Wanderer Vagabond
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Posts posted by Wanderer Vagabond
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45 minutes ago, Proper Charlie said:
We returned home after a fantastic six week cruise early afternoon today. A couple of hundred yards short of our home marina at North Kilworth we experienced the most aggressive behaviour we’ve encountered in 30 years of boating, the last 12 as owners who are regularly on the cut.
Heading north, just past the Welford turn, we passed a small 35 ft ish grey narrowboat which was being held on a centre rope. We weren’t quite on tickover (our boat barely moves on tickover) but were making absolutely zero wash. My wife heard the bloke holding the rope tell his mate that we were dickheads and were going way too fast. My wife doesn’t take being insulted well and gave him a piece of her mind, perhaps foolishly but there you go.
Anyway, he picked up his pole and came marching down the towpath saying he wanted a word with us (not sure if he meant me or my wife). I accelerated and managed to get through the bridge hole just before he got there. He stopped and shouted that they’d be following us and would see us later. We continued at pace the last hundred yards to our marina, thankfully they didn’t appear and either didn’t bother chasing because they’re all mouth and trousers, or maybe we got home just in time and they’re currently approaching Foxton looking for us. They may also have been about to tie up, not set off, so may still be there.
It was a very frightening experience, so if you see them please be careful. We didn’t catch the boat’s name so can’t notify the police but it was short and grey. Both men in their 40s (we’re in our 60s). The one who chased us was about 5’ 6”, dark hair and either unshaven or with a moustache.
We are currently at Kilby Bridge so will be heading that way over the next few days so will look out for your obnoxious individual. I have tended to find in life that there are the 'talkers' and the 'doers' the talkers all tend to be, as you say, all mouth and trousers. They like to think a threat will intimidate someone and the sad little individual you have met obviously didn't like a mere woman (justifiably) giving him a piece of her mind so has threatened in response. I'd forget all about it if I were you, he probably has, don't let someone like this spoil a good cruise. On the other hand if I come across them I may well have a problem with my throttle preventing me from slowing down (sadly) since such people need 'poking'.
As regards the 'doers' they don't threaten at all, if they are going to do anything they will attack unexpectedly, far more dangerous that the 'all mouth and trousers' brigade.
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10 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:
There was still plenty of water flowing on the Trent last weekend.
This was at Hazelford last Friday. The bottom step is visible so levels are lower than normal but still plenty of water about.
I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as calling it 'plenty' though. We went about 8 feet offline (going by the latest Boating Association map) and found myself riding over a sandbar that I wasn't even aware was there when travelling from Cromwell to Torksey. Cruisers were setting off from Cromwell before high tide to get to Torksey well before the level had much chance to drop, they were obviously very concerned about the lack of depth.
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5 hours ago, oboat said:
With all the talk of water shortages. Can anybody tell me if Cromwell Weir has stopped running this year?
Or if the Trent abstraction pumps, Torksey to Fossdyke have had to stop due to low water in the Trent?We passed it back on 24th June and returned on 4th August, on both occasions water was passing over the weir in what seemed reasonable quantities, but there was pretty much no draw at all above the weir on the Trent, barely able to detect the flow. It's been that sort of year. The abstraction pumps were running on the Fossdyke and Witham as we went down there as well (and d*mn noisy they are as well, do they not fit exhaust silencers on them???). I don't suppose they'd stop them on the Trent below Cromwell since it's tidal so theoretically shouldn't run out of water as the tide refills it each day, they might find themselves pumping a more saline solution possibly though.
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55 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
The only time I've been scared on the boat was years back when they let us off the Soar onto the Trent during some fairly major floods. They opened up in the morning and shut it again in the afternoon and with the engine on full throttle I was hardly moving. I did have the anchor attached but don't think it would have done much good if the engine had failed. I'd never heard a doppler effect from narrowboat engines before.
Last time l did it, it was like a millpond.
Kind of reminds me of a sailing adage which goes something like,'Is it better to be standing on the beach looking out to sea and wishing you were out sailing, or out sailing looking at the beach wishing you could get back ashore'
. These days I know my limitations and have no timetable, just destinations.
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17 minutes ago, IanD said:
I would agree with this. The problem remains is that even well-maintained engines have been known to stop or fail unexpectedly, most often when being worked hard for long periods like going upriver -- not on red boards or a flood, just normal currents or after rain.
Yes the chance of this happening is small, and in most cases the boat will then be swept downstream and most probably end up on the bank, but there's an even smaller chance of a bad outcome like hitting a bridge/boat/weir and sinking.
