Do most people actually observe the speed limits on the canals?

[jam]

I have respect for other boaters, when I pass it is in stealth mode and frightens the life out of moored boaters by appearing with no warning. Luckily I have a low rev engine in tickover and do sometimes wonder whether some boats have their tickover set too high as this is the case with one of my relatives who insists that is how the engine has always been.

[john6767]

5 hours ago, matty40s said:

Nope, it's still the River Soar there, it doesnt become a true canal until after Kings Lock, Aylestone.

OK, but it certainly means that there is no part of the GU with a 6mph speed limit, just the Soar.

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, jam said:

I have respect for other boaters, when I pass it is in stealth mode and frightens the life out of moored boaters by appearing with no warning. Luckily I have a low rev engine in tickover and do sometimes wonder whether some boats have their tickover set too high as this is the case with one of my relatives who insists that is how the engine has always been.

 

Many Morse levers have two positions the gear engagement can be set to, and builders seem to like setting them up in the fast position not the slow position.

 

I have repinned several for experienced but not mechanically minded boaters who are embarrassed by their tickover speed and don't know how to do it.

 

We have stealth mode too - hospital silencer on a Beta 38 that engages drive at 800 rpm.  We once saw a woman washing up in her galley jump a mile and break a plate because we were creeping past late one night.  She hadn't heard us coming and glanced up and saw a boat a couple of feet from her window.

[jam]

10 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

We have stealth mode too - hospital silencer on a Beta 38 that engages drive at 800 rpm.  We once saw a woman washing up in her galley jump a mile and break a plate because we were creeping past late one night.  She hadn't heard us coming and glanced up and saw a boat a couple of feet from her window.

It can be good fun to frighten the bejasus out of some folk. Mine is an Isuzu 42 but the Morse controller is probably the same. Some are incorrectly adjusted and the owners just accept the settings.

[TheBiscuits]

12 minutes ago, jam said:

It can be good fun to frighten the bejasus out of some folk. Mine is an Isuzu 42 but the Morse controller is probably the same. Some are incorrectly adjusted and the owners just accept the settings.

Yep.  Exactly this.

 

I never pass moored boats at tickover between 8am and 8pm, it's always a few hundred rpm over.  Not even GRP cruisers twitch, and we often get comments that it's nice to see a boat pass slowly.

 

If I'm passing a line of boats at midnight - which happens quite often- I use stealth mode (true tickover) and none of them even notice we came past.  We don't even make ripples at that speed!

 

 

 

 

[The Welsh Cruiser]

I've never experienced a boat doing 4 mph on a narrow canal. The closest to it was when I was kayaking, doing a steady 3.7 mph when I was shocked to find a cruiser behind me. He wanted to overtake me, completely unheard of, if there's a narrow boat in the distance, I've always overtaken it within a mile, regardless of how he's thrashing his engine. My own narrow boat achieves the heady heights of 3 mph, flat out.

[Rambling Boater]

When I first started boating I treated cruising more like a challenge. To capture as much as I could during the limited time I had away from work. Even then I always tried to remember to slow down past moored boats. I found it was appreciated by many boaters with a friendly wave or "thank you".

 

On the occasions I forgot to slow down I often received abusive comments.

 

Eventually I learnt not to forget.

 

 

[cuthound]

11 minutes ago, Rambling Boater said:

When I first started boating I treated cruising more like a challenge. To capture as much as I could during the limited time I had away from work. Even then I always tried to remember to slow down past moored boats. I found it was appreciated by many boaters with a friendly wave or "thank you".

 

On the occasions I forgot to slow down I often received abusive comments.

 

Eventually I learnt not to forget.

 

 

 

Indeed, I was taught to slow right down, well in advance of a moored boat, 47 years ago and still do it.

 

On a couple of occasions, where i have come across a particularly bad 'fastard" the next day, I have retaliated by not slowing down as I pass, but slowing down is so ingrained in me that it feels really alien and takes mental effort to do it.

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

3 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Indeed, I was taught to slow right down, well in advance of a moored boat, 47 years ago and still do it.

