Wanderer Vagabond

That tends to be my method too. Tiller tucked under right arm, hands in pockets and minor direction changes by simply leaning slightly one way or the other,bliss

I will confess that in 2020, the year of the pandemic and most swimming pools were shut, I took a swim in the River Great Ouse at Ely. It was mid July (27th if anyone needs to know) but by then the temperature of the river had risen somewhat and it was, in fact, quite a pleasant swim although I was careful about entry to the water, diving into water that you don't know is highly ill advised. By contrast back in May 2009 I was part of a crew (deck monkey) taking part in offshore racing in the English Channel off Swanage. It was a hot day and the wind dropped to the degree that the race was abandoned so someone suggested we should have a swim before heading back to port. Being a few years younger (and dafter) we agreed and after putting the stern ladder down (yes, we'd seen the film 'Open Water') jumped in. I have never been so fast in getting back out of the water, it was icy and I can see how cold water shock can cause such problems. To bring things more up to date, I was moored in Wolverhampton last night, opposite the Broad Street basin when a very drunk young woman (fortunately with a sensible couple of friends with her) came down to the canal by the bridge, looking to all intents and purposes as though she was intending to take a dip. I wouldn't like to guess the outcome if she had done, but I suspect it wouldn't have ended well. I was painting the back of the boat at the time but thought if she goes in and starts drowning (the water is about 3feet deep here I would guess) I could see me grabbing a life belt and a rope and unwillingly going into the canal myself (have you seen how many rats there are?). Whilst drowning is perfectly possible, my main concern would be Weil's Disease.

I would agree about it 'crashing about like a wild thing' but what I always do is secure my boat in the lock, never tying it up. My method of lock operation (going down when most things that can go wrong, do) is I come into the lock on tickover and as soon as the boat bows are into the lock, step off with my centre line and strap the boat to a stop on the bollard nearest to the top gate before the boat reaches the bottom gate. The reason for this is because once going into Ryders Green top lock under power, when I came to put it into reverse to stop the boat a load of plastic wrapped around the prop and suddenly I'd got no 'brakes' so hit the bottom gates a lot harder that I would want to, doesn't happen if you strap the boat to a stop. I close the top gate and then take the same centre line to the bollard by the bottom gate and pull the boat tight up against the gate. What this means is with the boat tight up against the gate there is no prospect of it being drawn onto the gate and hitting it with any momentum. Empty lock and no dramas. Going up I once again use the centre line to pull the boat up tight to the cill using the bollard by the top gate (assuming that water isn't cascading down through the gate). Once again, with the boat pulled tight against the cill/gate there is no prospect of it hitting it with any momentum. This isn't to say that sometime things go wrong; a couple of days ago using the above method as the boat went down in the lock I'd only got one 'bight' around the bollard and for what (to me) was some inexplicable reason the boat was being drawn towards the top and away from the bottom gate where I was valiantly trying to hold it. At this point, as I couldn't figure out what was going on, I called for all paddles to be shut, but even with that I still couldn't hold the boat and it went backwards into the top cill with some momentum (fortunately all taken by the rear button and not the rudder). Turned out that the problem was caused by one of the top paddles still being open which, as the lock emptied, created a 'swirl' within the lock dragging the boat towards the top gate. Fortunately no damage done either to the boat or the infrastructure. All of the above relate to narrow locks, broad locks are a whole different ball park. Should also add that this is just my way of doing things, other options are available