An anchor is basically an insurance policy -- and not such an effective one, especially the standard 14kg Danforth -- against this *tiny* chance of disaster. Most boaters will never have to deploy an anchor in an emergency in their entire boating lifetime -- but a few will...
Just like any insurance policy, it's personal choice whether to take one out or assume/hope that it'll never happen to you -- and if you do take one out, whether to go for the cheapest possible basic cover (Danforth) or a more expensive policy with much better benefits (Fortress).
None of these choices is "right" or "wrong"... 😉
Have to say, I'm not arguing against carrying anchors, I carry one myself, but I am also fully aware of their limitations and don't necessarily expect it to rescue me from disaster, it just might make the disaster slower to unfold. Looking up the Fortress anchors, even the higher range have a holding power in soft mud (which is what we are talking about here) of 3.6 tons/8,100 lbs (31 Kg anchor and way too big for my narrow boat). My boat weighs somewhere about 18 tons, is it really going to hold it against a current?
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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
You get worser and worser.
The Trent always has enough current to hold a NB.
They'd missed the lock cut and were turning to go back to it but once sideways they had little hope of turning against the flow.
Not this summer it hasn't, the 'fresh' between Cromwell and Torksey was barely noticeable, and it didn't feel as though there was a current above Cromwell at all.
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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Unfortunately they don't work on 'sewer tubes'.
Again, on the Trent an NB ended up sideways against the dolphins (big Orange drums held together by chains) the flow held the NB against them, being very shallow draft and low air draft, the current rolled the boat under the Dolpins, the boat went over the weir, inverted, rolled the right way up and ended up 'drifting' (?) in the current until it went under some trees which wiped of all the stuff off the roof, the throttle and gear lever and most of the cruiser stern rails.
The couple on board survived but never boated again. C&RT brought the boat into our Marina.
The Guy was at the helm and as the boat started to get caught in the current his wife fell overboard and was hanging on with her finger tips, he could either switch off the engine to stop her legs being chopped up, or, could keep the engine going and hope to be able to power-out of the current.
His wifes legs won-out and he turned the key, grabbed his wife as the boat rolled under the Dolphins and they were swept into the undertow of the weir..
Picture of the new Yellow Dolphins at Cromwell Lock / Weir.
Didn't stop to measure them but I'd guess they are each about 5 foot diameter by 8 feet long
Which all rather sounds like an amount of current that they should never have been out boating in a narrow boat in the first place, doesn't it?
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1 hour ago, Crewcut said:
I had a guinea pig (shaved before cooking) on a stick in Ecuador and a giant frog on a stick in Thailand. Like giant meat lollies, both delicious if fiddly to eat. I'd draw the line at a sewer rat though...
Only if they told you what it was before serving, after all you only have their word for it that it was a guinea pig, could've been a huge rat
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3 hours ago, MtB said:
A better idea is to boat carefully and thoughtfully, maintain your boat and not get in the position where you need an anchor in the first place.
Exactly this. From recollection the majority of boats that have ended up on a weir have either broken free from their moorings in times of flood, or were being used by muppets on waterways that were either in flood, or borderline flood, so they shouldn't have been there in the first place. All weirs where an anchor might be deployed already have barriers preventing boats from reaching them; the unprotected one in the image I earlier posted would not be suitable for an anchor deployment anyway.
1 hour ago, Midnight said:Back on the tidal Yorkshire Ouse. When we restarted the engine I retrieved the anchor using the hand ball method as described by Alan de Enfield
Out of curiosity, whereabouts on the tidal Ouse were you? I'm not sure there are many bits between Selby and Naburn I'd be keen to throw an anchor out when being carried up by a flooding tide. Going into the tide/current it would be a lesser problem, but not something I do very much on a narrow boat (aside of the River Ribble).
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43 minutes ago, haggis said:
I think you have forgotten since you left the inland waterways that few, if any, canal boats have a windlass for use with an anchor. 🙂
That is essentially where the problem lies. When you are talking about 18 tons of narrowboat, which is heavier that most offshore sailing yachts with proper anchors, whatever anchor you carry on a narrowboat is going to be a poor compromise. To hold a narrowboat against a current you are going to need an anchor that is so heavy, particularly when weighed down with several extra kilos of mud when you try to haul it up, that most of us are going to fail in the attempt. I carry much the same anchor as most other narrow boats on the canals (I think is it weighs 14 kilos, so 20 kilos with mud), but accepting that it is unlikely to solidly hold the boat in an emergency since anchoring isn't something regularly done with a narrow boat (unless crossing the Wash). I have no facility to hang the anchor over the bows (as is done with offshore boats) so it has to be a folding anchor that I can store on the boat. All I'd be able to say to my insurers if the boat was lost was ,"I tried my best".
