Commercial Passenger Boat skippers - how good are they?

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Can someone with experience of the training required, tell me how good the training is for the skippers of the passenger trip boats that ply our rivers.  The reason that I ask is on several occasions now I have come across some pretty dire 'seamanship' from these boats.

Probably the first instance I had was in Nottingham on the Trent a couple of years ago when I was alongside a trip boat which gave the required two blasts on his horn to tell me he was turning to port and then immediately did so into my path. Now my understanding of such signals is that it is to advise other river users of your intentions, not an alternative way of saying, "Out of my way loser, I'm coming through". Slightly miffed at the time but, these things happen.

Second incident was on the Thames after coming out of Limehouse Dock heading towards Teddington on the flooding tide. As I pass under Tower Bridge travelling towards Tower Pier a trip boat reversed off the mooring and planted itself broadside to my path holding itself in position with the 'girlie' button and engine whilst the 'commentator' could be heard giving his spiel about the joys of the Tower of London. Bearing in mind that I am coming on the flood tide at probably nearly 7 knots I've now got to quickly decide whether to try to steer behind this half wit (I don't know if he is going to go further backwards or hold station) or try to squeeze between him and Tower Pier (dangerous crush situation if he comes forward to moor again). On that occasion I went around the stern but by the time I'd managed to clear him I was over into the traffic stream coming downstream. Once again, slightly miffed, but these things happen.

Today in York I'm passing the trip boat moorings by Lendal Bridge heading towards the Museum Gardens moorings when, deja vu, as I pass the trip boat it gives the regulatory two blasts and immediately pulls out across my path (once again, out of my way loser, I'm coming through!). I've now got to slow down, let the half wit get out of the way and steer behind him to get into the moorings.

Now my understanding of good seamanship is that if your actions cause the 'stand on' boat to either change course or speed then you are a muppet. Are these trip boats crewed by muppets?  I should say by comparison that my experience of proper commercial skippers on the Thames was excellent. A tug pulling a huge refuse barge waited until I was clear, pulled out went down river (against tide) until he was in clear water, four blasts of the horn, then a single blast so I knew he was turning around to starboard and that is exactly what he did. I then moved over as he came up behind me to overtake and everyone was happy and knew what was going on. I suppose that the difference was that he was carrying important stuff, like rubbish, whereas these trip boat skippers are carrying expendables, like people

Rant over!

[cereal tiller]

The Training has Emphasis on safety Procedures only,Helmsmanship is no part of it,Hobbs of Henley run immaculate Boats with sensible Skippers.

All the other Non Tidal Thames Passenger Boat Companies pay their Staff poorly and do not seem to impress courtesy,consideration and General Boating skills when training them,hope this answers your Question.

 

[blackrose]

Having worked at another non-tidal passenger boat company on the Thames (perhaps the one CT is alluding to?) I would say that the training isn't great. You have to remember that it's not so long ago that they were basically run by the same sort of people that run fairgrounds.

That's not to say that they're not skilled - I've seen them do some amazing manoeuvres with boats and cool tricks with ropes in locks. But polite and courteous? No - why would one expect them to be?

Actually, i once witnessed a tidal Thames pilot try to bring a 90ft steam launch that I was crewing, onto a pontoon at Chelsea, heading downstream on a strong ebb tide. Of course he made a complete mess of it. The other identical boat (without a pilot) did it properly and turned into the current to moor up with ease. So even Thames pilots sometimes get things wrong.

Edited August 7, 2017 by blackrose

[Alan de Enfield]

A few years ago I was 'holding' at the top of Holme lock (River Trent) waiting for the boats inside to be 'let loose', as the gates opened, there was a big crunching noise as a large GRP cruiser was crushed tween the lock wall and the Nottingham Princess - the Princess (obviously behind schedule) shot out like a bullet and kept going despite urgent VHF calls from the crushed boat and the lock-keeper. The 'Princess' said something like "we will sort it out when I get back to the mooring".

It is surprising how loud cracking GRP is - it could be heard over the Princess gunning to get out of the lock first.

 

I often wondered what happened, but did note that Tim was taken on as a 'new driver' shortly after.

