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RYA Inland Waterway Helmsman’s Course


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Seems to have gone off topic, well down the route that was asked tobe avoided, was always going to happen. However can someone list all the helmsman type courses available ie day course no pass or fail upto say off shore really clever boat person with recognised qualification

 

Trix, could i refer you to this site with regard to RYA courses:

 

http://www.rya.org.uk/coursestraining/Pages/default.aspx

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Are they not meant to qualify for a Boat Master's Licence?

 

The MCA accept an IWHC as equivalent to a Boatmaster's licence for categories A, B, and non-linked C waters.

Edited by Tam & Di
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Can anyone recommend a good instructor/course close to Shardlow Derbs as I want to do it on my own boat (which I have just bought bt not really had a go yet)

Thanks

 

 

Speak to Rod who has a boat in Stourport, he will travel to you as far as I know :lol:

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I did mine (in conjuction with a CEVNI test) with a bloke in Limehouse basin. I thought it was crap and to be honest I think you'd learn more just taking the boat out for a week or two!

 

As a "captain" for the Narrow boat trust I had to take the Inland waterways course to be able to be in charge of loaded boats. I chose to take mine from the gent in Limehouse basin ( although he is actually connected to the Medaway Motor boat club which is where I got the contact details from). Three persons on the course and not only did we do the attendence based helsmans but the exam based cevni. All in all for the cevni it was very good with lots of new knowledge gained. I have quite a few years of canal boating under my belt and was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with Tam and Di Murrell when they were operating on the canals in this country.

For the cevni I would recomend the gent in Limehouse, if you have no narrow boat knowledge and want to do more lock/canal work then perhaps different location and tutor might be better.

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Can anyone recommend a good instructor/course close to Shardlow Derbs as I want to do it on my own boat (which I have just bought bt not really had a go yet)

Thanks

 

Ray at Trent Boat Handing is spoken highly of by a lot of people. The website describes the courses. But you may not get a date with him before September - he is popular! Ring and ask! :lol:

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I read this as

 

"I chose to take mine from the gents in Limehouse basin"!! :lol::lol:

 

Mike

 

Hello Mike,

not sure what your taste is but I much prefer the pub or the bar. I know you only rent the beer but even so some of us do have standards.

CU

Barry

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  • 2 weeks later...
I would say that you have a sensible plan.

 

Although many on here are quick to rubbish the RYA Inland Waterways Helmsmans Course, I must say that we found it to be extremely helpful in building our confidence and avoiding many of the bad habits and bad practices that we have subsequently noted among, so called, 'experienced boaters'. To those who say 'just take the boat out' - I am sure that we have all met boaters who have been boating for years but take ages negotiating locks and lack many of the attributes that serve to separate the good boaters from the bad. Whilst recognising that a great many have learned to become good boaters from experience alone, appropriate training can only help to speed things along and the RYA Inland Waterways Helmsmans Course is a very good start.

 

We did our training with, and are happy to recommend, this chap:

 

http://www.trentboathandling.co.uk/instructor.php

 

As a couple who planning on purchasing and using a narrowboat and I have helmed/skippered hired boats on the Stratford, K&A and Broads and other watercraft on the lumpystuff what are the boatmanship bad habits and practices to be avoided on the canals?

 

Cheers

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As a couple who planning on purchasing and using a narrowboat and I have helmed/skippered hired boats on the Stratford, K&A and Broads and other watercraft on the lumpystuff what are the boatmanship bad habits and practices to be avoided on the canals?

 

Cheers

 

Thats a whole new can of worms opened :lol:

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Let the worms wiggle free, but we are particularly interested in the boatmanship, lock operation issues , environment preservation, conflict avoidance (why fight when you can run) and best practice etiquette. Have noticed lots of ways to enhance bitchiness on the forum but of these we have no interest.

 

Cheers D & V

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As a couple who planning on purchasing and using a narrowboat and I have helmed/skippered hired boats on the Stratford, K&A and Broads and other watercraft on the lumpystuff what are the boatmanship bad habits and practices to be avoided on the canals?

 

Cheers

Use of either the word "helming" or the word "skippering" possibly ?