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12 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
I think you are intentionally exagerating and not actually repeating the information I have posted previously.
1) I have NEVER suffered an engine failure within the draw of dangerous weirs.
2) I have never had to deploy an anchor 'in anger' on a river or canal (but have practiced and demonstrated its use quite a few times)
3) I have assisted a few times in rescuing boats that have had engine failures upstream of dangerous weirs (one that killed 10 Paratroopers when their boat was SWEPT over the weir (but you'll probably label that as fake news)
4) I have towed away a boat whose anchor was dragging and who was within a 100 yards of the weir.
Just because it hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean it never happens. Have you actually spent much time on some of the big Rivers, such as the Trent, Humber, Ouse that have a 'flow' ?
In answer to you final point first, yes, I have spent time on the Severn,Trent,Thames and Ouse, I wouldn't take it on the Humber because mine is an inland waterway narrow boat, not a boat to be taken to Hull for any reason.
Your anecdotes suggest that assistance by other boaters is indeed the way to go in preference to anchorage. In your example 4, had the boat concerned had a super-duper anchor that had held it, how would they have retrieved it? I don't know about yours, but my narrow boat hasn't got a winch, unlike lumpy water boats. So assuming that he/she had been able to fix whatever the problem was, the only way they are going to get moving again is by cutting the anchor warp ending out with no anchor at all. If the anchor is good enough to hold an 18 ton narrow boat in a decent current, there are few of us who will be strong enough to be able to recover it.
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12 minutes ago, MtB said:
Quite.
Just as some boaters on here a few years ago seemed to spend their whole boating lives decanting boiling water from one container to another so they could complain about other boats speeding past, Alan seems to have suffered endless engine failures within the draw of dangerous weirs and was constantly needing to deploy an anchor big enough to moor an oil rig in an emergency to save his narrowboat from certain disaster.
To be honest, for me deploying an anchor is something that should be done in a considered and controlled fashion, doing it in a 'brown trouser' moment is just as likely to make matters substantially worse.
If we take a hypothetical example travelling from Limehouse through London on a following tide and you suffer engine failure. Would deploying your anchor be a wise move? Ignoring the fact that the boat may well be travelling at 9mph (we were under Tower Bridge) so there is a good chance that if you are 'lucky' enough for the anchor to bite, with the momentum of 18 tons of narrow boat there is a fair chance of it ripping out whatever the warp is attached to. The next issue is if you are 'lucky' enough for the warp to hold, the tide is going to spin your boat around so you will be broadside for a period to the rest of the river traffic, what could possibly go wrong?
And assuming that you are 'lucky' enough to survive both of those, you now have a stationary boat in the middle of a river with other boat traffic travelling relatively fast, again, what could possibly go wrong? Had I suffered engine failure under those conditions my first action would have been to go onto the radio to see if there was another boat nearby who could assist in some way.
Even in less dramatic situations, if you deploy your anchor whilst travelling on any river with the current or tide, you need to be d*mn sure that there is going to be width for your boat to turn into the flow otherwise you are just going to be stuck across the river, trapped by the flow.
As another anecdotal example, we have in the last few days passed this weir near Normanton on the River Soar.
For those that know it you come under the road bridge and immediately have two weirs on your right hand side (starboard). The first is a bit of a 'baby' weir, but the second seems to carry quite a lot of water (and we haven't had much rain recently). Any though of deploying an anchor following engine failure there would be a disaster here. All it would do would be to stop the boat and you'd immediately get swept to the weir.
When doing lumpy water sailing I never deployed an anchor to achieve an emergency stop, and I don't anticipate having to do it in a narrow boat.
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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Simply that IanD is having a new sooper-dooper hi-tec top of the range everything fitted Narrowboat but has gone for the cheaper, lower performing version anchor of a very high performance model by the same manufacturer.
The time a NB needs to anchor it is "brown trouser time", and the anchor needs to work 1st time every time and bring 20 tonne to an emergency stop - saving a couple of £100 seems to be false economy when the anchor could save the loss of a £100,000 / £150,000 new boat.
Could one maybe suggest that if you are needing to use an anchor to cause an 'emergency stop' perhaps the tide/current you are in might have been an inadvisable choice in the first instance? My thoughts on anchoring would be should I suffer an engine failure on a river, to deploy it to prevent the boat drifting towards the nearest weir. If I was being swept towards the nearest weir perhaps I might be in the wrong place with my boat (they aren't designed to deal with strong currents).
