Prop fouling

[jocave]

Just wondering if prop fouling is a normal thing ?, as a relative new boater ,only been out and about for a couple of months my days seem to be spoiled by getting tangled up in various discarded crap or just various floating vegetation, maybe it just the Lancaster that has this problem , I should point out that I have an outboard powered boat so untangling stuff is not a major problem but due to the design of the boat I am unable to tilt the engine totally out of the water, on Thursday we went up to the boat with the intention of a short one hour cruise to visit a pub for lunch , five mins in we are getting shouts and pointing from the tow path ,wife checks behind and says we a dragging half a tree around, five minutes later all sorted and on our way again , no sooner as I had settled down again the engine slowed reved up again and finally stalled, half an hour later the remains of what looked like a fertiliser bag was removed from the prop, reaching our mooring I was manovering into position when the boat started shaking and the outboard was jumping up and down ,looking behind a large reed/weed thing was tangled up in the rudder, on our journey home we encountered three more tangles that were solved with a burst of reverse, back at the marina I lifted the engine again to find various bits of blue rope tangled around the rudder and prop, now this is spoiling my boating up to now so I'm hoping this is not the norm and I've just been unlucky..

[Bargebuilder]

You have been unlucky.

I am just returning from 10 weeks on the cut, doing 5 or 6 hours every day but 4 due to rain: We have covered over 600 miles. We picked up a heavy duty fertiliser plastic sack on the very first day of the trip which stalled our inboard diesel engine, but haven't had any problems since, apart from a little weed on a about 3 or 4 occasions. 

I do steer round any obvious bits of rubbish or weed and occasionally give the boat a bit of full astern if performance drops, but that is all.

Your stretch of water must be very mucky or you must have been very unlucky, or both!

Don't give up, it's great fun on the water.

[jocave]

I do try and avoid the floating stuff, hoping its not a regular occurance as it could well get tiresome pretty quickly .

[frahkn]

2 hours ago, jocave said:

I do try and avoid the floating stuff, hoping its not a regular occurance as it could well get tiresome pretty quickly .

I am not very experienced with outboards, it's many years since I used one but I seem to remember that I spent some time untangling rubbish and replacing cotter pins. Not however anything similar to your own experience - I think you must have been unlucky.

With a narrowboat I find that often (with experience) you are aware of potential problems at an early stage and that a burst of reverse can clear the prop if used early. Also, low revs in mucky conditions can help avoid entanglements.

[Bargebuilder]

The most troublesome plastic, weed and bits of string tend to float, so is it possible that being an outboard, your propeller sits higher in the water than might a narrow boat prop making it more in the 'danger zone'.

[Jim Riley]

I have an outboard on the back of my narrow boat. I can title the engine but it's a fiddle, so bought a pair of long waterproof gloves that come up to my armpit. The sort of thing a vet in the elephant house might use. Laying on the back deck I can reach and clear the prop. Job sorted.

Some bits of cut seem to be worse than others, a burst of reverse helps clear the prop. 

[Peter-Bullfinch]

You've been very unlucky. We spent 6 weeks up and down the Lancaster including the Glasson branch earlier this year and didn't have one trip down the weedhatch.

In fact, thinking about it,  I haven't been down the weedhatch at all this year other than to check for the Ribble Link. Our trip has included the Leeds and Liverpool,  Llangollen, the Shroppie, Montogmery, Trent and Mersey and the Weaver. 

 

[Jess--]

I think you have been unlucky.

recently we have had extremes with getting tangled.

4 weeks cruising (covering about 250 miles) without having to clear anything

followed by having to clear the prop 4 times in 100 feet

[Laurie Booth]

Try the BCN

[matty40s]

6 hours ago, Peter-Bullfinch said:

 

In fact, thinking about it,  I haven't been down the weedhatch at all this year other than to check for the Ribble Link.

 

The Mattress Of Tame has nothing compared to finding the Ribble Link down your weedhatch.

[blackrose]

On 26/08/2017 at 21:42, Bargebuilder said:

 

I do steer round any obvious bits of rubbish or weed and occasionally give the boat a bit of full astern if performance drops, but that is all.

As well as steering around obvious floating weeds and rubbish (assuming that's possible) and giving it an occasional blast of reverse, if you see floating weed or rubbish ahead then anther technique is to take the boat out of gear and use the boat's momentum to take you through that area. This is probably going to be more successful on a heavy steel boat with an inboard engine, but it works for lighter boats with outboards too. If you need some steering you just put the engine back into forward for a few seconds and and back into neutral and keep doing that until you clear the rubbish. Unlike smaller outboard props, big props driven by big inboards will generally cut through weed, but in general the less your prop rotates the less chance of it picking up rubbish.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

A lot depends upon where you are cruising. As another poster mentioned the BCN can be 'interesting' but generally speaking, the canals outside of the big urban areas tend to be OK. Having said that, the two slowest canals I've been on due to weed problems have been the Chesterfield and, this year, the Pocklington which took me 3.5 hours to travel 4.5 miles!

[Neil2]

An o/b and the Lancaster canal is sadly a recipe for prop fouling on a regular basis.  Because the Lanky is effectively lock free it takes longer for the swarf to get flushed out. But an outboard will suffer more from prop fouling anyway.  You've probably got four blades for a start, and turning a lot faster than a relatively slow revving three blade narrowboat prop.  It's almost designed to pick up submerged debris, and often the sort that takes ages to remove, fishing line and string eg.  Not a lot you can do about it really, except don't follow other boats too close and always coast through bridge holes.    

[jocave]

Think I've solved the issue, I've removed the twin bladed rudder safe and replaced it with a simple single rudder extension, been out a number of times since with no problems at all, think it was the design of the twin blade contraption that just seemed to catch hold of anything and everything..

[WJM]

I have a theory that if you go too slow you are more likely to foul your prop. A faster moving boat pushes the rubbish aside. I have used my weed hatch four or five times in the last decade!