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Hope you got the costume to go with that threat

As a boater with a 45ft boat and quite poor astern performance on a slow revving vintage engine (slipping brake band), I sometimes don't have enough grunt in astern to counter the surge in some locks when going uphill and the paddles are opened. So the sensible thing to do is rest the bow on the sill with the boat in gear, yes? SO when others (vollies usually) know better and open the top paddles before I've settled against the sill, the boat gets slammed forward in to the sill which saves several seconds of time for which I should be grateful. Yes?

Your response is suitably vague enough to avoid confirming, or otherwise, whether I fall into your catagory of uttering " half-baked drivel", Nevertheless. I would be interested to learn whether you do, or ever have, owned a boat, and if so, how much actual boating experience you have. Some of those you have been taking issue with in this discussion have substantial experience of boating, gained over very many years, and they are not talking "round objects"

I am not sure why you need to be so unpleasant, and as you have never witnessed me single handing a boat, I do not see how you can make any judgements about my degree of efficiency when working a lock.

Using the suction of the other boat to pull you away from the bank and in to line with the lock makes it much easier rather than waiting for them to pass and then start untying the multiple lines.

If you are in that much of a hurry, perhaps tou should offer to go ahead of them, and have the lock ready for them when they arrive. I used to do a lot of single handing. and in most instances was actually quicker through locks than most other boaters. Consequently, I was often the one going ahead and getting the lock ready.

Just sent a message to CRT today, also putting it on here as I suspect they get feedback on here. Under NO circumstances should an operator stand with their back to the lock and wind down the paddle. Under no circumstances should the operator not communicate with the boater before operating the lock. The boater is in charge of the operation NOT some guy who has decided to volunteer, however well meaning, they should be trained to understand this from day 1 lock 1. I'm not sure, but I would think that only CRT paid employees with some basic training experience should be training these vlockies in order to makes sure they all get the same training.

Absolutely. The help I like to get is being left alone to work the locks myself, in the way I find works for me. But I appreciate you know better than me, how to steer my boat and how to work my locks.

Exactly....arrogant people like Paul C think they know better but rarely do....I always ride the gate with the boat in gear unless I know the lock and how it behaves....saves a lot of faffing about with gears or ropes!...and wear and tear as the boat slams the gate when some idiot has whipped both paddles up without asking...Ive told more than one vollie to stop....they get the hump but its not their boat is it?

And do that terrible thing of waiting til the boat coming out the lock has cleared their boat before untying and moving off. They should be slipping in to the lock as soon as.

Still the same. The bag said that it was under repair so I took it off to look for the tiny C&RT workers underneath but they were not there!

It’s fascinating that this topic causes so much disagreement. There’s not much simpler than going through a lock, and people have been doing it fuss-free for 200+ years, and yet a massive industry of lock passage micro-management seems to have developed in the last 25 years or so.

I think there are at least two scenarios here. When a couple boat together they get to know what their partner is going to do at a lock and they know when to whack up the paddles and when to pause after a few inches to let the boat settle. if the person on the boat and the person on the paddle are strangers one has no idea what the other is going to do and a degree of caution is called for. If I am on the paddle for anyone other than Iain I will not start winding till the skipper indicates that it is OK , however long that may take.. I find that a high percentage of skippers indicate almost right away and if there is a delay when they are obviously not sorting out the boat, I say to them when the boat comes up that I always look for a signal. They quickly learn that an OK signal is a good idea and there is no hanging about which Nick seems to object to. Waiting for a signal also gives the skipper the opportunity to indicate a half paddle first then a pause o whack them right up.

The trouble is, of course, that those of us on the boat at the bottom of a lock have no clue as to whether you, the helpful person at the top, know what you're doing (and the characteristics of the lock) or whether you're just another dumb incompetent. So winding up a paddle without the ok from the person in charge of the boat is simply another example of incompetent boating. Smashing someone else's boat against a lock gate is not the act of an expert, however they may regard themselves. It doesn't make the person at the bottom precious, nervous or incompetent. Well, nervous maybe, and justifiably so of the pompous, opinionated and sadly misguided egotist at the top!

Can I just say- tree monkey made me do it.

Reminds me of the "Bridge to Hawaii" joke... A man was walking along a California beach, deep in prayer. All of a sudden, he said out loud, "Lord, grant me one wish." To his surprise the sunny California sky clouded above his head and a booming voice said "Because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish." The man in his surprise, just blurted out "Build a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over anytime I want." And God said, "Your request is very materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking. The supports required to reach the bottom of the Pacific, the thousands of tons of concrete and steel it would take. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of another wish, a wish you think would honour and glorify me." The man thought about it for a long time, and finally said, "Lord, I wish that I could understand women. I want to know how they feel inside, what they are thinking when they give the silent treatment, why they cry, what they mean when they say " nothing!", and how I can make a woman truly happy." After a long, long silence the man began to wonder if he had offended the Lord with his request. But eventually the voice boomed out: "That bridge. Were you thinking of two lanes, or four?"