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's funny but after watering up at probably the slowest water point on the system at the Hope and Anchor at Syston, I was clearing my hose away whilst being watched by two lads enjoying their spliff on the towpath, one of whom said to me,"Tell us mate, what's the worst thing about living on a boat?". I thought for a bit and then said,"I'll have to get back to you on that" because I couldn't think of much that bothers me on the canals. At a pinch it'd be emptying the Elsan's but after 9 years of doing so it isn't really a concern, and lumping them around keeps you fit.
How would others answer the question?
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4 hours ago, MrsM said:
Thanks so much - that is really helpful. Think I might drop the Council a line.
Having seen the number of rats in Castle Gardens, I'm not sure you are going to interest the Council. When walking through during the daytime the rats are everywhere if you look. People come into Castle Gardens to eat and drink and rats are the natural consequence. The only additional suggestion I'd make is that there is no real reason for the bins to be on the pontoon, they could just as easily be at the bottom of the steps on the other side of the locked gate which would make them easier for the Council's own workers to empty them (and boaters wouldn't get disturbed by rats partying in them).
1 hour ago, rusty69 said:TL;DR
Give me a rat over a mouse, at least I keep my house.
Give me a rat, a badger or a squirrel any day over a pesky mouse.
We had a mouse wreak havoc for a week (or it may have week'd havoc for a wreak) in our boat a few years back, and it didn't even have a blow torch or an angle grinder, let alone a portable gas soldering iron.
The little sod got in through a very small hole somewhere and commenced eating his way through the entire boat and our belongings. He got behind the plywood lining by chewing his way through, and nesting in the rock wool. He chewed through the washing machine hose,causing a leak, the oven insulation and the contents of my pant drawer (brave little fella).
It would have been a bit easier to accept, had we not had two bloomin cats onboard at the time,who were both outsmarted by the thing at every turn.
I got many traps and poison, which I'm pretty sure he never touched.
It just disappeared one night, after a very frustrating week (as we could hear it in the night).
I fear if we had a wooden boat, he wood have eaten the whole damn thing and made us homeless from the inside out.
So, give me a badger, a squirrel or a rat any day. They are too big to get inside, and cute enough to write a 'wind in the willows' squeekel about.
What good is a damn mouse unless you like beer tricks Potter.
Never underestimate a rat! Our workplace near Teignmouth Docks had a rat problem as they used to land animal feed there. We could deal with by putting poison down since no other animals were in the building. The result? the rats died after crawling into the ventilation system, the resultant smell inside the building made even those with a strong stomach, gag for months
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14 hours ago, MrsM said:
I never claimed the rats created the hole, merely that it was 'rat-sized' and therefore encouraged them to visit for a rat picnic. We are not going to eradicate them from public parks but we can discourage them from feasting right next to boats by maintaining bins adequately. Last week there were 3 bins on the pontoon - 1 complete bin on the left (as you look at the park), 1 in the middle with the rat-sized hole and the 3rd on the right with no lid (as shown in the photo). Would you be able to confirm if this 3rd bin has been replaced? Many thanks
Having checked the bins, the one on the end still has no lid, but looking more closely the bins are owned by Leicester City Council and talking to a CRT litterpicker who has just come past, it is Leicester City Council's responsibility as it is regarded as part of Castle Gardens, CRT have no emptying contract for them. The Council apparently empty them, manually. The bins are permanently chained to the stanchions (presumably to stop them being thrown in the river) and the litterpicker stated that when the Council come to empty them, they bring another bin and pick all of the rubbish out of them, which must be 'exciting' if there are rats in the bin at the time.
Interestingly the conversation with the litter-picker suggests that the reputation of Leicester for problems between here and Kilby Bridge are somewhat undeserved (as is the case in a few other locations throughout the country these days where people are told not to stop in certain areas). He said it can be a bit noisy during term time at the University, but what city isn't?
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4 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:
Same animal - one just has a less furry tail.
Yup, I've always thought there were three types of rat. Tree rat = squirrel, sky rat = seagull and of course bog standard rat, who actually gets a pretty duff deal. Everyone looks at a squirrel and says how 'cute' they are, but get one in your house however and find out just how 'cute' they really are. They, like rats, have a fine set of claws and teeth to deal with life's little problems. One could say that rats clear up the mess that we leave (bit like Wombles really
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Looking at it, anthropomorphically, from a rat's perspective they could reasonably say,"We do all this work for them clearing up, and just because of one plague centuries ago we are eternally condemned (and it wasn't even us, it was the d*mn fleas)"
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11 minutes ago, MrsM said:
I never claimed the rats created the hole, merely that it was 'rat-sized' and therefore encouraged them to visit for a rat picnic. We are not going to eradicate them from public parks but we can discourage them from feasting right next to boats by maintaining bins adequately. Last week there were 3 bins on the pontoon - 1 complete bin on the left (as you look at the park), 1 in the middle with the rat-sized hole and the 3rd on the right with no lid (as shown in the photo). Would you be able to confirm if this 3rd bin has been replaced? Many thanks
I'm not going out there, it's dark and there's rats😱.