[mrsmelly]

I think in reply to this its quite obvious they are a bit like Policeman and everyone else in the workplace some are excellent and some are crap and everything in between. Having been Bloody brilliant at both the jobs I have just mentioned I could not comment on anyone else who may or may not have done such work

[Dharl]

11 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Now my understanding of good seamanship is that if your actions cause the 'stand on' boat to either change course or speed then you are a muppet.

that's not quite how I remember the Colregs being written, but certainly captures underlying meaning of them!     Whilst I have no experience  York and Nottingham and have always been impressed by seamanship and boat handling skills of the boatmen on the Thames.   Until 2007 they used ti have their own 5 year apprenticeship to become a "Thames Lighteman"  however now it has been brought in line with rest of UK (and Europe!) with the Boatmasters T1L2 qualification, which requires 24 months service time.    With the rule change in 2007 I suspect that there are a new generation of watermen who rather than learning from guys who was qualified under the old rules are now learning from the new generation.     Knowledge is only part of the issue, you need experience to back up that knowledge and seamanship generally is best learnt from experience and is hard to be book taught alone!  

[OldGoat]

11 hours ago, blackrose said:

Having worked at another non-tidal passenger boat company on the Thames (perhaps the one CT is alluding to?) I would say that the training isn't great. You have to remember that it's not so long ago that they were basically run by the same sort of people that run fairgrounds.

That's not to say that they're not skilled - I've seen them do some amazing manoeuvres with boats and cool tricks with ropes in locks. But polite and courteous? No - why would one expect them to be?

Actually, i once witnessed a tidal Thames pilot try to bring a 90ft steam launch that I was crewing, onto a pontoon at Chelsea, heading downstream on a strong ebb tide. Of course he made a complete mess of it. The other identical boat (without a pilot) did it properly and turned into the current to moor up with ease. So even Thames pilots sometimes get things wrong.

And yet there are many on here who say it's unnecessary to head up to stream when picking up a mooring on the non-tidal-team, or that it's naff.

The same principal applies even when there less current running

[blackrose]

7 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

And yet there are many on here who say it's unnecessary to head up to stream when picking up a mooring on the non-tidal-team, or that it's naff.

The same principal applies even when there less current running

Well you can get away with mooring head down on non-tidal rivers without too much current, but certainly not on a strong tidal river. 

He was a young pilot with a stupid name like "Merlin" or something. I thought he was a dick as soon as he came aboard at Teddington and I was proved right! 

[Nightwatch]

Don't you give way to boats approaching from S'bord.

One of them is a woman in York!?, such a big ship as well! Shock horror!!

[Jess--]

I always assume that the person in charge of another boat is blind, deaf and incompetent

that way it's a pleasure when they prove my assumption wrong

[Dharl]

2 hours ago, blackrose said:

Well you can get away with mooring head down on non-tidal rivers without too much current, but certainly not on a strong tidal river. 

He was a young pilot with a stupid name like "Merlin" or something. I thought he was a dick as soon as he came aboard at Teddington and I was proved right! 

depends on your boat as well as experience of skipper and crew!    The Thames Clippers on the Tidal stretch manage without having to stem the tide.    When I was skipper on a survey / dive ship on our regular berth you had to have a stern fetch often when mooring.   Having big twin screw engines and competent deck hands was an advantage and I wouldn't attempt that on Honeystreet, well not with that particular tideway anyway  

 

[zenataomm]

Jeff or Geoff? Was a professional passenger boat skipper on The Severn.

He was very good at cooking sausages.  He managed to make them crispy yet succulent (word of the week).

I never travelled as a passenger with him, but his sausages were excellent.

I hope that helps.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

15 hours ago, blackrose said:

Having worked at another non-tidal passenger boat company on the Thames (perhaps the one CT is alluding to?) I would say that the training isn't great. You have to remember that it's not so long ago that they were basically run by the same sort of people that run fairgrounds.

That's not to say that they're not skilled - I've seen them do some amazing manoeuvres with boats and cool tricks with ropes in locks. But polite and courteous? No - why would one expect them to be?

Actually, i once witnessed a tidal Thames pilot try to bring a 90ft steam launch that I was crewing, onto a pontoon at Chelsea, heading downstream on a strong ebb tide. Of course he made a complete mess of it. The other identical boat (without a pilot) did it properly and turned into the current to moor up with ease. So even Thames pilots sometimes get things wrong.

