Gang plank length for canals

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pcatterall

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33' boat drawing 4'6" What length of plank will reach most banks yet not be too big to store.
I'm thinking of a section of ally ladder with light ply sections to fit as required.
Ladder can tie to guard rail with plywood stored below.
Any experience(s) ??
 
On a hire boat on the Canal du Midi, we had one about 4 feet long which was fine (often we didn't need it at all). I don't know whether your draught might keep you further from the bank (but if it does, how are you going to get a line ashore?)

Pete
 
Blueboatman said:
Scaffold plank and take a saw with you...
Click to expand...

Blueboatman,

I'd agree !

With a 38 metre Peniche in Burgundy, - it only drew about 3 feet - we couldn't get close to the banks when progress was prevented by the Eclusiers' spectacularly long luch breaks, sometimes requiring moi ( much fitter then ) to climb up the mooring lines.

We also came up with a design for a gangplank about 16' long, suspended to cope with passing commercial barge wash and caravan style jockey wheels to run up & down the shore end.

On a yacht I'd probably take a scaffolding plank and give it to someone going the other way, when reaching the canal exit...
 
We used a two-section ladder with ply on one side. (useful to cut small toe-holes away from the centre)
It was used as a passarelle when stern/bows -to, to access the windmill/radar/aerials on the pole at the back, and to access the boat when out on the hard.
Now in UK we still have a two-section to use as spreader for lift-in/out and dry access.
Never needed one on a canal though, unless you're talking about the dirty plank outside the fenders used in locks - in which case almost anything found floating around will do.
 
Hehe, walking the plank takes on a new excitement after a good lunch!

Last (and only) time I went through a canal I acquired a set of Mini Tyres that had racked up considerable mileage already, back and forth....:)
 
Seajet said:
With a 38 metre Peniche in Burgundy, - it only drew about 3 feet - we couldn't get close to the banks when progress was prevented by the Eclusiers' spectacularly long luch breaks, sometimes requiring moi ( much fitter then ) to climb up the mooring lines.
Click to expand...

So how did the mooring lines get ashore in the first place? :confused:

Sounds like an Indian Rope Trick to climb up the mooring line in order to take it ashore and tie it up :D

Pete
 
prv said:
So how did the mooring lines get ashore in the first place? :confused:

Sounds like an Indian Rope Trick to climb up the mooring line in order to take it ashore and tie it up :D

Pete
Click to expand...

Pete,

apologies, I realised as I posted...

We'd dropped the passengers off at a lock, then moored the barge up with 1 metre long stakes driven into the ground...

The boat promptly drifted away, so I had to shin up the mooring line to start her up and drive her into the bankside while then *****ing around also setting up the gangplank...

In a much more potentially nasty incident at Chalon - Sur Soane ( in deep water alongside a stone wall with steps ) I was chatting with passengers when a chap - in his 80's & largely blind - came back to the boat and I just, by pure luck, saw him about to step on the gangplank after it had been dislodged by the wash of a passing tug, so yelled at him to hang about while I reset it; a failure on my part, I'd let myself get distracted, but a few seconds later it might have been a very different story...
 
Do make sure you've got yer big tent pegs to nail the boat to the bank. They're necessary on the Midi, anyway, dunno about elsewhere.

Pete
 
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