To try to clear up any confusion over my post of three days ago, here is a closer view of the long wooden implement the man in the blue British Waterways sweatshirt is carrying.
Did/do former working boats have these devices? What were they used for? Retrieving items dropped overboard? Hooking ropes?
(When did "jumpers" become "sweatshirts", by the way? Was it when they started to be made from recycled plastic milk bottles? Oh, no, that's fleeces, isn't it?)
15 comments:
We still use them regularly here in Holland. We use them for all manner of things, including those you've mentioned, but also for pushing and pulling barges in and out of tighter moorings, and generally assisting with manoeuvring. In Dutch, it is called a 'haakstok'.
I would still say shaft. A cabin shaft after all has a hook like that and is used for all sorts of things. So called because it's kept onthe cabin top.
I would still say Keb or a variation of a keb, There is a photo and a description of what a Keb is used for on Nb Granny Buttons blog posted Thurs 10th Jan 2008.
There is also a little known but interesting thing about the Keb. After a hard days work on the canalside, the old canal workers would thread chunks of meat onto the shaft of the Keb and cook it on an open fire. At which point it became a Kebab. ;-)
VallyP, Sarah and Paul, thank you. I incline to Sarah's definition, but I'm still slightly worried about the hook on the end. Did/do working boats routinely carry such a shaft as well as a plain shaft?
Paul, I understand a keb to look like a rake, but with longer tines - and only four of them - at right angles to the shaft. The photo clearly shows one, curved, hook, and a spike sticking straight out.
Looking closer at the metal end, the shape of it and with the spilt running along the metal where the shaft fits, it looks like the head of most common garden tools, eg spade, hoe, fork, rake etc. Maybe with all the cuts going on at BW its a modified garden tool head to do the job of a Keb.
The hook and spike on the end are exactly the same as the one I have on board. According to my other half, who was born on a barge (his father was a skipper of a working barge), they have always been used in the Netherlands. So, I suppose if they were/are routinely used by Dutch working barges, they may have routinely used by English bargees too - I believe there was quite a bit of 'cross pollination' concerning all things boating in the past. But maybe they were used on the sailing barges and not so much on NB's. Does that sound plausible?
PS the split in the metal head is there so that if you break the wooden shaft, it is easy to take off the end and screw or nail it to a new one even if it is of a slightly different size. They have small holes drilled into them as well. Sort of adjustable, so to speak.
Yes, but what's the spike for?
looking in more detail, there isnt a metal hook, Halfie spill the beans
I can clearly see a metal hook, curving upwards and back. Are you looking at the same photo as me, Paul? There are no beans to spill. All I know is that I saw a man carrying a long thing, and I took a photo.
Halfie, Koos tells me the spike is there to keep the shaft from slipping sideways. In other words, you use it to stick into something (e.g. a bank, between bricks in a wall etc) and then it won't move. I can vouch for the fact that this is useful when you are trying to push yourself away from the shore or other obstacles.
Thanks VallyP, yes, that makes sense.
I have one on Starcross. The Willow Wren boats I used to hire in the 70s all had them - in the absence of weed-hatches they were used to clear the prop.
That must have been a tricky operation, Jim. Presumably you'd stand on the bank, thrust your shaft towards the prop, poke around in the dark and hope for the best.
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