What chance have the hirers got!

[Iain_S]

Because the lock labourer has opened both top paddles to fill the lock, then opened the gate when it gets level.

Closing one paddle before opening the gate loses some time, and, on some locks with leaky bottom gates, can prevent a level being reached at all.

[Rob-M]

I agree with Iain that sometimes both top paddles need to be up to open the gate.  My OH usually closes the gate, I step off the slow moving boat leaving it to come to a halt, close the top paddle and then open the bottom paddle. If the gate has not closed then I'll crack the paddle open to help draw the gate round and fully open the paddle once the gate has closed. Then depending on the lock either stay and do the gate or get back on the boat.

[haggis]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

I'm always interested to learn of new ways of making lock working more efficient, but I don't quite get this trick. Why is the offside paddle still up?

I never close the offside top paddle before I open the gate as I find that if I do by the time I cross the gate to open it, the level is not quite right and it seems to take ages for that last centimetre. Possibly caused by leakage at the bottom gates.  When Iain brings the boat in, he shuts that paddle and walks to the other end to do one or both bottom paddles as others have said they do. Also when locking up, he gets off and shuts the off side paddle as the boat is leaving the lock. It all just seems to most efficient use of labour :-) . 

Haggis

I see I didn't type quickly enough :-) I'll leave my post though as it mentions closing the top paddle on leaving. Again, I leave it open when I open the gate. 

Edited April 24, 2017 by haggis

[Athy]

28 minutes ago, Iain_S said:

Because the lock labourer has opened both top paddles to fill the lock, then opened the gate when it gets level.

Closing one paddle before opening the gate loses some time, and, on some locks with leaky bottom gates, can prevent a level being reached at all.

Hmm, unconvinced but I understand what you mean. I cannot see why closing one paddle before opening the gate loses any time, though - or at least, not more than five seconds. I generally leave one paddle up in case there is bottom-gate leakage and that's usually sufficient (I learned to do this from embarrassing experience!)

[ditchcrawler]

To set the lock Diana lifts the offside paddle then crosses the top gate and lift the nearside paddle, when the lock is full she opens the top gate and drops the nearside paddle, if she was to drop the offside she would have to walk round to get to it, this way she just stays on the towpath side. When the lock is empty I drop back down back onto the boat and take the boat out.

[ditchcrawler]

3 minutes ago, Athy said:

Hmm, unconvinced but I understand what you mean. I cannot see why closing one paddle before opening the gate loses any time, though - or at least, not more than five seconds. I generally leave one paddle up in case there is bottom-gate leakage and that's usually sufficient (I learned to do this from embarrassing experience!)

The number of times I have sat waiting to enter a lock and the boat coming the other way drops the offside paddle, crosses the gate and then can't open the gate for another 3 or 4 minutes.

[haggis]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

The number of times I have sat waiting to enter a lock and the boat coming the other way drops the offside paddle, crosses the gate and then can't open the gate for another 3 or 4 minutes.

I'm with you on this Brian. I find the same. If someone from another boat is standing beside the off side paddle they sometimes take some convincing to leave it and come across the gate as Iain will get it when he brings the boat in.  I have found this with hirers , which is not surprising but when folk who have boated for a long time do it, it surprises me. I like efficiency :-) 

Haggis

Edited April 24, 2017 by haggis

[Athy]

21 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

The number of times I have sat waiting to enter a lock and the boat coming the other way drops the offside paddle, crosses the gate and then can't open the gate for another 3 or 4 minutes.

Really? Fair enough. If I'm working the lock I don't usually lower the offside paddle until the gate will move (I push it with my foot to see if it is ready). So unless there is really serious leakage at the bottom end of the lock, the gate will open. I do remember one lock where it wouldn't, yes!

20 minutes ago, haggis said:

 when folk who have boated for a long time do it, it surprises me. I like efficiency :-)

Yes, so do I - earlier in my boating life I always lowered both paddles before opening the gate, but I learned from experience to leave one up until the gate was open.

[ditchcrawler]

Just now, Athy said:

Really? Fair enough. If I'm working the lock I don't usually lower the offside paddle until the gate will move (I push it with my foot to see if it is ready). So unless there is really serious leakage at the bottom end of the lock, the gate will open. I do remember one lock where it wouldn't, yes!

That is what I do if I am alone, but with two working a boat down there is no point staying that side, just lift the paddles and lean on the beam until the gate opens, job done.

 

[Athy]

I, or rather we, will give it a try Brian, thank you.

[Sea Dog]

So, it seems we have enough information here now to shave many vital fractions of a second off our locking in and locking out times. Soon, we'll all be finely honed like a well-drilled F1 pit crew, measuring our stops down to the 100th of a second... then we'll roar off down the cut at 2.8mph to arrive at our destination late morning or maybe early afternoon, unless we decide to stop at that nice looking pub along the way and get there tomorrow instead.

[Athy]

Your point is taken - but locking is a process which can delay people waiting in a queue, so it's best to try and go through quickly and efficiently.

[tagulablue]

On 15/04/2017 at 20:07, mrsmelly said:

Sometimes though the hirer is going along ok then suddenly does something realy unexpected and the trainer has to dive back onto the tiller and when that happens and a boat is hit the owner jumps up and out of his/her boat and the first thing he sees is the trainer at the tiller and makes an assumption sometimes wrongly. The problem is of course that hire boats have telephone numbers plastered all over them and are easily identifiable so taken as fair game by some owners. I have met many many boat owners with no more idea than the man in the moon on how to handle their boat.

