Safe Speed Forums

If you think ice on the road is a problem at this time of year you should try canal boating. I have just come back from helping to con a Christmas lunch cruise on the Judith Mary which is a floating narrow boat restaurant on the Peak Forest canal. Three inches of ice on the canal . We managed to smash our way through it for about a mile before deciding that the hull wouldn't take any more. Which left us to reverse a mile through the ice floes. The punters having their lunch enjoyed it though.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Oouch, bit surprised they tried in the first place ! A mile of smashing ice hey !
Now if they had a heat pad on the front of the boat and melted the ice then that would have worked with much less effort and hassle !
That must have been exhausting if you helped to break it up or was it the hull that was doing all the work?!

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

The hull. We just drove at the ice at ramming speed (4mph) until we couldn't move then backed of a length and did it again. The punters had paid for a cruise and a cruise they got!

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Maybe you should have re-named her "Endurance"

What would you have done if you had got stuck in the middle of the canal??

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Having broken the ice on the wy out we were able to go astern to get back to base.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Ice ? You havnt seen ice on water till you have seen 12 foot of ice on the St. Lawrance,
Canada. My ship only got out because the icebreakers kept open a passage.

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Dave ~ Freeman on the Land
http://www.freemanhighland.co.uk/
A paradigm shift in law and politics

I might well be telling everyone stuff they already know, but I think "proper" ice-breakers tend to do their job by running the bow up on TOP of the ice (it's shaped to allow that) and then flooding ballast compartments so that the weight of the ship breaks downwards through it, then repeating the process. Trying to ram it "in shear", as it were, tends not to work too well (as you have already discovered)!

Correct. That is why ocean ice breakers need to be so powerful (the Soviet built nuclear powered 'ones) - they have to lift themselves onto the ice. I am told that traditional canal icebreakers had a large transverse bar so that they could be rocked from side to side to side by parties of men on the towpaths.


http://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/ice/ragazzo4.htm

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

With three inches of ice, you risk damaging fibreglass and wooden hulls, and steel hulls if of certain hull profile/thickness.

You would score the waterline severely at the very best.
Heat pads wouldn't work - the energy required would be huge!
Better to have a couple of crew on the bow with stout poles to break the ice! With some designs, it would be more efficient to reverse through the ice - where the counter stern can ride on the icew as Mole described, and where prop. wash can make waves below the ice and help weaken it.

Lake boats were traditionally designed to cope with ice - hence this excellent example in steel from Lake Windermere... The Esperance


or on Coniston, the Gondola...


The bow rides over ice and crushes it, sending the broken pieces under the surrounding ice.

If you hadn't all stopped leaving your TV's on standby instead of unplugging it at night, this cold snap would never have happened!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Serious danger of damaging or dismounting the rudder when in reverse.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Not to mention tearing the sacrificial anodes off and scoring the paint.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

Yes, I should have mentioned that suitable design would include an under the water line rudder fitment as is found on some "counter" sterns! No good on a barge with the old sternpost mounted rudder and tiller!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

If I hadnt left my pc on for 8 years it would have been -30

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code