Sternpost
By hook or by crook S
Paul Janes gets to grips with boathook technology
ailing is all about individual choice: choice of boat, destination, gear, even choice of boathook. But I expect that that one isn’t high on your wishlist, after all a boathook is a boathook is a boathook, right? Yes, I’d agree – until recently.
It all started when we inherited a hook with the boat we’d bought. “This looks handy,” said the skipper (you know she’s the skipper because her t-shirt says so in large letters). “But it’s a bit small, isn’t it?” “Telescopic,” I said. “Twist in the middle.” She did. “Oh, wonderful,” she said with enthusiasm as it doubled in length. “Long enough for picking up buoys and small enough to stow in the cockpit locker.” Vote of confidence, I thought. But I didn’t use it, preferring the wooden one we had until, one day, we came to a lock. “Use the telescopic one,” I was instructed. ‘Why not?’, I thought, adjusting it to full extent and laying it on the cabin. Boat goes in and I grab relevant bit of lock, skipper ties up. Perfect. Water rushes in and bow swings alarmingly towards wall and I give a ruddy great shove with boathook. It collapses. In the blink of a boathook, I am suddenly watching my life flashing before me as I teeter on the brink of a watery grave, crushed between hull, wall and a food-mixer torrent of water. Locks are dangerous places at the best of times. The survival instinct kicks in: I drop the boathook and grab
98 CLASSIC BOAT JUNE 2012
“One skipper’s boathook is another crew’s
torment”
the boat with both hands. The flashing retreats and shock sets in, accompanied by considerable warmth of verbal feeling about said boathook. To add insult to wrath, the unspeakable boathook is calmly lying on the deck. I shove it into the cockpit locker’s deepest recess in its absolutely most retracted state. Skipper mutters about not throwing away gear that’s perfectly good, as long as it’s used correctly. I mutter absolute disagreement. The lock- keeper looks wryly amused. Later, over a couple of balming beers, I wondered if there was a perfect boathook? Since then, I’ve come to learn that one skipper’s boathook is another crew’s torment because, like everything else in boating, it’s about choice. There is considerable variety of design, length and size, and each person swears by their particular choice. One old boy I talked to said his favourite had once been a 14ft (4.3m) piece of 2in (5cm) British Columbian pine with a single galvanised hook and an extra-long spike, which he had sharpened to a very wicked point. His only
explanation was, “long ago in foreign climes”. Sounds more like a pike than a hook. One friend swears by a double, rounded hook with a flat head. Says it creates much less damage to other boats if you have to push them away. Some make the same argument for plastic hooks, but others hate them, saying they aren’t strong enough. But the plastic hook has one advantage for the crew who like hanging on to a buoy, while trying to stop a 10-tonne boat with a full-flood tide and half a gale behind it: the head breaks and you keep the pole. The choice of material for boathook heads includes stainless steel, gunmetal, bronze, galvanised metal and plastic. Equally, the shafts are made of carbon fibre, aluminium, and, of course, wood. Wooden shafts are popularly made from mahogany, ash, walnut, Douglas fir and old broom handles. Rubber, leather and plastic can be added as grips and floats. You pays your money... And ours? I’d love to say ash and bronze, but plastic and broom handle is nearer the truth. Over the years, hooks have gone overboard, been broken or borrowed. We carry two – both with a small loop of line in their ends for grabbing with the other hook when I drop one overboard. They float lengthwise, not head down, and are painted bright white – easier to see at night. And our extending boathook? Relegated to the garden. Great for removing old nests from the shrubbery in winter.
SP199
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