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Traditional Boats... a sense of entitlement?


Derek Porteous

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11 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Only one thing worse than a self-important historic boat driver, and that is a pack of them!

Having met a "pack" of them coming towards me on their way to the Braunston fesival a few years ago on the North Oxford I totally agree. 

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15 hours ago, pete harrison said:

But I am sure the style of boating you were used to doing back in 1975 is the type of boating that would be getting highlighted in this thread as anti-social - fore end resting against gates, pushing gates open when running uphill (not ramming them), using a mast line to open gates, using a strapping line to close gates when running downhill, using a shaft to close bottom gates e.t.c. - and all of which are techniques I was familiar with using back in the day, but I can see that I am going to have to review these when I get to go boating again :captain:

I do some of those

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Who remembers the reverend on his hotel pair, he set the bar.

 

Having owned converted working boats for 30 years I’m happy to hold my hand up and say I still make mistakes and am still caught out normally when the bottom is to nearthe top. In recent past going through Braunston as boats were leaving the show I was queuing at the bottom lock and let the pair behind me go through as they were travelling together they then left paddles up and gates open all the way up the flight. I think twice before giving way to hobby working boat boaters unless they are loaded.

 

opinionated experts are to be found in all walks of life whether they are volunteers or not. Surely not worth worrying about unless they cause serious inconvenience or risk. 

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54 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Actually, I've had that happen to me too. I challenged them and they came up with a feeble-sounding justification, something to do with long-lining IIRC.

 

But the deed was done and the lock refilling while I was arguing about it. Can any of the historic boaters here offer a reasonable explanation for this behaviour? 

 

 

We long lined up Farmer's Bridge and asked a couple of boats to wait between locks whilst the butty came up. The reason for doing this was to keep the steerer of the other boat away from the line that would have been running over their lock but if they had said they wanted to go down the lock we would have held the pair over and kept the line out if their way to ensure they had safe passage 

If I'm on the pair working locks I always offer an approaching boat the option of going through the lock rather than just turning it but often they want to stop and watch the pair come through the lock.

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4 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

We long lined up Farmer's Bridge and asked a couple of boats to wait between locks whilst the butty came up. The reason for doing this was to keep the steerer of the other boat away from the line that would have been running over their lock but if they had said they wanted to go down the lock we would have held the pair over and kept the line out if their way to ensure they had safe passage 

If I'm on the pair working locks I always offer an approaching boat the option of going through the lock rather than just turning it but often they want to stop and watch the pair come through the lock.

 

Thanks for explaining, but is it that much of a hardship to let the other boat use the filling lock? I can see it would mean flipping the line off the looby and coiling it up perhaps.

 

But I think the real reason is it takes five minutes longer to wait for a boat to come into the lock then fill it, instead of quickly shutting the gates against the waiting boat and refilling with no boat in it. Bloody selfish behaviour in my opinion. No wonder historics get a bad rep. 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

We long lined up Farmer's Bridge and asked a couple of boats to wait between locks whilst the butty came up. The reason for doing this was to keep the steerer of the other boat away from the line that would have been running over their lock but if they had said they wanted to go down the lock we would have held the pair over and kept the line out if their way to ensure they had safe passage 

If I'm on the pair working locks I always offer an approaching boat the option of going through the lock rather than just turning it but often they want to stop and watch the pair come through the lock.

I don’t think many people would object to being asked nicely. We certainly wouldn’t. It is the presumption that because it is a hobby historic boat towing a hobby historic butty, somehow they are very important and everyone must give way to them that irks me. And I’m not talking about draught issues, which are fair enough.

 

The hobby historic boaters probably don’t pause to consider what would actually have happened in the days of yore they seem to want to replicate. Two working, loaded pairs meeting in opposite directions at a narrow lock - I really can’t imagine that one would have given way to both boats coming the other way. It would of course have been one up one down, as is required by the bylaws to save water. I see no reason why hobby historic boaters can’t replicate that bit, whilst being able to replicate the red hankies, silly clothes, attitude etc!

 

Not getting at you Rob, you’re not like that, but unfortunately a good proportion are!

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14 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

if they had said they wanted to go down the lock we would have held the pair over and kept the line out if their way to ensure they had safe passage 

If I'm on the pair working locks I always offer an approaching boat the option of going through the lock rather than just turning it but often they want to stop and watch the pair come through the lock.

