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Tackling Tunnels


pophops

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One of the things that bothered me when I first started boating was navigating a straight line through tunnels without scraping the sides. But being moored fairly close to Wast Hill Tunnel which is about 1.5 miles long and travelling through regularly, I have developed a system that works well for me. Everyone has their own way of tackling tunnels and there may well be a better way but this is what I do........

The tunnel light I use is fairly wide angle and is pointed upward at an angle of about 45 deg. so that it lights the tunnel roof about 10 feet ahead of the boat. What I see from the helm is a bright pool of light on the tunnel roof and some illumination of the walls of the tunnel just ahead of the boat. It is this pool of light on the roof of the tunnel which is important. While the boat is central in the channel the pool of light remains in the centre of the tunnel roof. As soon as the boat starts to go off-centre the pool of light begins to illuminate the side rather than the centre of the roof. It is a simple case of correcting the steering of the boat to bring the light back to the centre of the roof and the bows back to the centre of the tunnel. In addition to the tunnel light I have a small solar light (2 for £1 at Poundland) fixed to the centre of the roof just behind the cratch. This just helps identify the front of the boat and helps keep the bow of the boat lined up with the tunnel exit.

And that's it. No need to try and illuminate the tunnel far ahead, dazzling other boaters as you do so.

Hope this can be of some help to others

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I love tunnels, my headlight is a low powered vintage car light that I point upwardsrightish.

I also turn all cabin lights on forward of engine room, engine room hatches open and engine room light on. I also have two solar globes, one green, one red orange in a herb basket at the front so I know which my right and left hands are.

I have also now cunningly adorned my 70 foot length with a sparkly shiny LED rope which not only lights the roof of the tunnel, it also lets me know I am still going straight.

 

I have steered at least 5 boats without any light through some long tunnels with the aid of a few carefully placed led lamps and a small torch.

I steered one boat through Braunston without any lighting at all, just followed the boat in front and didn't blink.

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Just a powerful torch on the hatch (as well as the headlight tiled up slightly) so you can see the roof of the boat in relation to the roof and sides of the tunnel does the job for me.

Edited by Tiggs
  • Greenie 1
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Our lamp points down, so the light reflects off the water and up to the roof. That way, you get a wider spread of light

 

I'm liking Matty's rope light plan - solar LEDs are very, very cheap and switch on automatically

 

Richard

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I love tunnels, my headlight is a low powered vintage car light that I point upwardsrightish.

I also turn all cabin lights on forward of engine room, engine room hatches open and engine room light on. I also have two solar globes, one green, one red orange in a herb basket at the front so I know which my right and left hands are.

I have also now cunningly adorned my 70 foot length with a sparkly shiny LED rope which not only lights the roof of the tunnel, it also lets me know I am still going straight.

 

I have steered at least 5 boats without any light through some long tunnels with the aid of a few carefully placed led lamps and a small torch.

I steered one boat through Braunston without any lighting at all, just followed the boat in front and didn't blink.

I have to say that I'm not that impressed by steering through without any light at all. You are then relying on other people lights making you visible to them. I had an example of that in I believe Braunston tunnel where I could see the lit lead boat but didn't see the unlit boat immediately behind him so had to take evasive action as I'd already started to move back to the centre of the canal after passing the lit boat. Anyone can steer without lights, but why would you want to?

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I have to say that I'm not that impressed by steering through without any light at all. You are then relying on other people lights making you visible to them. I had an example of that in I believe Braunston tunnel where I could see the lit lead boat but didn't see the unlit boat immediately behind him so had to take evasive action as I'd already started to move back to the centre of the canal after passing the lit boat. Anyone can steer without lights, but why would you want to?

It's quite likely their tunnel light had failed so they deliberately followed another boat.