I find your comments quite educational. In my naivete I had always assumed that these were professional boatmen but now it seems that they are 'professional' only in terms of the fact that they are paid to do the job, the reality is they can be as good or bad as any hire boater. This surprises me since one of the principal criticisms coming out of the Marchioness/Bowbelle disaster report was certain lack of seamanship skills accredited to both vessels. Having read the report, and noting the failure of the prosecution of the skipper of Bowbelle, I would tend to put more blame on the skippering of the Marchionesse although, since the skipper didn't survive the disaster, this is probably slightly unfair. My reasoning for this would be that, whilst it is the duty of the overtaking vessel (Bowbelle) to keep clear, it hinders their chances somewhat if the overtaken vessel (Marchioness) turns to port into their path, which is apparently what happened. It seems that the result of the disaster report concentrated on dealing with such disasters in the future (recording the number of passengers aboard, action plan for the Met Police on how to deal with it) rather than address the failure in seamanship skills that actually led to the disaster (failure to have proper look-out).

Now realising that the standard that they are trained to isn't that high (despite the fact that they are carrying people rather than cargo) I will now treat them accordingly.

 

[mrsmelly]

26 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I find your comments quite educational. In my naivete I had always assumed that these were professional boatmen but now it seems that they are 'professional' only in terms of the fact that they are paid to do the job, the reality is they can be as good or bad as any hire boater. This surprises me since one of the principal criticisms coming out of the Marchioness/Bowbelle disaster report was certain lack of seamanship skills accredited to both vessels. Having read the report, and noting the failure of the prosecution of the skipper of Bowbelle, I would tend to put more blame on the skippering of the Marchionesse although, since the skipper didn't survive the disaster, this is probably slightly unfair. My reasoning for this would be that, whilst it is the duty of the overtaking vessel (Bowbelle) to keep clear, it hinders their chances somewhat if the overtaken vessel (Marchioness) turns to port into their path, which is apparently what happened. It seems that the result of the disaster report concentrated on dealing with such disasters in the future (recording the number of passengers aboard, action plan for the Met Police on how to deal with it) rather than address the failure in seamanship skills that actually led to the disaster (failure to have proper look-out).

Now realising that the standard that they are trained to isn't that high (despite the fact that they are carrying people rather than cargo) I will now treat them accordingly.

 

I can add a little of from FIRST HAND experience for you. The training in the armed forces is absolutely first class. The training I received to obtain  my DSA ADi qualification was very good. The training I received to skipper the Nottingham Princess and others was also extremely good. The training I received Police wise was very much below parr to any of the other training especialy after armed forces training the Police is a very very poor third. Strange but true.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

I can add a little of from FIRST HAND experience for you. The training in the armed forces is absolutely first class. The training I received to obtain  my DSA ADi qualification was very good. The training I received to skipper the Nottingham Princess and others was also extremely good. The training I received Police wise was very much below parr to any of the other training especialy after armed forces training the Police is a very very poor third. Strange but true.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that and, since the latest proposals are that you are going to have to pay for your own training prior to joining as a graduate the odds are it will probably only get worse. I've said before that only an idiot would apply to join the police now.

[mrsmelly]

2 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that and, since the latest proposals are that you are going to have to pay for your own training prior to joining as a graduate the odds are it will probably only get worse. I've said before that only an idiot would apply to join the police now.

Yes agreed. There is one thing that has absolutely no relevance in being a good Police officer and that is a degree. I am not saying that all police officers with degrees are useless but it adds nothing whatsoever to the skills needed for the job.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Just now, mrsmelly said:

Yes agreed. There is one thing that has absolutely no relevance in being a good Police officer and that is a degree. I am not saying that all police officers with degrees are useless but it adds nothing whatsoever to the skills needed for the job.

By comparison to passenger boat skippers however, the occasions when a police officer is responsible for the lives of a couple of hundred passengers is few and far between.

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

By comparison to passenger boat skippers however, the occasions when a police officer is responsible for the lives of a couple of hundred passengers is few and far between.

Yes and of course different jobs. My boatmasters licence allows my 250 passengers, the Princess was licensed for 172. Policing seems to tend more towards dealing with the aftermath rather than the present.

