Otter boards
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Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
One of the live webcam sites we enjoy watching features the Kiel Canal. It is 61 miles long and links the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Using it shortens travelling distance by 290 miles, saving time and storm-prone seas.
Construction of the canal started in 1887 and more than 9,000 workers had been employed by its completion. Kaiser Wilhelm II opened the canal on 20th June, 1895, as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal. The name was changed to the current one in 1948.
An average of ninety vessels traverse it daily, carrying freight or oil or passengers. Large container ships and small yachts alike appreciate its convenience.
We don’t watch it avidly by the hour, but have it in the background, as an interesting insight into another way of life. Today, Barry spotted a Dutch barge and pointed out the otter board and its use.
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More commonly known as leeboards, otter boards are used mostly by sailing boats instead of a fixed keel. They allow boats with a shallow draft to navigate shallower waters than would otherwise be possible and do not take up the space inboard that a retractable centreboard does.
Sailing barge with otter board on the Thames at Oxford
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
They were used from the 8th century in Chinese warships. They ‘held the ships, so that even when wind and wave arise in fury, they are neither driven sideways, nor overturn.’ By the later 16th century, they were being used in Dutch barges and Thames barges, enabling them to move closer inshore, making the loading and unloading of cargo much easier.
Diagram showing trawl net with otter boards, also known as doors
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons
There is another meaning for otter boards. Sometimes known as doors, they are used in fishing boats to keep the net open horizontally as it is trawled through the sea.
