dism wrote:Fretted about a 3.2m flood on the Clarence.
Learnt alot about the river rising and how I should plan for this is the future.
River now dropping. Water weed, getting a extention strop and getting sorted early for next time
Any tips appreciated.
That is a lot of water Dean. I don't know what the Clarence is like but up here (Fitzroy River, Rockhampton), the speed of the water increases as the flood depth increases and it can get insane. I imagine you would have to cope with a very fast run which makes weed and logs more of a menace than with slow runs.
The last two floods when I had Windchaser, I trialled a new idea which worked for me. The problem I found when trying to move Windchaser off the mooring when the flood was rising was the pressure against the boat making it hard for me to slip the loop off the mooring cleat. If I had a deckhand, I could have had the boat motoring forward against the flow to take the pressure off, but always by myself. If too much pressure and me not strong enough to budge the loop, I would simply cut the mooring rope, but this was not ideal even though I had a sacrificial end on it so no problems about cutting it.
I tied a 5 foot 12 mm rope about 5 foot down from the loop on the 20 mm mooring rope loop. Just used a double clove hitch. To moor up, I would take the tension on the 12 mm rope and wrap it on the cleat. I tied up the thin rope such that the main loop in the 20 mm rope could sit loosely over the cleat. Thin rope taking the pressure, the loop end of the thick rope slack. If I was feeling paranoid, I would put a whip of thin cord around the main loop holding it down on the cleat.
Here's how it worked. The thinner rope did not slide on the main mooring rope not did it reduce the strength of the main mooring rope. The thin rope took all the pressure off the loop of the main mooring line. It was thinner and if it had broken, the main line was still over the cleat so would have taken up the pressure. When I wanted to drop the mooring, the main mooring rope loop was loose on the cleat, no pressure on it as it was taken up by the thin rope, so lifted easily off. Then, since the thin rope was only wrapped on the cleat, it could be unwound no matter what the pressure, or could be cut as it was totally sacrificial.
While putting the two ropes on the cleat was a bit fiddly, I found it worked. Quick release is less stressful than trying to saw through a rope with the panic of a flood. You can understand why nobody ever uses chain from cleat to the mooring. If chain is jammed on a cleat, bit hard to cut and release.
troppo
