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The Boat Behind You.......


Woodstock25

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The number of times I have read statements to the effect that boating isn't for hurrying and it is quite OK to go at your own pace, now it seems you need to hurry through locks and slow your own pace by pulling over for any boat that is a tad faster than you.

 

Which do I do in future boat at my own pace or hurry/slow myself down because of others.

Is does sound like a bit of a paradox, doesn't it? But I'm not sure that it is.

 

Everyone has a perfect right to travel at their own pace (up to 4 m.p.h.) on a canal.

Everyone has a moral duty to consider others and not to get in their bloody way.

 

- Is how I see it.

  • Greenie 2
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Is does sound like a bit of a paradox, doesn't it? But I'm not sure that it is.

 

Everyone has a perfect right to travel at their own pace (up to 4 m.p.h.) on a canal.

Everyone has a moral duty to consider others and not to get in their bloody way.

 

- Is how I see it.

Fully agree but with two caveats.

 

1. No breaking wash no matter how slow that forces you to go.

 

2. REASONABLE slowing for moored boats.

 

George ex nb Alton retired

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Fully agree but with two caveats.

 

1. No breaking wash no matter how slow that forces you to go.

 

2. REASONABLE slowing for moored boats.

 

The second is a given, and if I had thought to mention it I would have done so. Pass moored craft on tick-over.

The first I cannot agree with. On the South Oxford, where much of our boating takes place, there are many places where the offside is so shallow (indeed it often tapers up into a field) that if you were doing half a mile an hour you'd still create a breaking wash. No breaking wash on the towpath side is probably a more realistic aim.

Edited by Athy
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The second is a given, and if I had thought to mention it I would have done so. Pass moored craft on tick-over.

The first I cannot agree with. On the South Oxford, where much of our boating takes place, there are many places where the offside is so shallow (indeed it often tapers up into a field) that if you were doing half a mile an hour you'd still create a breaking wash. No breaking wash on the towpath side is probably a more realistic aim.

Agreed on the shallow offside.

 

Funnily, I disagree with the modern idea of tickover passing moored boats which is why I stressed reasonable.

 

In some circumstances tickover may well be appropriate but not everywhere.

 

I have stated before, but it bears repeating, boats on rings or bollards should be more secure than those on pins and treated accordingly. Boats on permanent moorings should be even more securely tied.

 

To me, the idea is to avoid excessive or violent movement of a reasonably tied boat. Obviously, if I notice in advance that a boat is particularly poorly tied I will slow even more, if only for the purely selfish motive that if I pass without pulling its pins, that is one less boat I have to stop to retie!

 

George ex nb Alton retired

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We have a Garmin 120 GPS fitted,which measures speed accurately in knots. Best speed over the last month has varied between 2.4 knots and 5.6 on the River Severn .On the stretch of the Trent and Mersey in question, the best speed seems to be around 2.7knots.(just over 3mph). Not a big ask. We generaly follow any slow boat we catch up with .In the last week we caught up with a few boats,probably as we are fairly shallow draft. One boat kindly invited us to overtake,which we did .Even with them slowing to almost a stop it took a fair burst of power to get safely past without arriving abreast at the next bridgehole. I think the best advice on this thread is to stop and make a cup of tea.

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Take as you find. We came across Victoria, with Mike I presume (wearing a kilt if I remember!) at Great Haywood Lock last Wednesday. We were locking up on our share boat Inglewood and he was waiting for us to clear the lock. I can only say that he was extremely courteous and helpful, and a pleasure to meet up with. If only a lot of other boat owners were as pleasant!

 

Howard

 

Well he must be the one in the wrong then, there's just no need for that sort of thing on the canals. Last time I was there Great Hayward wasn't in Scotland!tongue.png

 

And shouting over engine noise can result in some odd and potentially offensive misunderstandings.

I seem to remember the first meeting on passing boats of some people on here who have since become great friends nearly resulted in fisticuffs.

Apparently hay forumites can sound like hey four eyes over the sound of an engine as you glide by!

 

Sue

 

Sue

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One boat kindly invited us to overtake,which we did .Even with them slowing to almost a stop it took a fair burst of power to get safely past without arriving abreast at the next bridgehole.

Yes, I alluded to this earlier in the thread: it takes longer than you think it will to overtake a boat which appears to be going very slowly. I think there's a scientific reason. Even with a blast from the mighty Gardner it can seem to take for ever. hence I suggested, in a similar vein to you, that coming to a complete stop is the best plan.