 

Anyone really can't steer without lights; it's incredibly difficult in a long tunnel. On my first trip out with my boat I found I had a loose connection in my tunnel light - it worked when I tested it - and ended up passing through Tardebigge, Shortwood and Wast Hill Tunnels without it. I have a glazed cabin front so my internal lights would be visible to oncoming boats but in the event I didn't meet any. The first two tunnels are about 600 yards long and light from both portals carries through the tunnel so I was fine in those.

 

Entering Wast Hills it was absolutely black and the interior lights made no visible impression. I had no idea of the orientation of the boat so careered from side to side for 800m. After that I got accustomed enough to the light to avoid the walls for the remaining 1600m or so. That's why the string of lights along the top is such a good idea.

 

JP

Edited by Captain Pegg
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Love the idea of lighting the tunnel roof, clever idea. A couple of the tunnels on the Llangollen have a footpath/towpath which complicate the issue slightly unless you can move the light to shine at an angle.

I use the cabin lights at the front to help see where the tunnel sides are.

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My favourite tunnel light incident has to be meeting Dave_P in Netherton with Mrs P in Kate Winslett pose on the bow wearing a head torch

 

Richard

It was my worst!

 

Steering the butty Malus behind Atlas I was viewing two small lights from behind a pair of tunnel lights in a tunnel that also had a number of walkers and cyclists on the towpaths on a Bank Holiday afternoon so I had no idea what was approaching - or even if it was approaching - until I saw the boat right in front of us as it came past Atlas. It's not easy to directly follow a slow moving motor with a slow moving butty. Collision was avoided though so it wasn't my worst tunnel incident overall.

 

JP

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My favourite tunnel light incident has to be meeting Dave_P in Netherton with Mrs P in Kate Winslett pose on the bow wearing a head torch

 

Richard

Glad to be such a source of joy! I shall inform the good lady of her likeness to Ms Winslett.

It was my worst!

 

 

 

Sorry! Tunnel light now fully functional. Horn stopped working though!

 

I have this https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/be/65/f6/be65f6076c142d989196e2d78438657e.jpgas a back-up

Edited by Dave_P
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It is amazing how a moments inattention can result in disaster.

 

I was looking at something interesting on the wall of Snarestone tunnel (relatively wide and short) and glanced the bulge in the wall with the starboard corner, resulting in a tear to the cratch and a damaged navigation light.

 

First tunnel related damage in 43 years, oh well :(

 

Edited to change "teat" to "tear", bluddy autokorrect has gone tits up again!

Edited by cuthound
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It is amazing how a moments inattention can result in disaster.

 

I was looking at something interesting on the wall of Snarestone tunnel (relatively wide and short) and glanced the bulge in the wall with the starboard corner, resulting in a teat to the cratch and a damaged navigation light.

 

First tunnel related damage in 43 years, oh well sad.png

I have caught that bump as well

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Met a CRT pusher tug in Braunston tunnel. The have a tunnel light on the front of tug, which meant that the meeting with the 70' unlit pan travelling in front of the tug was a bit a surprise........

 

MP.

Well at least it was a narrow beam pan. It was, wasn't it?

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Atlas in Netherton is pretty spectacular, with the bright headlamp and growl of the gearbox

 

Richard

Even more spectacular is the bulge half way along, where the invert is being pushed up. Catches boats of 3' draft or more.

 

I was going like a bat out of he'll at that point, frightened me half to death as the whole boat lurched up!

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Even more spectacular is the bulge half way along, where the invert is being pushed up. Catches boats of 3' draft or more.

 

I was going like a bat out of he'll at that point, frightened me half to death as the whole boat lurched up!

Just seen a Stoppage Notice to look at it again

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I have to say that I'm not that impressed by steering through without any light at all. You are then relying on other people lights making you visible to them?

Unfortunately I don't always get a choice of the best boats to move, although have moved some crackers.

Sometimes I have boats which have lacked maintenance, some have never moved in years, and some have never had a tunnel light fitted - I just move and sort problems as I go along- I enjoy a challenge and don't like to let customers or brokerages down!!

