Flat-bottomed girl Views from the canal VALERIE POORE takes the helm of our regular barge boat column.
Boat hooks: The most valuable piece of onboard equipment While planning for this summer’s travels on our barge, I’ve been having a bit of fun compiling a list of uses for my wonderful boat hook, or haakstok as it’s called in Dutch. The boat hook is my absolute favourite piece of equipment on board and I always check I’ve got it close to me. I should say, though, I don’t only have one. On our holiday barge, Hennie H, we have three of them in varying lengths and they all get used on a regular basis. So here, in no particular order, is the list of uses to which I put mine. 1. Putting ropes on bollards that are just out of reach. I sometimes think lock builders deliberately challenge the boater by placing bollards or cleats just out of normal arm’s reach. What makes it worse is that I’m useless at rope throwing, unless the bollards are on top of the lock wall. When they’re set in recesses in the side, there’s no way I can do it.
A good, long boat hook solves this problem nicely. Just slip the noose of the rope over the hook, reach out and slide it over the offending bollard or cleat. It can sometimes be a bit tricky to extract the hook without taking your carefully positioned noose with it, but practice makes perfect. 2. Retrieving the bucket I’ve inadvertently dropped in the water. Yes. I do that at least once a week. When washing down the decks, I chuck my bucket into the river, canal or harbour with gay abandon and often manage to let go of its rope in the process. A handy boat hook can snag the handle and fish it out – rescue is actually essential to stop the bucket floating away from our barge and into the path of other people’s propellors, which could have very nasty consequences.
3. Pushing ourselves away from boats we’ve got too close to by getting distracted. One of our stock phrases while we’re canal cruising is “keep steering!”. There’s always something to divert our attention on the waterways, which means our course direction can go haywire as we gaze around. If we get too close to other SisterShip 52