Have you actually done much boating? It really doesnt sound like it to me....it takes time to get a 50ft boat on the cill/top gate without slamming into it...time enough for those that think they know better to have a gate closed and paddle whipped up especially if there is more than one "helper" on the lockside...ive been launched down an Oxford lock after anther crew thought it a wheeze to slam the gates behind me and whip both paddles up...they were told a few home truths in no uncertain terms.

Not a volockie fan as you know, but I agree with much of what you say. But I think we have to bear in mind that a fairly high % of private owners don’t really know what they’re doing, having just spent their £££ on a shiny new toy. And many people are very unaware of what is transpiring around them. They did a lock on the T&M where the boat got pulled forward strongly and hit the gate, so now they are on the Coventry they continue to be “one click wonders”, opening a top paddle a few clicks whilst intently staring at the boat which is not moving at all. It doesn’t occur to them that if they fully open the paddles, the boat will continue to barely move. Being moored at Fazeley we see this all the time. Or worse, doing same for bottom paddles. So I don’t care if someone opens a paddle without my “authorisation”, after all as you say what else do I expect to happen? Jeff does it all the time, and me to him. If it is an unusual or fierce looking lock we will be more circumspect but otherwise on narrow midlands locks it is both paddles fully up and let’s not piss about too much. What I dislike about volockies is not that they might open paddles without my “authorisation”, it is the micro-managing and back seat driving that sometimes goes with it. And anyway, we like working locks, and pay for it. Why should some random volunteer steal that from us?

Do you own a 60’ boat based on a narrow canal? In which case that’s all probably fine, particularly if you generally stay at the helm through the lock. If you work a short boat up T&M, S&W or Oxford narrow locks, or pretty much any broad lock you really will want to take a few moments to ensure the boat is positioned and possibly secured before anybody touches a paddle. It’s also a real danger to a single hander to have anybody moving paddles (or the other boat if sharing a broad lock) when the single hander is in the process of accessing or egressing their helm via the lock ladder. The last thing any helper should do is JFDI, they simply don’t know what the steerers requirements and movements are going to be. There are plenty of things that can wrong and most of them are triggered by undue speed at the outset, or by drawing paddles in the wrong order. Conversely the steerer of a short boat can be far less careful with gate paddles than a long boat. There simply isn’t a single way that applies to working locks.

Methinks you need to make your mind up. It was only last week you were complaining that as a single hander you need help 😕

I'm going to be the devil's advocate here, excuse me.... When you drive into a lock, you kinda need the gate open. Then once you're in it, you need it closed. Broad locks and the "single gate open for a narrowboat" debate aside, there's nothing much complicated about that, and nothing much to go wrong. Once you're in a lock.....the paddles need opening. As a boater, you should be aware that, at some point in the next 5 minutes, the paddles ARE going to be opened. So......GET YOUR BOAT AND YOURSELF READY FOR THAT!!!!! I don't know what some boaters are doing when there is a huge delay between gates closing and paddles open. Its a waste of time. JFDI, etc..... My pet peeve is when I'm driving the boat, its driven into the lock (sometimes I'm not even on it, if I've nipped off to close the offside paddle going down) and it goes to the front then..............nothing. Or another 'helpful' boater is doing it 1 click at a time, or waiting for intimate eye contact or a secret squirrel signal. JFDI..........please..... And if you're singlehanding and going up in the lock........and you want to get off once in the lock......just tell them before "I'm going to be getting off the boat, not staying on it" and get off it quick so the boat behind isn't inconvenienced (any further).....and maybe if its going to take 10 minutes to hobble along the roof or inch your way up a ladder, you'd be better taking their offer of just staying on the boat?

I was sat on a wall, cleaning up the bits of a Bolinder fuel pump the first time my wife and I met. We will have been married 20yrs next month. Do not underestimate the allure of subjects such as lithium batteries to the right woman... Alec

I was in the Lime Kilns when I posted the post to which you responded. First time I’ve ever been there but my dad used to go there when he worked for the electricity board just down the road. The reason I put the details of my day’s boating in the present tense is that I’m just about to set off for Marston Junction. I can report that Tim Taylor’s Landlord in the Lime Kilns today was better than in the Rising Sun at Shackerstone yeaterday.