Emerald Fox, The situation at Middlewich developed as follows :-
We (going up) approached an empty lock out of which a boat had just emerged
When I walked up I saw a boat in the next pound waiting to come down.
When we started opening top paddles, another boat emerged from the next lock up, having turned the lock after their friend (who was waiting to go into "our" lock when we emerged), had left it.
This put 2 boats in the pound waiting to come down.
As we worked the lock , I glanced round the corner and saw the lock being turned and a boat waiting to go in. I went up and suggested that they might like to wait till we came up in the lock as the pound was getting a bit congested. "No, he (who has boated before) told us to turn the lock as we are all travelling together".
When our boat was ready to come out of the lock, the boat which had turned the next lock was about to emerge .
This put 4 boats in a very short pound which has a 90% bend in it.
I did say to the person who seemed to be directing the 3 hire boats that his advice had caused a bit of a traffic jam but he said that as they were travelling together, they had to come down the locks.
In casual conversation, I discovered that all 3 boats were mooring up in Middlewich for the evening so they didn't have much further to go.
To be fair, a broken paddle did contribute to the situation but a bit of common sense would have prevented it.
It was fun though :-)
haggis