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magictime

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This seems to be my week for 'disagreements' with other canal users (which really isn't my idea of what boating should be about).

 

Heading north out of Stockton Heath today, we had to stop and hover for a minute or so to allow the trip boat to wind just ahead of us. All went smoothly, but meanwhile another narrowboat had caught up to within a couple of hundred yards behind us.

 

Off we go again at a normal cruising speed, slowing briefly past a moored boat before speeding up again. It's a fairly winding stretch, and with trees and vegetation on the off side meaning visibility isn't great round bends, so possibly I was going slightly on the slower side - maybe more like 3mph - but nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Meanwhile the boat behind is catching up to us; then he's caught up to us; then his bow is alongside my stern. We can't understand what he's playing at and don't want to wave him past because (1) he's got no need to overtake if travelling at a reasonable speed and (2) as I say, the canal at this point is winding with poor visibility.

 

Before we know it, he's alongside us, on our left, as we round a bend to encounter - who'd have thought? - a boat coming the other way round that same bend. A collision is a real possibility and so (with - I confess - a sarky "good luck with that" to the steerer racing past me) I quickly go into reverse to try and stay out of the way while the other two boats manoeuvre past each other. This sends me drifting into the vegetation, where our new paintwork picks up a few long but (we think) shallow scratches.

 

A couple of miles on we encounter the drag racer back on his home mooring, where he seems to have just tied up. "I'm not sure why you overtook us back there" pipes up Mrs Magictime, against her better judgement. There follows a predictable earful about how we were - literally! - going at one mile an hour, he'd done nothing wrong because we knew he was there (and so presumably should have waved him past - on a blind bend), and anyway "shut up" and "you don't tell me what to do", bla bla bla. You might think that nearly causing a three-boat collision would be some indication that you're doing something wrong, but apparently not.

 

*Sigh* rant over.

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One of the reasons I run a gps as a speedometer so if I am accused of being to slow or fast I know what speed I was doing and can ask the other person if he knows what Noah said to the animals as they left the ark and to follow that instruction.

Edited by Loddon
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The Bridgewater seems to be 'a law unto itself'.

They don't refer to it as the Sale flying club for no reason :)

We had similar issues last year ... best just to let them pass, they're going to overtake anyway.

Rog

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2 minutes ago, dogless said:

The Bridgewater seems to be 'a law unto itself'.

They don't refer to it as the Sale flying club for no reason :)

We had similar issues last year ... best just to let them pass, they're going to overtake anyway.

Rog

Fair enough, but if we'd actually waved him past on that winding stretch, to my mind we'd have been inviting him to risk hitting another boat coming the other way round a bend, and hence partly responsible.

4 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

It occurs to me that the canal at some point was wide enough for two boats, So why not let the other boat past? 

Because we were on a winding stretch with poor visibility round bends, and so there was a clear risk of suddenly encountering another boat coming the other way while we were taking up that whole two-boat width - which is exactly what happened. 

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4 minutes ago, magictime said:

 

Because we were on a winding stretch with poor visibility round bends, and so there was a clear risk of suddenly encountering another boat coming the other way while we were taking up that whole two-boat width - which is exactly what happened. 

 

His risk, not yours. If you had let him past earlier it would not have been your problem - and your nice new paintwork might have remained virgin.

 

You would also have had undisputed entitlement to the moral high ground.

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Machpoint005 said:

His risk, not yours. 

How so? I'd have been just as likely as him to come a cropper in any collision.

 

3 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

If you had let him past earlier it would not have been your problem

Well yes, and if we'd been aware that he was wanting to overtake while on a nice straight bit, we'd have let him. But we weren't - by the time he was up our arse, we were on that very twisty stretch. He was only visible behind us for a few minutes (since we stopped to let the trip boat wind).

 

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This forum is not a good place to look for sympathy, no matter how good your case.  

Your overtaker was a prat for executing a dodgy manouvre in order to reach a nearby mooring a few seconds earlier.  Probably excess testosterone from insufficient sex.

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Bridgewater boats are incapable of going slowly, many have told us exactly that " I'm going as slow as I can" when they have rocketed past us on the Middlewich branch with the throttles open.

It must be something in the water that Peel Holdings have kept a secret for years that causes zero drag on hulls and winds tickover screws in to increase the revs.

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Magictime, was it a 48’ ish cruiser stern pale blue/cream with a folding canopy over the rear rail?