Here here... I have lost countt of the times I have been bumped by a non hire boat... most of the time not even a sorry..so whY does everyone see hire boats as easy targets.. I challenge anyone of you to hire a boat and experience how your 'fellow' boaters treat you . Fortunately when we started by hiring boats we got nothing but help and friendly advice ..it's seems such a shame that it as now become a war of hirers v 'proper' boaters 

[Sea Dog]

6 minutes ago, Athy said:

Your point is taken - but locking is a process which can delay people waiting in a queue, so it's best to try and go through quickly and efficiently.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for learning better ways to do locks, or anything else for that matter, so I have been reading with interest too. I just thought there was a funny side to discussing shaving seconds off evolutions within a non-critical journey conducted at a speed considerably slower than the average ramblers' outing. Efficiency is none the less a good thing.

[haggis]

45 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for learning better ways to do locks, or anything else for that matter, so I have been reading with interest too. I just thought there was a funny side to discussing shaving seconds off evolutions within a non-critical journey conducted at a speed considerably slower than the average ramblers' outing. Efficiency is none the less a good thing.

That made me smile. You are quite right why worry about a minute here or there on a canal boat :-) . I don't think it is totally about time but more about efficiency and division of labour. Over the years Iain and I have got into a routine so that we both just do our jobs at locks and as time has passed. He has increased his share of the work and I have decreased mine as that suited us best. I have never been  comfortable crossing lock gates since I did a back flip off a top gate on the Wolverhampton 21 a few years ago. 

haggis

[Athy]

3 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for learning better ways to do locks, or anything else for that matter, so I have been reading with interest too. I just thought there was a funny side to discussing shaving seconds off evolutions within a non-critical journey conducted at a speed considerably slower than the average ramblers' outing. Efficiency is none the less a good thing.

Yes, I think that the forum name "Mach Point .0005" sums that up - I haven't worked it out but I suspect that it's around 4 m.p.h.

"If you want to speed, go on the M40" as I've heard someone say on the Oxford Canal.

[Chewbacka]

Mach 0.0005 is about 0.38mph, probably one too many Zeros :-)

[Athy]

5 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Mach 0.0005 is about 0.38mph, probably one too many Zeros :-)

You're probably right. I made that post just before bedtime and did wonder about the number of noughts, but as I was fast approaching Lethe's wharf I didn't check.

So, mach .005 would be 3.8 m.p.h. which sounds about right.

[Sea Dog]

8 minutes ago, Athy said:

So, mach .005 would be 3.8 m.p.h. which sounds about right.

3.8mph sounds a bit quicker than me.  Don't worry though,  I can make up the time in the locks now!

 

[ditchcrawler]

13 hours ago, Athy said:

Yes, I think that the forum name "Mach Point .0005" sums that up - I haven't worked it out but I suspect that it's around 4 m.p.h.

"If you want to speed, go on the M40" as I've heard someone say on the Oxford Canal.

I seam to remember you weren't that slow when we were locking boats through Napton Bottom Lock and shaking a collection tin under their noses.

[Athy]

As I remember it (from some seven years or so ago?) there were queues of boats either side of the lock and so the aim was to get them through as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to reduce the queues (and increase the takings for whichever charity you were collecting for), yes. Frankly, if no one is waiting, it doesn't matter how long one takes to put one's own boat through a lock. If there's no one approaching and we fancy a break, Mrs. Athy and I sometime keep the boat in the lock when it's full, put the kettle on and eat our sandwiches. It saves having to moor up.

[Victor Vectis]

18 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

So, it seems we have enough information here now to shave many vital fractions of a second off our locking in and locking out times. Soon, we'll all be finely honed like a well-drilled F1 pit crew, measuring our stops down to the 100th of a second... then we'll roar off down the cut at 2.8mph to arrive at our destination late morning or maybe early afternoon, unless we decide to stop at that nice looking pub along the way and get there tomorrow instead.

Technique for the BCN Challenge perhaps?

[notts_alan]

On 04/17/2017 at 14:07, Graham Davis said:

He hit you so hard that your boat left the water and through a garden fence.........................................really?

And your last sentence is a sure way of ending up in Court.

The whole boat did not leave the water , lol , the front end went through the fence and the boat tilted along the side .

A Plastic cruiser does not stand much of a chance against a 60 foot metal boat.

 

[Horace42]

2 hours ago, notts_alan said:

The whole boat did not leave the water , lol , the front end went through the fence and the boat tilted along the side .

A Plastic cruiser does not stand much of a chance against a 60 foot metal boat.

 

On the other hand my friend had a 60ft boat moored on the outside of a bend that got pranged by a plastic cabin cruiser - when the pointy bit of the bow poked itself through the window (that was shut at the time).

[Rose Narrowboats]

I think there's much more useful result of working efficiently than speed - ease. If you've walked twice the distance working down a flight of locks than you needed to, no matter what your age is you'll be more tired.

My grandparents kept boating well into their 80s - he was sat in the engine room halfway through changing the fuel filter when he died. Granted they were both physically fairly fit, but she was 5' nothing and looked like she'd blow away in a stiff breeze, he'd had upwards of 10 strokes and the boat, being a converted ex-working boat, is heavy.

I talk to lots of people 10-15 years younger than that who are thinking of giving up because "it's too difficult now we're older", when I suspect if they knew how to let the boat and the structures do a lot of the work for them they'd get a lot more enjoyment from boating and carry on. Locks, swing and lift bridges - even mooring up - are clearly stressful experiences for quite a few private boaters.