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Yes, having two people is much easier. Do you do some of the lock work too?

 

Richard

I used to, until Mrs Hound had a frightening experience when the crew of a boat waiting to come down, ratcheted the paddles fully open before she had instructed them to. One bottom gate crashed shut (I had closed the other and was about to close that one), and the boat was flushed hard into the bottom gates.

 

Since then Mrs Hound has refused to be on a boat whilst in a lock, so I close top gates and open paddles when going dowm, and close the top gate when going up, plus help with heavy gates and paddles.

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The fact that the OP has come back and shown himself to be a reasonable person and able to reconcile himself with 'the boat behind' is very much to his credit, as evidenced by the number of greenies he got! It also enhances his credibility, so perhaps now we can hear about the incident to which the police were called?

I agree completely with this post. Well done OP.

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We have a Garmin 120 GPS fitted,which measures speed accurately in knots. Best speed over the last month has varied between 2.4 knots and 5.6 on the River Severn .On the stretch of the Trent and Mersey in question, the best speed seems to be around 2.7knots.(just over 3mph). Not a big ask. We generaly follow any slow boat we catch up with .In the last week we caught up with a few boats,probably as we are fairly shallow draft. One boat kindly invited us to overtake,which we did .Even with them slowing to almost a stop it took a fair burst of power to get safely past without arriving abreast at the next bridgehole. I think the best advice on this thread is to stop and make a cup of tea.

Do you mean accurately or precisely? If the former, how do you know?

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The trouble now of course is we will now all be speculating about which fuel boat skipper/member it is?

The trouble now of course is we will now all be speculating about which fuel boat skipper/member it is?

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The second is a given, and if I had thought to mention it I would have done so. Pass moored craft on tick-over.

The first I cannot agree with. On the South Oxford, where much of our boating takes place, there are many places where the offside is so shallow (indeed it often tapers up into a field) that if you were doing half a mile an hour you'd still create a breaking wash. No breaking wash on the towpath side is probably a more realistic aim.

I dsagree. The towpath side is protected by piling. The offside is the side which gets washed away and ends up making the cut shallower. If you cause a breaking wash, ease off on the throttle!

I travelled the South Oxford last week in a moderately deep draughted boat, and was able to travel at 2.5mph-3mph without causing a breaking wash.It is important that you stay in the channel, however.

An awful lot of boaters these days seem to adopt the "drive on the right" principle. It's very important on a shallow canal such as the S. Oxford to steer in the centre of the canal and only move over when meeting another boat.

There is no need to slow down to tickover when passing moored boats. By easing off well in advance, I can pass a moored boat at 2mph or more and not cause them any problems at all. On tickover I'd be doing about 0.25mph.

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Having struggled through all 7 pages of this thread I am left a little dazed.

 

The number of times I have read statements to the effect that boating isn't for hurrying and it is quite OK to go at your own pace, now it seems you need to hurry through locks and slow your own pace by pulling over for any boat that is a tad faster than you.

 

Which do I do in future boat at my own pace or hurry/slow myself down because of others.

 

The paradox is easily resolved when you read more closely and see that its different people making different points of view (on a single forum). In other words, there is no single "forum consensus" on this topic, indeed there is no requirement for one, or a sterile article which rigourously upholds neutrality on the subject of concern. And if the same members say different things on different topics, it is worth analysing what they say taking into account the context of that topic/post.

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The two are synonyms, surely.

 

Not at all.

 

Accuracy is about the value being correct within the claimed margin of error.

 

Precision is about what the margin of error is.

 

If I tell you that my boat is 58' 0" long, that actually tells you that it is somewhere between 57' 11.5" and 58' 0.5"

 

It is an accurate measurement, to a precision of 1"

 

If I convert that to metric, and tell you that my boat is 17.6784 m long, I have told you something that is more precise (because it now says that the boat is between 17.67835m and 17.67845m, a precision of 0.01mm, or considerably better than a thou).

 

That value is VERY precise, much more than the original value, but possibly less accurate, as the true length may lie outside the implied range

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The knack of following the channel seems to be almost a lost art these days and I'm sure accounts for many complaints about shallow canals. I've seldom had problems in many complained of areas and this in a boat drawing around 2' 8" under way. I once gave the tiller to someone who is involved with local " working " boats, they seemed only able to steer a parallel course to the towpath, regardless of where the boat wanted to go. Cutting corners is another modern practice. In the old days the deep water was around the outside of bends, sensibly, giving full length craft the best line. The motoring parallel continues in many threads.....folk speak of parking boats, not mooring them and driving rather than steering. Maybe it's just me.....

