Rope attached to both ends rather than one end would mean that you could pull it off the rock at the Rhosydd end rather than wedge it onto it, but there'd need to be a load of slack because being able to turn it 90 degrees to the rope at the croesor end of the cavern to get into the canoe, is pretty useful
How about this as a way of getting the boat to pull across, without turning and wedging on the sunken rock? Attach a rope from bow to stern. Have a ring tied to the continuous pull cord. When the direction of pull changes direction to move it across the lake, the ring slides along the bow to stern painter until it is pulling from the end that is going to be travelling forward. As the ring can slide along the bow to stern rope, the boat can be turned 90 degrees at the Croesor end to allow easy abseil straight in from the pitch. The boat can turn when required, but while being pulled, it will travel in a straight line and doesn't flip 180 degrees when the direction is reversed.
Thats a class idea! Only thing i can think is that the sliding ring may get hung up on the canoe thwarts and or yoke and cause an interesting issue, but you'd have to do some experimenting to find that out. Me and the mate i mentioned previously are thinking we may head down sometime next week, wetsuit up and have a play, we will try your idea and our idea and see what happens with both when you run the canoe back and forth a bit, basically just see if we can "fix" the current issue (cant possibly make it any worse from what I'm hearing). If anyone wishes to meet us there and join in the fun, I can give you a day and time we'll be aiming for the croesor end of the lake once we've worked out when we're both free?
The devil will be in these sorts of details, if it is going to be a reliable solution. Thank you for volunteering to give the various ideas a trial. It's the only way to know for sure. Hopefully there is a better system in amongst them. Good luck and take care in the deep water. Won't be able to make it myself unfortunately.
A suitably large stainless ring should slide pretty easily. Its weight in the water would put the painter under tension. There are people around at both ends that can move the ring along the painter, if it is showing signs of not sliding, when the direction is changed. Either sat in the boat at the Croesor end, or having just got out at the Rhosydd end. Ideally, the last people across would send send the boat back to the Croesor end, or at least make sure the ring is set, before prussiking up to the passage. A note to that effect in the use instructions at the top of the Croesor abseil.
I think I see the misunderstanding. I'm not suggesting the bow to stern painter runs across the open cockpit of the boat, where it can knock people over. but to the side of the boat, as in my sketch above, or even underneath. with enough slack to let the pull ring slide easily. I am now starting to think that underneath will be better, as there is deep water at the Croesor end and the "beach" at Rhosydd has a steep drop off, so little chance of snagging on underwater obstacles. A slack painter to the side is probably going to end up underneath any way. With a suitable length tow link to the pull cord, this should give a better chance of a successful direction change without human intervention. See profile pic below.
While i would love to add a steel cable, i am alas skint and cannot afford anything but the bare minimum. Planning on stringing up a knackered static line as a guide, and then if it works sufficiently well it can be replaced with a decent cable at a later date.
If you let me know how long the steel cable needs to be I’ll see what I can do 👍
We'll measure up once we have a system set up that works, and let you know. Alternatively, we're gonna be down there later this week, i can pm you an exact time, if you're bored and live locally enough you could come measure for yourself.
Thanks for the offer but work is frantic at the moment