On a more serious note, I'll have a look tomorrow and see what the bins are like and how many. The bin with the hole in had no waste food in it when I checked earlier.
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9 minutes ago, PaulJ said:
Are there any squirrels nearby by any chance?
Destructive little beasts that love to chew plastic. My recent new bin lid lasted for less than 24hrs.
Best of all though was years ago when one chewed through my mates gas hose-caused a bit of panic as it was an old wooden cruiser that met no sort of regulations and the gas bottle was just sat in the cockpit.
OK, if I find the rat or squirrel the blowtorch I'll let you know
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In fairness, the OP posted photos of rats in the bin so they do have some element of guilt, but I think they've been 'fitted up' over the hole in the bin. I don't know why but I think someone has cut that hole. It might be to ensure that the wheelie bin sinks if it's thrown in the river, but that is just a wild guess.
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1 hour ago, MrsM said:
I wasn't very clear, apologies - I don't think the hole was started by a rat, but it does provide a convenient entry/exit point. Is the lidless bin still there to the right of it?
The bin I photographed is on it's own, there are other bins further along the pontoon but I haven't looked to see if they are lidless. The more I look at this hole (it is right outside of my bedroom porthole) the less I think a rat actually made it. They are creative little critters and if someone has made a hole in a wheelie bin I'm sure they'd then check out the contents (who could blame them). They also tend to be quite efficient little b*ggers and I don't see a rat gnawing a hole that shape, he/she'd just gnaw a hole big enough to get out of which would probably be round(ish). A long narrow hole such as this isn't very rat efficient. I can't give any explanation for the hole as I can't think why any person would cut such a hole, but the top of it was definitely melted. If I find the rat with the blowlamp I'll let you know
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Currently moored at Castle Gardens, surprised to have found a mooring quite so easily, perhaps people have been put off by the rats
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Looking at the bin with the hole in it, was this exclusively the work of a rat? Whilst I kind of get the bottom half of the hole (even though it looks as though he had his own little chain saw), but the top half of the hole has been melted. Do I need to look out for a rat with a blow-lamp?
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9 hours ago, IanD said:
57' is a popular length, long enough to have enough space for what you want and short enough to go pretty much anywhere on the system (some canals in the North have locks where 57' is the official limit).
They might have an official limit, but we have taken our 60 footer on all of them (although we did need to take the bow and stern fenders off for a few locks). Offhand I think our tightest turnaround was in the Dewsbury Arm on the Calder and Hebble which was supposed to be 58' but they must have measured it with an elastic tape measure
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32 minutes ago, alias said:
Unless the waste removal there is managed by others, perhaps the city council, and they can be persuaded to raise their game, I suspect that the rodent problem will be resolved by removing the bins.
26 minutes ago, MrsM said:I fear you may well be right.
Having not been there since 2017, are the bins actually on the pontoon? To me it would make a bit more sense if they were away from the moored boats a bit. My home mooring at Halesowen has a lot of rats in the vicinity but all you hear is them rustling through the undergrowth.
I should be at Castle Moorings in the next couple of days or so, I'll see how it is.
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10 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:
My local.council no longer takes action about rats on private property, confining itself to providing advice. You are now expected to buy your own rat poison bait and traps. A couple of decades ago when we had rats in the garden as a consequence of the demolition of the house backing onto our garden, the council did provide poison bait, which did prove sucessful.
To be honest, the most effective method of rat control is to make sure that any food sources (bins) are sealed; rat poison, sadly, doesn't only work on rats. I suppose that one could consider that they are providing a 'service' in clearing up the crap that people leave behind. The alternative is to leave the rotting food for the flies to get to, followed by the maggots, and believe me maggots get everywhere (DAMHIK
)
4 minutes ago, Rob-M said:We sat on the boat in Birmingham watching rats pop out of the hedge and pick up scraps dropped by people walking past, this was just by Old Turn junction.
Yup, plenty of rats there, they don't even scuttle off when you approach. The one's I've seen just look at you with a,"Yeah, and what are you going to do about it?..." look (perhaps some anthropomorphising there
).
Cromwell Weir flows this year.
in General Boating
Posted
Nah, the bit between Burton Waters and Saxilby will always be kept clear by the weekenders. The Witham below Bardney Lock however?? I think it's now being used to cultivate weed on some re-wilding programme