehow, people managed without centrelines for over 200 years and it is only in the last 30 years or so that they have become the mandatory source of faffing about that they now are. is that called progress? 30 years ago I suspect you never felt you needed a mobile phone, but I bet you carry one now. The centre line is useful of course. Just not for mooring unless eg on a short finger pontoon. I’m just pointing out it’s a newfangled invention like a mobile phone. I often use ours to strap the boat to a halt at lock landings etc
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Post by thebfg on Jul 26, 2023 17:24:10 GMT
is that called progress? 30 years ago I suspect you never felt you needed a mobile phone, but I bet you carry one now. The centre line is useful of course. Just not for mooring unless eg on a short finger pontoon. I’m just pointing out it’s a newfangled invention like a mobile phone. I often use ours to strap the boat to a halt at lock landings etc thats pretty much all I have ever done, pulling it in at locks and mooring, i never really tied it either just left it on the floor most if the time.
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Post by on Jul 26, 2023 18:43:37 GMT
When I was narrowboating rather than spending endless hours in an electric canoe getting a ridiculous sun tan and drinking too much beer one thing I always did was left the centre line coiled up and placed on the towpath beside the boat. Not tied but lying on the ground coiled.
It was interesting to observe that people would occasionally pick it up and put it on the boat as if it had been forgotten.
Either someone being helpful or someone with attitude. I was never sure which of the two it was.
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