Sounds reasonable to me, but then we don't suspect you were one of the causes of this thread!

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12 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

We long lined up Farmer's Bridge and asked a couple of boats to wait between locks whilst the butty came up. The reason for doing this was to keep the steerer of the other boat away from the line that would have been running over their lock but if they had said they wanted to go down the lock we would have held the pair over and kept the line out if their way to ensure they had safe passage 

If I'm on the pair working locks I always offer an approaching boat the option of going through the lock rather than just turning it but often they want to stop and watch the pair come through the lock.

At least you spoke, explained and asked. The herd I referred to in my post just treated me like a piece of dog **it. It wasn't only their actions it was their body language. I did jot down some boat names at the time but never did anything about it.

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3 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

I don’t think many people would object to being asked nicely. We certainly wouldn’t. It is the presumption that because it is a hobby historic boat towing a hobby historic butty, somehow they are very important and everyone must give way to them that irks me. And I’m not talking about draught issues, which are fair enough.

 

The hobby historic boaters probably don’t pause to consider what would actually have happened in the days of yore they seem to want to replicate. Two working, loaded pairs meeting in opposite directions at a narrow lock - I really can’t imagine that one would have given way to both boats coming the other way. It would of course have been one up one down, as is required by the bylaws to save water. I see no reason why hobby historic boaters can’t replicate that bit, whilst being able to replicate the red hankies, silly clothes, attitude etc!

 

Not getting at you Rob, you’re not like that, but unfortunately a good proportion are!

 

My Orien tug is far from historic but is is 70 feet long and quite deep (31 inches), so needs some space on twisty or shallow canals.

 

The trouble is that the boat doesn't look at all unusual so I don't get the benefit of the doubt from some boaters.

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1 minute ago, frahkn said:

 

My Orien tug is far from historic but is is 70 feet long and quite deep (31 inches), so needs some space on twisty or shallow canals.

 

The trouble is that the boat doesn't look at all unusual so I don't get the benefit of the doubt from some boaters.

Our Hudson is 32.5” static but I don’t find it too much of a problem. Occasionally we go aground when a boat passes fast in the opposite direction (sucking all the water away) but I just go into neutral and wait for the water level to resume. Some of these historic boats draw over 3’ even when unloaded I believe.

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9 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Our Hudson is 32.5” static but I don’t find it too much of a problem. Occasionally we go aground when a boat passes fast in the opposite direction (sucking all the water away) but I just go into neutral and wait for the water level to resume. Some of these historic boats draw over 3’ even when unloaded I believe.

If you look at some ex working boats they run with the stern quite high and there can be a gap between the uxter plate and the water surface so certainly not drawing 3'. I think for some it is just an excuse to be ignorant.

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5 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Our Hudson is 32.5” static but I don’t find it too much of a problem. Occasionally we go aground when a boat passes fast in the opposite direction (sucking all the water away) but I just go into neutral and wait for the water level to resume. Some of these historic boats draw over 3’ even when unloaded I believe.

I think part of the problem is that it just doesn't look 70 feet long, not even to me!

 

I once had to tell someone that we couldn't share Bishops Meadow lock with him. Only after standing and watching did he believe that we had to be diagonal in the lock if we were going to get out without raising the fenders.

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49 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

The hobby historic boaters probably don’t pause to consider what would actually have happened in the days of yore they seem to want to replicate. Two working, loaded pairs meeting in opposite directions at a narrow lock - I really can’t imagine that one would have given way to both boats coming the other way. It would of course have been one up one down, as is required by the bylaws to save water. I see no reason why hobby historic boaters can’t replicate that bit, whilst being able to replicate the red hankies, silly clothes, attitude etc!

And of course any debate about it could be settled by traditional methods...

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Historic boat owners are a funny old lot, I’m sure some of them don’t like themselves! 

Their attitude to other owners of old boats has to be seen to be believed. I had first hand experience last Christmas on a cruise with friends on their historic boat that they’d had the cabin extended on. (It’s been long for years, but they bought it and added a bit more).