 

If so they flew past us yesterday on the Dutton breach moorings. We then went on a dog walk and found them stuck up the bank on the inside of a bend. They were blaming someone coming too fast the other way. “Next time” he said “I won’t bother avoiding them”. Good luck with that one!

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4 minutes ago, MHS said:

Magictime, was it a 48’ ish cruiser stern pale blue/cream with a folding canopy over the rear rail?

 

If so they flew past us yesterday on the Dutton breach moorings. We then went on a dog walk and found them stuck up the bank on the inside of a bend. They were blaming someone coming too fast the other way. “Next time” he said “I won’t bother avoiding them”. Good luck with that one!

Nope, not that one. From what others are saying this sort of thing may be endemic around these parts!

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1 hour ago, system 4-50 said:

This forum is not a good place to look for sympathy, no matter how good your case.  

Your overtaker was a prat for executing a dodgy manouvre in order to reach a nearby mooring a few seconds earlier.  Probably excess testosterone from insufficient sex.

Is that a fact? 

 

How come I'm not in the Tour de France this week then? 

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2 hours ago, Loddon said:

One of the reasons I run a gps as a speedometer so if I am accused of being to slow or fast I know what speed I was doing and can ask the other person if he knows what Noah said to the animals as they left the ark and to follow that instruction.

What gps app as the speedo ?

 

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9 minutes ago, Glynn said:

What gps app as the speedo ?

 

Not an app but an actual gps,  its a Garmin GPS III very old but waterproof.

There are loads of apps that will do it (provided your phone has inbuilt gps) but my phone is  not waterproof ;)

 

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23 minutes ago, Glynn said:

What gps app as the speedo ?

 

 

I use The Ullysse Speedometer app for Android, because it has a slow speed setting. Mine shows that I slow from 3.0mph to 2.8mp when passing through typical bridgeholes or shallower parts of the canal.

Edited by cuthound
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I tend to time myself between Mile posts. So far I've not managed more than 3mph so I've stopped worrying about ever going too fast. Having a boat with three bottoms slows you down a bit. But I still seem to catch up with boats all the time. 

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3 hours ago, magictime said:

This seems to be my week for 'disagreements' with other canal users (which really isn't my idea of what boating should be about).

 

Heading north out of Stockton Heath today, we had to stop and hover for a minute or so to allow the trip boat to wind just ahead of us. All went smoothly, but meanwhile another narrowboat had caught up to within a couple of hundred yards behind us.

 

Off we go again at a normal cruising speed, slowing briefly past a moored boat before speeding up again. It's a fairly winding stretch, and with trees and vegetation on the off side meaning visibility isn't great round bends, so possibly I was going slightly on the slower side - maybe more like 3mph - but nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Meanwhile the boat behind is catching up to us; then he's caught up to us; then his bow is alongside my stern. We can't understand what he's playing at and don't want to wave him past because (1) he's got no need to overtake if travelling at a reasonable speed and (2) as I say, the canal at this point is winding with poor visibility.

 

Before we know it, he's alongside us, on our left, as we round a bend to encounter - who'd have thought? - a boat coming the other way round that same bend. A collision is a real possibility and so (with - I confess - a sarky "good luck with that" to the steerer racing past me) I quickly go into reverse to try and stay out of the way while the other two boats manoeuvre past each other. This sends me drifting into the vegetation, where our new paintwork picks up a few long but (we think) shallow scratches.

 

A couple of miles on we encounter the drag racer back on his home mooring, where he seems to have just tied up. "I'm not sure why you overtook us back there" pipes up Mrs Magictime, against her better judgement. There follows a predictable earful about how we were - literally! - going at one mile an hour, he'd done nothing wrong because we knew he was there (and so presumably should have waved him past - on a blind bend), and anyway "shut up" and "you don't tell me what to do", bla bla bla. You might think that nearly causing a three-boat collision would be some indication that you're doing something wrong, but apparently not.

 

*Sigh* rant over.

Not a rant there at all. It wasn't a working flyboat. He was a total, yeah you know. A winding bit so any malarkey like that is just stupid. No perfect speed, so he should get behind your speed, the idea of NBs going full tilt round shallow blind bends in a silted canal is ludicrous. I'd only really overtake on a canal if waved through or obviously necessary. Why the hurry for some people?

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7 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

Why the hurry for some people?

