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Inconsiderate boating on the Trent - Grr....


Jan13

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3 hours ago, Jess-- said:

Not that I have ever found a nice wide and deep bit of water to test my boat on. but if I had.......

I might have found that with enough power on that it is just starting to produce black smoke from the exhaust the boat will just manage 9 Mph and shows no sign of overheating after 20 minutes at that speed, Steering feels like it's on rails (I have never felt such a positive tiller on a narrowboat), You might want Geoff Capes steering though as the forces on the tiller increase massively with speed

Cherwell section of the Oxford?  No idea if the speed limit applies.  In a flood you certainly need more than 4mph and there is a nasty railway bridge to avoid.

Is your rudder properly balanced?

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11 minutes ago, Chris Williams said:

Cherwell section of the Oxford?  No idea if the speed limit applies.  In a flood you certainly need more than 4mph and there is a nasty railway bridge to avoid.

Is your rudder properly balanced?

I'd never admit to going up and down that section a few times to get a feel for how the boat handled when doing stupid things ;)

rudder if anything has a touch too much on the front end, it will put itself on the towpath quite quickly if you leave it alone, although I find that it gives a good feel for what the boat is doing so I have ignored two chances to change it.

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1 hour ago, Jess-- said:

I'd never admit to going up and down that section a few times to get a feel for how the boat handled when doing stupid things

On the Thames - going well, approaching a sharp bend - let's see what happens if I put the helm right over.

Result - going broadside at several knots.  Interesting.

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On 29/03/2019 at 16:51, Chris Williams said:

4 mph may be fine for canals, but you definitely need more 'oomph' on rivers, unless you like going backwards.  It may be a good idea to find somewhere with a higher speed limit, and find out just how fast your craft can go.  You may be disappointed, but that is better than getting into real trouble in a fast Current.  I speak from experience.

It's not just about a higher speed limit - I'd be surprised if my NB was all that atypical and it would struggle to break 4mph flat out on a canal. However on the river here where there is plenty of depth and width it will do 6mph through the water. I do appreciate that's still not a lot of speed for use on tidal waters, though I've spent a lot of time on tidal waters (including those with plenty of flow, such as the Menai Straits and the Severn estuary) in a kayak which doesn't go much faster than that.

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13 hours ago, aracer said:

It's not just about a higher speed limit - I'd be surprised if my NB was all that atypical and it would struggle to break 4mph flat out on a canal. However on the river here where there is plenty of depth and width it will do 6mph through the water. I do appreciate that's still not a lot of speed for use on tidal waters, though I've spent a lot of time on tidal waters (including those with plenty of flow, such as the Menai Straits and the Severn estuary) in a kayak which doesn't go much faster than that.

I would guess that in your kayak you would find a line that kept you out of really fast water.  I was tied up at Weybridge in a flood and there were guys in kayaks playing right below the weir.

On the Severn, I would think 6 mph insufficient for a strong stream.  I only did it once and that was in summer.  Getting into Gloucester Lock was a bit hairy even then, full astern and hope for the best!

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1 hour ago, Chris Williams said:

I would guess that in your kayak you would find a line that kept you out of really fast water.  I was tied up at Weybridge in a flood and there were guys in kayaks playing right below the weir.

On the Severn, I would think 6 mph insufficient for a strong stream.  I only did it once and that was in summer.  Getting into Gloucester Lock was a bit hairy even then, full astern and hope for the best!

You have a point - was out navigating the big boat in a significant flow for the first time last week and certainly couldn't take the lines I would in a kayak. However even in a kayak you can't always keep out of the fast water. Also the kayaks you saw were somewhat different to what I'm referring to - they would have been short and wide and slower than a NB, my sea going kayak is over 6m long!

 

Certainly for the bit of the Severn I'm most used to, the stretch past Worcester and down to Upton, 6mph would be plenty enough to make headway even against a strong stream. Further upstream things get a bit more difficult - though when I was out last week the flows were far more than summer low when I got further up and it still wasn't a problem. The issue is more getting pushed sideways by a stream and no amount of boat speed is going to make much difference to that!