I do take lights with me nowadays, and always try to do tunnels at times unlikely to have other boats moving if I know the boat hasn't got working lighting.

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It is amazing how a moments inattention can result in disaster.

I was looking at something interesting on the wall of Snarestone tunnel (relatively wide and short) and glanced the bulge in the wall with the starboard corner, resulting in a tear to the cratch and a damaged navigation light.

First tunnel related damage in 43 years, oh well :(

Edited to change "teat" to "tear", bluddy autokorrect has gone tits up again!

The wonderful thing about boating is that that counts as a disaster.
  • Greenie 1
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Unfortunately I don't always get a choice of the best boats to move, although have moved some crackers.

Sometimes I have boats which have lacked maintenance, some have never moved in years, and some have never had a tunnel light fitted - I just move and sort problems as I go along- I enjoy a challenge and don't like to let customers or brokerages down!!

I do take lights with me nowadays, and always try to do tunnels at times unlikely to have other boats moving if I know the boat hasn't got working lighting.

Seems the sensible approach, no point suffering a tunnel ramming just for saving the cost of a cheap torchunsure.png

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  • 8 months later...

I have two of the cheap silver 4 x led bulb magnetic base lights. Before entering the tunnel I stick them either side of the rear cabin just in front of my peripheral vision and they cast a beam on the side tunnel wall and gives me a visual clue off each wall, complimenting my tunnel lamp.  Out of the tunnel just pull them off and tuck them inside the clove box inside the hatch for next time.

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Sometimes in the long braunston tunnel i have difficulty judging the speed and distance of an oncoming boat. Their light seems to be stopped sometimes, maybe having the same problem as me.they seem to be approaching forever. I just reduce speed to tickover and move as close to the right wall as possible. Most times we barely kiss, which gets me singing "a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh , the fundemental things of life, as boats go by !"

 

Last year i was followed closely by another boat, his tunnel light bathing my Alchemy in distracting light. I kept hearing such a loud noise from him i thought he was scraping the brickwork every minute or so. When we teamed up at braunston top lock, i could see it was a shining brand new expensive looking boat. I asked the skipper about the noise. It was the hydraulic bow thruster. he trimmed the boat continuously with it through the tunnel. The noise was not nice in the extreme. I,m sure its not a recommended use of the bow thruster.

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On 7/13/2016 at 20:35, pophops said:

One of the things that bothered me when I first started boating was navigating a straight line through tunnels without scraping the sides. But being moored fairly close to Wast Hill Tunnel which is about 1.5 miles long and travelling through regularly, I have developed a system that works well for me. Everyone has their own way of tackling tunnels and there may well be a better way but this is what I do........

The tunnel light I use is fairly wide angle and is pointed upward at an angle of about 45 deg. so that it lights the tunnel roof about 10 feet ahead of the boat. What I see from the helm is a bright pool of light on the tunnel roof and some illumination of the walls of the tunnel just ahead of the boat. It is this pool of light on the roof of the tunnel which is important. While the boat is central in the channel the pool of light remains in the centre of the tunnel roof. As soon as the boat starts to go off-centre the pool of light begins to illuminate the side rather than the centre of the roof. It is a simple case of correcting the steering of the boat to bring the light back to the centre of the roof and the bows back to the centre of the tunnel. In addition to the tunnel light I have a small solar light (2 for £1 at Poundland) fixed to the centre of the roof just behind the cratch. This just helps identify the front of the boat and helps keep the bow of the boat lined up with the tunnel exit.

And that's it. No need to try and illuminate the tunnel far ahead, dazzling other boaters as you do so.

Hope this can be of some help to others

Following the roof sound good in most tunnels, I am more a fan of cabin lights and torch on the rear hatch .... not sure if following the roof would work here .....P1040855.JPG.b03a55a0a4486d17ed0d08a6c8ef46a8.JPG

 

  • Greenie 1
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