 

Sorry, couldn't resist - meant to be light humoured (probably isn't!), and certainly not an attempt at bitchiness.

 

Actually I'd say the worst trap that people fall into is assuming because they have a way they have evolved of doing something, or a speed that they like to travel at, that this is necessarily the best answer for someone else.

 

For example (and only an example) you will see much advice about always staying well forward in a lock, keeping your back end away from the gates behind you. For some people, and some boat types, this is of course remarkably good advice, and if I had a 70 foot, or near 70 foot boat, I would follow it.

 

However experience has shown us that on many canals, if you keep our lightly ballasted 50 footer well back, (staying clear of cills and gates of course), it will more or less stay put, and no great use of engine is required to keep it there. This simply is seldom the case if we move further forward. So 5 years of extensive travelling in our particular boat on rivers and canals, (both narrow and wide), have given us what works for us. (Still got heavily caught out by the unique flows in Stanstead Abbotts lock though ! ). Some, however, still can't resist telling us we are not doing it the "proper" way. (All that is on the assumption you seldom put a line ashore or round blollards in any lock. We almost never do, but it doesn't make someone who feels more comfortable doing that "wrong" does it ?).

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Skippering was when I was in charge of running the boat, helming varied from no single person in charge, equality and all that, to being allowed to steer on somebody else's boat. On the Stratford canal I got caught a couple of times in locks, notably entering the canal from the river Avon that when the sluices were opened fully the boat charged forward and rammed the lock gate even when hard astern. Did it on another lock as well. Case for instructing lock hands to open slowly initially. Also when passing another boat whilst turning on a tight inside corner was totally surprised when using an increase of power with full rudder had totally the opposite then intended effect as the prop dragged the stern into the bank against the rudder and the boat turned against the helm. Bang. On the lumpy stuff shallow water might stop you, in some cases very abruptly but does not generally affect the steering.

 

all contributions welcome

 

Cheers D & V

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On the Stratford canal I got caught a couple of times in locks, notably entering the canal from the river Avon that when the sluices were opened fully the boat charged forward and rammed the lock gate even when hard astern. Did it on another lock as well. Case for instructing lock hands to open slowly initially. Also when passing another boat whilst turning on a tight inside corner was totally surprised when using an increase of power with full rudder had totally the opposite then intended effect as the prop dragged the stern into the bank against the rudder and the boat turned against the helm. Bang. On the lumpy stuff shallow water might stop you, in some cases very abruptly but does not generally affect the steering.

 

all contributions welcome

 

Cheers D & V

 

Some bad habits are simply things that one boater does that annoy another, others are things that one boater does that increase the odds on having an accident in what is always at some level a dangerous environment.

 

As an instructor I can live with the first category (though it does not stop me commenting!) but I do feel I have to put my oar in when I see the second.

 

A lot of that is people boating with their brains switched off - they don’t learn from their mistakes, and often don’t even realise they made a mistake.

 

Not in the “accident” category, but as a for-instance, and to move into dangerous territory judging by other threads, people who tie their boats with parcel string with lines going at right angles to their boat to short spikes pushed into gravel, but who then scream at a passing boater when they are broken loose without any thought that it might be their own inadequate mooring style that was at fault. If the passing boat broke every moored craft loose as he passed, then it might be a fair reaction. Otherwise why not look at those that did not come adrift and see why that might have been and learn from it.

 

In the quote above, both of which do show learning from experience, my comment would be that the answer in the first example might be not that the crew were at fault in drawing the paddles, but that the boat could be held on a line to prevent it being drawn forwards, or kept far enough back from the gates to prevent it happening, or even possibly left against the gates before the paddle was drawn (not my preferred option, I have to say). Any of these would allow the lock to be emptied quickly and efficiently, rather than pratting around.

 

(couldn't resist adding the last sentence when I re-read the post)

Edited by Tam & Di
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  • 6 years later...
  • 2 months later...
On 16/07/2017 at 22:07, ronnietucker said:

Can anyone recommend a trainer in/near Glasgow?

I tried the RYA website, but its search feature is hopeless.

I don't know of an instructor up there but with an outboard the RYA power boat level 2 may be more appropriate than IWHC.

Ive done both, enjoyed them and learnt a lot.

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