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Are there any warning signs on the Severn?  On the Thames, when the Red Boards go up, you carry on at your peril, unless you know the River.  As someone said, your insurance company would not be happy.    The boards tell you which side the weirstream is on so you are ready for that sideways push and can steer into it.  Often proceeded at a 45 degree angle.

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6 hours ago, Chris Williams said:

Are there any warning signs on the Severn?  On the Thames, when the Red Boards go up, you carry on at your peril, unless you know the River.  As someone said, your insurance company would not be happy.    The boards tell you which side the weirstream is on so you are ready for that sideways push and can steer into it.  Often proceeded at a 45 degree angle.

Not in the same way as on the Thames. Level indicators at various points and signs telling you about the weirs, but I'd not go on a proper river without a guide to where the weirstreams are unless I knew it (Nicholsons seems fine for the Severn, but then I already knew where the weirs are for all but the most northerly lock). I'm also not sure how happy I'd be going on a river in the big boat when the weir streams were that strong, but I don't think it's a problem on the Severn apart from in full on flood - certainly no significant issues I noticed last week (though I do kind of know what I'm doing!) I should note that I have been on the Severn in a kayak in full on flood conditions - and also on bits of it with much more flow than you'd take a NB on (actually I did that last week - left the NB at the limit of navigation at Stourport and took the kayak up to Bewdley, some bits of that were very interesting in a tippy flatwater racing kayak), along with many other rivers with huge amounts more flow.

 

It does seem that they "close" the Severn when it's in very high though - it had been in flood the week before, and when checking before my trip I found notices about part of it still being closed downstream, I don't think I'd ever consider going on the river when very high (I couldn't get on it from here if I wanted, the big boat wouldn't fit under the swing bridge at those river levels!), but given my experience of moving waters I'll probably go out when it's on yellow at some point when I've got a bit more experience of a NB.

Edited by aracer
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7 hours ago, aracer said:

left the NB at the limit of navigation at Stourport 

 

Point of order - the limit of navigation in a narrow boat is well above Stourport. Some 30 years ago I took a hire boat up until we grounded on a  shoal. I intended to do the same again a year or two back but it was the day of the Stourport (rowing) Regatta, which rather ruled it out.

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The official limit of navigation (ie where CRT controls) is about a mile above Stourport - according to Nicholsons and the signs. I left my boat moored to the tree with a sign on it! I've no doubt there is sufficient depth to take a NB further up depending on the river levels - Nicholsons says you can get further upstream in a shallow draft boat - but as I wanted to go to Bewdley and knew I couldn't get there without the kayak there wasn't much point. I know where the shoal is - I got over it easily enough in my kayak at the water levels last week, but the speed of flow would have made it tricky in anything much slower.

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I have to admit that the only time I went downstream on the Severn, Stourport to Gloucester Docks, I had no map and no Idea where the weirs were.  Trust in my Guardian Angel!  It was summer, with little flow.

On the Thames, I wanted to get up to Inglesham, but when I consulted the lockie at St. Johns, he advised against it.  "You might get up there, but if the level drops, you are stuck"

Never done any kayak, smallest thing was a punt on Thames and, of course, the Cherwell.  Everyone has to punt the Cherwell.  (Pronounced Charwell, please)

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On 01/04/2019 at 17:52, Chris Williams said:

Are there any warning signs on the Severn?  On the Thames, when the Red Boards go up, you carry on at your peril, unless you know the River.  As someone said, your insurance company would not be happy.    The boards tell you which side the weirstream is on so you are ready for that sideways push and can steer into it.  Often proceeded at a 45 degree angle.

apr01-b.jpg

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4 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

apr01-b.jpg

Nice board. 

 

When we were playing out on the Aire & Calder a few years ago they were rebuilding Leeds weir.  One of the water taxi skippers pointed out to me that while they were rebuilding, the top of the green board should really have been high yellow or even low red if the weir was at working level!

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