Boxing day, we passed a couple of historic boaters, cheery hello from me, nothing in response. My friends behind got the same. Better still was the day after when we passed a very well known boating character chatting to his mates at his mooring. I received a miserable nod in my direction, he actually turned his back on my friends behind! 

The opposite must be said of people who still trade from old boats, I’ve never met a pillock yet. 

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55 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Not getting at you Rob, you’re not like that, but unfortunately a good proportion are!

Out of interest Nick, what percentage in your mind is "a good proportion"?  To makethat claim, do you have a number in mind?

As an aside, to my mind the number of "historics" actually regularly travelling around as motor and butty pairs on narrow canals is pretty damned small, so one can expect to meet such a combination only rarely - or at least that is our experience.

I suspect the emphasis being put on the alleged inconvenience put on motor and butty pairs is a bit overstated, particularly as many are operated with great precision, generally on broad canals by people who know what they are doing, (Jules of Jules Fuels is such as example).

I concede  again that as an owner of two "historics" I am sometimes upset by other people's operation of other "historic" craft.  However I really don't think that there is any greater "good proportion" of "historic" operators getting it wrong than there is for any other categorisation of boater.  One of the things I am aware of is that even when doing nothing wrong we draw far more attention than just about any other boats on the cut.

 

On another point raised above, few "historics" are ballasted to more than 3 foot static draught, although there are some exceptions.  However underway the back will very often pull down to give a working draught of rather more than 3 feet, even if travelling slowly, (much more for a shorter boat - Sickle has same draught and same engine as Flamingo, and a similar prop, but pulls down several inches more at the back when underway). Some empty "historics" are often operated with the uxter plate several inches above the water when static, to reduce constantly being on the bottom.  Whilst this may work for a relatively light unconverted boat with no load and little ballast, we have found it impractical on a much heavier boat with a full cabin conversion, and a lot of under floor ballast.  Running with the counter well out of the water makes reverse so ineffective that stopping becomes a nightmare, and "bloody working boat" meetings on bends and at bridge holes start to become just too scary.  We have just experimented with travelling part of the Rochdale with a lot of back end ballast removed, simply because the boat has been regularly deeper than the water available, but reluctantly put it all back in again in the opposite direction, because of an inability to stop in a length that most other boaters would expect you to be capable of.

Finally, I still do not fully understand why regularly when I met someone at a blind bridge or bend, and it must be obvious from the black smoke coming out the exhaust and the heavy swirl of water flushing back along both ides of the boat that I am flat out in reverse, that those coming the other way with a boat that can clearly stop far more easily regularly think it is a good idea to make no attempt to do so!  When I had a standard 50 foot leisure boat I never much fancied potential collisions with ex working boats, and would have considered racing them into a gap, knowing they might not be able to stop at least "unwise".  If you fear "working" or "ex-working" boats, and maybe the efficiency or attitudes of their crews, better surely to do something yourselves to avoid unnecessary problems - that's how I handled it when our only boat was a "normal" one...

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I am glad that I am out of it all now.  This seems to be a recent problem, same on the roads, housing estates, wherever.

The only problems we had were the occasional Camping boat, self steered, who went into panic mode.  Can't blame them.  But, there weren't any Yobbos with 'Unconverted non-working boats', everyone was busy converting them.

Apologies to those who do know how to behave.

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I think you will find there are two separate issues being discussed. Behavior when moving and behavior around locks (with their associated audience). One is influenced by 'physics' the other is influenced by attitude. In my car I expect to give way to an artic driver in many instances. I don't expect them to push in front of me when queueing up for a cup of tea.:angry:

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1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:

Out of interest Nick, what percentage in your mind is "a good proportion"?  To makethat claim, do you have a number in mind?
 

If I had a number in mind, I would have used it rather than a more vague term “a good proportion” - which means more than negligible and less than a lot.

 

Anyway I think there are two issues here, the competence or otherwise of the crew of large and unwieldy (to the inexperienced) historic boats, and the attitude of their owners and operators.

 

I don’t think we can get too upset by incompetent boaters regardless of what sort of boat they are driving. Hire boaters or community historic boats crewed by volunteers are no different.  Although I prefer not to get rammed by an enormous historic boat driven at speed! (Hasn’t happened yet!). Eg Watching the crew of President making a right horlicks of mooring, including one of them falling in,  passed an amusing 15 minutes!

