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The Modern Boater


Tuscan

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Walked around to the New Inn for a beer. Just watched a guy put both paddles up at the top lock at Buckby. I shouted and pointed out that the gate was fully open and there was a boat coming, leaving the paddles up he shrugged walked back and pulled the gate which slammed closed with a hell of a bang. He shrugged and said he couldn’t be bothered to wait while the guy on the helm looked the other way. Meanwhile  the boat they could have gone down was now at the lock. .

 

Gates potentially damaged and 7 locks of water Lost, not to mention unnecessary hard work for the following boat.

 

is this the modern boater? no respect for the infrastructure or loss of water. It’s not always CRTs fault.

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If myself or the OH had been there its very possible he would have been blocking said paddles with his body.....Whilst we all make the odd mistake (I once pulled a top paddle on Atherstone with a bottom gate wide open......)  there is no excuse for that sort of attitude....Ive got to the stage where I'm not afraid to let my feelings be known....and my OH is even more forthright!

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, matty40s said:

Unfortunately, I see this more and more.

One weekend out on our own boat this year...

 

 

coming through tunnel, Trip boat behind, the boat in front is going tickover even when the oncoming boat has passed. Reaches the end of the tunnel and the boat in front continues to do tickover after a swift look behind and a discussion with his wifey. He swings across the navigation channel, blocking the few passing chances. This is a boat known for going quite fast past moored boats locally(he has previous!!). Still thwarting progress up to Blisworth, having to take the boat out of gear every few yards, the trip boat and me are arms in the air - whatatwat kind of feeling. thought we had a chance after the winding hole, but moored boats..up to the sluice and bridge50, yes, chance....but he slews across in front of us- in the whole distance from the tunnel, he has refused to glance back once.

So, coming along to the end of the straight after bridge 50, moored boat (the container boat) just after corner, I do a Michael Schumacher move, take the inside left, after I am halfway past he realises that I havnt lost momentum like he has, ....and he sticks full throttle on!! Fatal mistake, he joins his front end to my middle and a subtle right steer of the boat ensures his front ends up on the towpath whilst Kathy explains the stupidity of his actions in quite fruity but polite English. Narrowboat Kala, Gardner 2LW, well done, arse of the weekend.

 

 

6 points for that one.:clapping:

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Followed a boat home yesterday.  They pulled out just in front of me and pottered along at tickover, stopping at every bridge to line it all up - hitting most of them as he then had no steering. I pulled up, made a cup of tea, watched them out of sight, started off and caught them up again next bridge, still going at tickover.  He gazed thoughtfully at me catching him up (and the boat behind me, catching me up), steered carefully into the middle of the channel and slowed down again, occasionally handing the tiller over to his six year old child to make sure he zigzagged a bit more.

I hoped at one point he'd got stuck on the mud, but sadly he hadn't.

That's the second clown in two weeks... and then there's the offensive clot living on his boat who runs the genny till midnight every night opposite the VM.  And the moron at Stone last year moored next to me (opposite all the houses) who started his engine at 11pm and ran it till 5am (he said he needed to get some hot water for a shower, when I said that it was a bit late). I assume he ran it till 5 because I'd complained.

I don't think the proportion of unpleasant twits is any higher than it used to be, there's just more people about.  It's why I start most of my boating days at about 6am, while the buggers are still asleep. When I've found a nice solitary mooring at about half ten, I don't care what they do, I just commiserate with everyone else going past in a queue.

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24 minutes ago, matty40s said:

Unfortunately, I see this more and more.

One weekend out on our own boat this year...

 

Waiting mid channel at Stoke Bruerne top as trip boat on towpath and the boat in front moored across the bollards - the bloke shouts "Oy, you gonna come and help my missus, shes on her own" - being 140 feet away from lock and the lock being surrounded by a multitude of tourists and boaters, we aren't even sure that no-one is coming up the lock, never mind being in a position to assist.

Waiting at bottom lock for two boats to go up, Kathy goes up to help. As the boats leave, some woman with a walky talky round neck tells Kathy to close the gates. Kathy points out that theres a boat coming down. "well you have to shut the gates anyway - and I cant see that far" - Kathy leaves the gates open for boat to enter...Woman with Walkytalky walks off in disgust.

 

coming through tunnel, Trip boat behind, the boat in front is going tickover even when the oncoming boat has passed. Reaches the end of the tunnel and the boat in front continues to do tickover after a swift look behind and a discussion with his wifey. He swings across the navigation channel, blocking the few passing chances. This is a boat known for going quite fast past moored boats locally(he has previous!!). Still thwarting progress up to Blisworth, having to take the boat out of gear every few yards, the trip boat and me are arms in the air - whatatwat kind of feeling. thought we had a chance after the winding hole, but moored boats..up to the sluice and bridge50, yes, chance....but he slews across in front of us- in the whole distance from the tunnel, he has refused to glance back once.

So, coming along to the end of the straight after bridge 50, moored boat (the container boat) just after corner, I do a Michael Schumacher move, take the inside left, after I am halfway past he realises that I havnt lost momentum like he has, ....and he sticks full throttle on!! Fatal mistake, he joins his front end to my middle and a subtle right steer of the boat ensures his front ends up on the towpath whilst Kathy explains the stupidity of his actions in quite fruity but polite English. Narrowboat Kala, Gardner 2LW, well done, arse of the weekend.