Well sometimes there is a hurry. Hire boat has to be returned at a specific time. Folk have to be back at home mooring in order to catch a flight home (us). Have to meet some externally applied schedule (eg a booking for Liverpool Link (us)). Lots of other reasons why folk might have to hurry on occasion - or at least not waste time.

 

Pushing past people is bad. But what is worse is people who fail to understand that some folk have a life slightly different from their own. And the most irritating thing on the entire network are those self-righteous people who crow that “Oooooh, you mustn’t hurry on the canals!”. They are just displaying a very selfish attitude and they have no clue that a few decades ago the purpose of the canals was to transport goods asap, and hurrying was top of the agenda.

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I have often wondered if the shallowness of the canal means that the boat in front moves the water in some way to speed up a following boat - a sort of aquatic slipstreaming. As I've said, I can't really go faster than 3mph and don't often quite do that, but time and time again I find myself catching boats up, even when I've gone down to tickover. They can't all be doing 2mph.

I used to get worked up about it, now I pull up as long as there's no-one catching ME up and have a brew. Then it takes another half hour to catch them up again. 

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4 hours ago, dogless said:

The Bridgewater seems to be 'a law unto itself'.

They don't refer to it as the Sale flying club for no reason :)

We had similar issues last year ... best just to let them pass, they're going to overtake anyway.

Rog

But they are still doing it when they get to Anderton

Edited by ditchcrawler
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1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

Well sometimes there is a hurry. Hire boat has to be returned at a specific time. Folk have to be back at home mooring in order to catch a flight home (us). Have to meet some externally applied schedule (eg a booking for Liverpool Link (us)). Lots of other reasons why folk might have to hurry on occasion - or at least not waste time.

 

Pushing past people is bad. But what is worse is people who fail to understand that some folk have a life slightly different from their own. And the most irritating thing on the entire network are those self-righteous people who crow that “Oooooh, you mustn’t hurry on the canals!”. They are just displaying a very selfish attitude and they have no clue that a few decades ago the purpose of the canals was to transport goods asap, and hurrying was top of the agenda.

Most narrowboaters don't realise how slow they are travelling.  I use GPS and most of the boats I pass are doing less than 3mph but I reckon they think they are on the limit.  When Magictime says he slowed to around 3mph I suspect he was actually doing less than that and on the Bridgewater less than 3mph is practically an obstruction.  I'm not excusing the behaviour of the overtaking boat but you can't assume that just because the boat behind is going much faster than you he's some sort of speed demon.  Some of us just like to go as "fast" as practicable, some like to travel at a more sedate pace, we should have consideration for each other. 

 

 

  

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3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I tend to time myself between Mile posts. So far I've not managed more than 3mph so I've stopped worrying about ever going too fast. Having a boat with three bottoms slows you down a bit. But I still seem to catch up with boats all the time. 

I've timed myself between distance parkers, used GPS on my phone, several speedo apps on both phone and tablet and have never achieved the 'magical '4 MPH. Sub 3 MPH is far more realistic. My forward speed always seems on a par with other boats. When planning a journey I use an expected speed of 2.5 MPH and am never far out. Remember a GPS speed app gives a point to point speed not an actual speed

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The limit has nothing to do with just speed, it's to do with a breaking wash.  The speed quoted by Waterways is merely a guide to those who don't know how to turn their head to read how their boat displaces the water as it passes through.

 

6 hours ago, magictime said:

….. then his bow is alongside my stern. We can't understand what he's playing at and don't want to wave him past because (1) he's got no need to overtake if travelling at a reasonable speed

He's caught you up, and then his bow is alongside your bow, but you don't understand what is happening! Really? Anybody else here not able to understand that situation?

You don't want to wave him past because he has no need to overtake you … Why is that your responsibility to decide?

How long have you been authorised to make executive decisions on behalf of other adults?  You don't have to like others' decisions, yet if you don't allow them to do so (even if it were illegal) then not only are you not being assertive but verging on aggressive.

Sadly your paintwork was damaged, yet if you had stopped to allow them to pass you it's likely you wouldn't have been drawn together or drifted.

 

If I don't like someone's style I tend to loose them past me so if they are dangerous they are as far away from me as I can get them.

That applies to walking on a pavement to driving as well as on the cut.  Why would I want to keep them close or hold them up? As for deciding what they are trying to do is stupid/wrong/against etiquette and so I shall obstruct and then remonstrate with them?

That's only going to end one way.

 

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