 

Dave

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The "patch" in question is our patch "Auriga" and this was not us, but I find it hard to believe any coal boater would act like reported. We have a living to earn and we try to be helpful with other canal users which includes hire boats and fisherman. We all want our canals to carry on being enjoyed by everyone and bad behaviour should not be tolerated. We our selves have suffered quite a lot of abuse from other boaters and these usually refer to us as " those dirty old working boats" if only they knew how much love, work, money it takes to keep an historic boat in good shape, they are a labour of love. They are the reason the canals were put in in the first place, to help keep our countries goods moving around the country. They also were used during the war, our boat Auriga was a fire boat on the Thames during the war.yes we do some times need to get a shift on as we have customers that will be waiting on us, also we are limited to where we can tie up so some times we are running out time re the dark being turned on ? We are very lucky to have some great customers and it it only the few that spoil it for others, possibly because they are new to the cut and feel a little anxious which in turn makes boating hard work and not enjoyable.

  • Greenie 1
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The "patch" in question is our patch "Auriga" and this was not us, but I find it hard to believe any coal boater would act like reported.

 

We've already found out what boat it was and had a response from the owner.

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The trouble now, of course, is that we'll all be speculating as to why Linda posted Martin's comment twice but wrote nothing about it.

 

Probably inexperience at using the forum - quite a few people seem to do this, so she is not alone!

 

If you look at "Lady Linda's" profile she is associated with a pair of working boats, one of which, "Auriga" is a well known fuel boat.

 

I suspect she has some input to that thread from the experiences of operating coat baots.

 

Would you like to try again Linda?

 

If you hit the "quote" button in any post, it will put that quote in a window ready for you to add your own comment. Do that outside of the quoted area, and then hit "Post"

 

EDIT:

 

Oops, I should have read on it seems.

 

Thanks for your input Linda.

Edited by alan_fincher
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Well actually, if it was one of the regular fuel boats on the stretch described, I suspect the operator of that boat probably is a member on here, although I'm not sure how regularly these days.

 

It would be interesting what they say, but I simply can't believe the story as written, I'm afraid.

 

If a fuel boat has a queue of people to serve as you pass them, then that is going to take may, many minutes, even if they don't serve others subsequently.

 

In that considerable time, I would then expect you to be so far ahead, that they are never going to come close to catching up if you keep going at an even half way reasonable speed. They will struggle to better 4mph, whatever they do, frankly.

 

If they did catch you again quite soon, something you are telling us doesn't stand scrutiny.

 

These guys are very experienced, and it is not in their interest to upset potential punters - the ones I know, (and I know a lot of them personally), seem to be to be the model of good behaviour. - it is in their very strong interest not to acquire a negative reputation.

 

I hope the operator of which ever boat it was does post here, and set the record straight.

 

Well actually, if it was one of the regular fuel boats on the stretch described, I suspect the operator of that boat probably is a member on here, although I'm not sure how regularly these days.

 

It would be interesting what they say, but I simply can't believe the story as written, I'm afraid.

 

If a fuel boat has a queue of people to serve as you pass them, then that is going to take may, many minutes, even if they don't serve others subsequently.

 

In that considerable time, I would then expect you to be so far ahead, that they are never going to come close to catching up if you keep going at an even half way reasonable speed. They will struggle to better 4mph, whatever they do, frankly.

 

If they did catch you again quite soon, something you are telling us doesn't stand scrutiny.

 

These guys are very experienced, and it is not in their interest to upset potential punters - the ones I know, (and I know a lot of them personally), seem to be to be the model of good behaviour. - it is in their very strong interest not to acquire a negative reputation.

 

I hope the operator of which ever boat it was does post here, and set the record straight.

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Not at all.

 

Accuracy is about the value being correct within the claimed margin of error.

 

Precision is about what the margin of error is.

 

If I tell you that my boat is 58' 0" long, that actually tells you that it is somewhere between 57' 11.5" and 58' 0.5"

 

It is an accurate measurement, to a precision of 1"

 

If I convert that to metric, and tell you that my boat is 17.6784 m long, I have told you something that is more precise (because it now says that the boat is between 17.67835m and 17.67845m, a precision of 0.01mm, or considerably better than a thou).

 

That value is VERY precise, much more than the original value, but possibly less accurate, as the true length may lie outside the implied range

Don't remeasure it today Dave or all your calculations will be up the Swanny with this sun!

 

George ex nb Alton retired

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