[howardang]

23 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

By comparison to passenger boat skippers however, the occasions when a police officer is responsible for the lives of a couple of hundred passengers is few and far between.

What about Hillsborough? An error of judgement by a senior police officer may have led to tragic consequences..

i've often thought that these type of comparisons between occupations are iniquitous.  For example, a train driver can have a thousand plus lives on his train, and compare his/her salary and kudos with, say, an airline pilot or a passenger ship captain/OOW.I have equal respect for them all, including police officers. (I may be biased about the latter as my father was in the police force!)

Howard

[Wanderer Vagabond]

17 minutes ago, howardang said:

What about Hillsborough? An error of judgement by a senior police officer may have led to tragic consequences..

i've often thought that these type of comparisons between occupations are iniquitous.  For example, a train driver can have a thousand plus lives on his train, and compare his/her salary and kudos with, say, an airline pilot or a passenger ship captain/OOW.I have equal respect for them all, including police officers. (I may be biased about the latter as my father was in the police force!)

Howard

I think that the comparisons being made were between the occasions that a passenger boat skipper is responsible for a lot of lives (on a daily basis) and the occasions when a police officer is responsible for a lot of lives (few and far between). There was no mention of kudos for any of the jobs.

I'd be interested where you are posting from since the only trains I can think of carrying 1000+ passengers are in India (and half of them would be on the roof). The average UK train carries about 550 passengers (HST 125) or about 850 on the tube.

 

[howardang]

Nit pickers of the world unite!

I am posting from Yorkshire ( which is totally irrelevant) but have a look/google at daily commuter train passenger loadings in London and without much difficulty you can find passenger numbers exceeding 1000 on a daily basis.

Your'e quite right that no-one had raised the point of Kudos; I did, and so what?

i do fully understand the responsibilities of a passenger boat skipper (not only a skipper but also an OOW) but am not sure what point you are trying to make. My post expresses my opinion; if you disagree then so be it.

 

Howard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Wanderer Vagabond]

13 minutes ago, howardang said:

Nit pickers of the world unite!

I am posting from Yorkshire ( which is totally irrelevant) but have a look/google at daily commuter train passenger loadings in London and without much difficulty you can find passenger numbers exceeding 1000 on a daily basis.

Your'e quite right that no-one had raised the point of Kudos; I did, and so what?

i do fully understand the responsibilities of a passenger boat skipper (not only a skipper but also an OOW) but am not sure what point you are trying to make. My post expresses my opinion; if you disagree then so be it.

 

Howard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point that I was making at the outset is that I expect those in charge of passenger carrying vehicles/vessels to be competent. Perhaps I'm setting the bar a bit high

[Dr Bob]

8 hours ago, Dharl said:

that's not quite how I remember the Colregs being written, but certainly captures underlying meaning of them!    

 

I think the question is are they trained in "Colregs"?  Anyone doing a professional skippers job (ie getting paid for skippering) should know the colregs. Afterall these are the 'rules of the road' for boats and all the instances in the the original post would be covered by this.

We are the only country that dont require any skippers to have qualifications. To sail in France, Spain, Italy etc, you need a reasonable level of training (and not far of the RYA Yachhtmaster qualification if you want to sail a seagoing yacht).

Surely our professional skippers are to that standard?

 

[WotEver]

4 hours ago, howardang said:

For example, a train driver can have a thousand plus lives on his train, and compare his/her salary and kudos with, say, an airline pilot

You might be surprised at how little an airline pilot makes. A mate (sadly now deceased thanks to a heart attack) was a First Officer with BA. His wife was a stewardess. Each month they compared wages and each month she won. One night in a pub we were talking to a trainee assistant manager for Sainsbury. It turned out that he was on a bigger wage than the pilot too. 

Edited August 8, 2017 by WotEver
Grandma

[MtB]

On 08/08/2017 at 20:58, WotEver said:

You might be surprised at how little an airline pilot makes. A mate (sadly now deceased thanks to a heart attack) was a First Officer with BA. His wife was a stewardess. Each month they compared wages and each month she won. One night in a pub we were talking to a trainee assistant manager for Sainsbury. It turned out that he was on a bigger wage than the pilot too. 

 

I too am under the impression that train drivers are paid a whole lot more than airline pilots.