 

 

Enough said. ?

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Ive got a 2L2 and felt a bit, just a bit sorry to be of having to out him, but he didnt have any excuse at all of tickover once out of the tunnel, other than to impose his superior excellence on to other boaters and the trip boat. 

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12 hours ago, Tuscan said:

Walked around to the New Inn for a beer. Just watched a guy put both paddles up at the top lock at Buckby. I shouted and pointed out that the gate was fully open and there was a boat coming, leaving the paddles up he shrugged walked back and pulled the gate which slammed closed with a hell of a bang. He shrugged and said he couldn’t be bothered to wait while the guy on the helm looked the other way. Meanwhile  the boat they could have gone down was now at the lock. .

 

Gates potentially damaged and 7 locks of water Lost, not to mention unnecessary hard work for the following boat.

 

is this the modern boater? no respect for the infrastructure or loss of water. It’s not always CRTs fault.

 

11 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

No, it's just a git - sadly, they're all over the place!

 

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "modern" it certainly wasn't commonplace when I started in the 1960's, and even 20 years ago it was a rare incident, but over the last ten years or so it seemed to become far more prevalent, rather in line with the "Me First" attitude practiced by more and more peoplethese days. It is  one of (but not the only) reasons why we decided to call it a day and sell the boat.

 

 

Edited by David Schweizer
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Its the result of an ever increasing population stuffed into the same amount of space. 

 

Rats develop similar social structures to humans and experiments show (IIRC) that the more dense a scientist makes a rat population, the less they cooperate and the more they fight with each other.

 

Seems to me this is what's happening here in the UK. Trouble is, governments of all hues far prefer a growing population to tax and control than a shrinking one, so they all encourage methods of expanding the population and packing us in ever more densely, whatever they might say to the contrary. 

 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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7 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Its the result of an ever increasing population stuffed into the same amount of space. 

 

Rats develop similar social structures to humans and experiments show (IIRC) that the more dense a scientist makes a rat population, the less they cooperate and the more they fight with each other.

 

Seems to me this is what's happening here in the UK. Trouble is, governments of all hues far prefer a growing population to tax and control than a shrinking one, so they all encourage methods of expanding the population and packing us in ever more densely, whatever they might say to the contrary. 

 

 

How dense does the scientist need to be?

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10 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Rats develop similar social structures to humans and experiments show (IIRC) that the more dense a scientist makes a rat population, the less they cooperate and the more they fight with each other.

 

I dunno - what about swans, they behave in a completely different way. They congregate densely in some places and you don't see much aggro. When you get a a pair on a long stretch of river, and another swan comes along, then you get the full "get off moi land" display.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, billS said:

I dunno - what about swans, they behave in a completely different way. They congregate densely in some places and you don't see much aggro. When you get a a pair on a long stretch of river, and another swan comes along, then you get the full "get off moi land" display.

 

 

I suspect the solitary pair claims the area as their territory and will defend it whereas in a group the area is either nobodies territory or the territory of the family group

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1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Seems to me this is what's happening here in the UK. Trouble is, governments of all hues far prefer a growing population to tax and control than a shrinking one, so they all encourage methods of expanding the population and packing us in ever more densely, whatever they might say to the contrary. 

 

 

They have to. You can't keep cutting taxes for rich people without having more poor people who can't evade taxation. And, while the indigenous population won't work cheap, you have to import those who will work all hours, do crap jobs and pay tax. 

Not sure if that's why the proportion of selfish plonkers is on the rise though. I've only been out on the boat in the last ten days and I've met three total asterisks already. 

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I think this country is not a happy place, first started becoming apparent to me in the mid to late '70's , it became quite expensive very quickly and a lot of nice but very hairy people sort of disappeared. Their place was taken by much better off people who disliked tatty old wooden boats and tatty old hippies in them. The new people had spent a lot on their boats (some cost more than £15,000!) and having spent a small fortune developed a sense of entitlement, mown grass, picnic tables etc. We hung on for a few more years then sold up.

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1 hour ago, Bee said:

I think this country is not a happy place, first started becoming apparent to me in the mid to late '70's , it became quite expensive very quickly and a lot of nice but very hairy people sort of disappeared. Their place was taken by much better off people who disliked tatty old wooden boats and tatty old hippies in them. The new people had spent a lot on their boats (some cost more than £15,000!) and having spent a small fortune developed a sense of entitlement, mown grass, picnic tables etc. We hung on for a few more years then sold up.

Absolutely right.  What used to be fun is now an expensive, unpleasant experience.   'Back then' we were all hard up and happy.  Started to go wrong with the arrival of the 'plastic noddy boat' brigade, usually with fenders dragging in the water.

noddy.JPG

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1 hour ago, Bee said:

I think this country is not a happy place, first started becoming apparent to me in the mid to late '70's ,

I think most of us who were around in the late 60's and early 70's had such a nice time that everything that came later was a bit of a disappointment!

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23 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I think most of us who were around in the late 60's and early 70's had such a nice time that everything that came later was a bit of a disappointment!

Hang on Arthur, what happened to: "if you can remember the 60s you weren't there"?! :D

 

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