 

Ditto people with “all the gear and no idea” who have taken a fancy to a historic boat, probably paid way over the odds for it, and don’t have much of a clue how to operate it. Not their fault really.

 

One does on occasion find astonishingly miserable, grumpy and unfriendly boaters operating all types of boats (makes you wonder why they bother!) but totally aloof and unfriendly boaters do seem to mostly be the preserve of historic boat owners/operators. If you want a figure I’d put it at 25%, whereas for the rest it is more like 5%.

 

Presumably it isn’t that owning a historic boat makes you like this, it is that people like that are drawn to buying historic boats. Maybe something to do with wanting or needing to be different and superior? But then again I’m not a psychiatrist.

 

Anyway, don’t worry, you are not one of the 25%.

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1 hour ago, alan_fincher said:


Finally, I still do not fully understand why regularly when I met someone at a blind bridge or bend, and it must be obvious from the black smoke coming out the exhaust and the heavy swirl of water flushing back along both ides of the boat that I am flat out in reverse, that those coming the other way with a boat that can clearly stop far more easily regularly think it is a good idea to make no attempt to do so!  When I had a standard 50 foot leisure boat I never much fancied potential collisions with ex working boats, and would have considered racing them into a gap, knowing they might not be able to stop at least "unwise".  If you fear "working" or "ex-working" boats, and maybe the efficiency or attitudes of their crews, better surely to do something yourselves to avoid unnecessary problems - that's how I handled it when our only boat was a "normal" one...

I have concluded that a large percentage of boaters are unable to use reverse to stop, or won't because they fear they will end up across the canal, so their approach to meeting another boat at a bridge 'ole etc is to slow down but keep slowly coming forward and hope they can somehow steer round and then in behind the oncoming boat. Sometimes they will even frantically wave the oncoming boat onwards hoping to get it out of the way before they really do have to stop. A problem is that most assume the oncoming boat is no more than 57 foot so their plans goes horrible wrong when they meet a 70 :).

 

..............Dave

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16 hours ago, Chris Williams said:

How many of these 'arrogant' steerers drive white BMWs or Audis ?

Actually the  entitled drivers have moved to mercedes. Bmw are old hat and you cant drive a vag car  after dieselgate, your children become anxious, go on strike at school , fail , and become politicians.

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28 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Anyway, don’t worry, you are not one of the 25%.

Well, if we are talking about being fully competent in all situations,  there are occasions where I might be seen as being one of the 25%.  (I can't agree with that percentage at all, but then I would say that, wouldn't I!)  Still trying to learn the art, I can have the occasional moment of incompetence, but usually only now when there is a large crowd watching.

 

However if we are talking about arrogance of attitude, I would dearly like to think I have managed to ever appear thus.  I certainly expect no extra privilege or rights because I choose to own boats that are a lot older than most canal boats now are.

However I also drive a Volvo as one of my cars, so my opinion is probably worthless! ?

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My neighbour gave me this photo of an altercation between a working boat and a hire boat.

 

Not sure of what happened or whose fault it was, but apparently tly it took BW 2 full days to extricate them from under the bridge. The photo was taken in September 1999.

September 99 Boats Stuck Under Brisge.jpg

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12 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

However if we are talking about arrogance of attitude, I would dearly like to think I have managed to ever appear thus.  I certainly expect no extra privilege or rights because I choose to own boats that are a lot older than most canal boats now are.

 

You probably mean never, rather than ever, I suspect!

 

BTW, I thought Sickle looked spectacular when we passed it on its moorings a couple of times last month.

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16 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Well, if we are talking about being fully competent in all situations,  there are occasions where I might be seen as being one of the 25%.  (I can't agree with that percentage at all, but then I would say that, wouldn't I!)  Still trying to learn the art, I can have the occasional moment of incompetence, but usually only now when there is a large crowd watching.

 

However if we are talking about arrogance of attitude, I would dearly like to think I have managed to ever appear thus.  I certainly expect no extra privilege or rights because I choose to own boats that are a lot older than most canal boats now are.

However I also drive a Volvo as one of my cars, so my opinion is probably worthless! ?

No the 25% is only about attitude. Everyone makes mistakes/could have done better on occasion. Yes, even me!

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