 

On a couple of occasions, where i have come across a particularly bad 'fastard" the next day, I have retaliated by not slowing down as I pass, but slowing down is so ingrained in me that it feels really alien and takes mental effort to do it.

 

 

 

Well that's disgraceful.  It can only help educate the unwise if you slow down for them.

 

Try chucking it into full astern as your prop comes level with the offending boat ...

 

 

 

[doratheexplorer]

10 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Many Morse levers have two positions the gear engagement can be set to, and builders seem to like setting them up in the fast position not the slow position.

 

I have repinned several for experienced but not mechanically minded boaters who are embarrassed by their tickover speed and don't know how to do it.

 

We have stealth mode too - hospital silencer on a Beta 38 that engages drive at 800 rpm.  We once saw a woman washing up in her galley jump a mile and break a plate because we were creeping past late one night.  She hadn't heard us coming and glanced up and saw a boat a couple of feet from her window.

That's the sort of thing I might do!

[cuthound]

1 hour ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Well that's disgraceful.  It can only help educate the unwise if you slow down for them.

 

Try chucking it into full astern as your prop comes level with the offending boat ...

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the tip, I take it you speak from a position of experience? ??

[Bewildered]

After spending most of lockdown in the Cropredy area and having to put up with all the passing canoes an kayaks from Cropredy canoe club I feel as though I’ve spent 3 months rounding Cape Horn.

How can something so small disturb so much water?

[GUMPY]

When moorings are the other side of a bridge and you are motoring on, hit reverse before you get to the bridge to stop the boat then carry on using tickover.

The wall of water you were pushing ahead of you goes through the bridge whilst you poodle through on tick over watching the boats bob up and down

Its even more effective if there is a lock after the bridge at the far end of the moorings, as the water rolls back and forward.

Something that was done to us on more than one occasion by an ex BW boatman when he was passing early in the morning

 

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2020 by Loddon

[bizzard]

11 minutes ago, Bewildered said:

After spending most of lockdown in the Cropredy area and having to put up with all the passing canoes an kayaks from Cropredy canoe club I feel as though I’ve spent 3 months rounding Cape Horn.

How can something so small disturb so much water?

It's the side to side rolling effect while they paddle that shoves little waves out on either side.

[Tracy D'arth]

18 hours ago, nicknorman said:

You don’t say where you moor (probably don’t want to, which is fair enough) so perhaps there is an issue with that particular stretch, eg boats coming off the Bridgewater (fast wide and deep) onto the T&M (slow, narrow and shallow).

 

However I take issue with your last sentence. The only certainty is that some of the passing boats are going too fast for the way your boat is moored. Whether that is because the boats are going too fast or because the way the boat is moored is incompatible with the canal, is uncertain.

Perhaps you could travel down here, grace us with you presence and massive knowledge from afar, and tie our boats up with your mouth, it seems to be big enough.

I hate Male 'Splainers.

Tracy with 40 years experience working an living on canals.

[Athy]

23 minutes ago, Bewildered said:

After spending most of lockdown in the Cropredy area and having to put up with all the passing canoes an kayaks from Cropredy canoe club I feel as though I’ve spent 3 months rounding Cape Horn.

How can something so small disturb so much water?

We almost met the weekend before last - you were moored in the lone public space between the workboat and our boat. They do create a wake disproportionate to their size, those canoes (I hadn't realised that some were kayaks), but one gets used to them after a while, especially as they generally operate at roughly the same times of day each weekend. 

[Tracy D'arth]

23 minutes ago, Bewildered said:

After spending most of lockdown in the Cropredy area and having to put up with all the passing canoes an kayaks from Cropredy canoe club I feel as though I’ve spent 3 months rounding Cape Horn.

How can something so small disturb so much water?

Often wondered that.  A very odd motion, its more up and down than side wash.

Its good fun there though when they roll in.

Best laugh is the cycle accompaniment trying to cycle the towpath and miss the holes over the gabions past the mill without going in.

TD'

[nicknorman]

38 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Perhaps you could travel down here, grace us with you presence and massive knowledge from afar, and tie our boats up with your mouth, it seems to be big enough.

I hate Male 'Splainers.

Tracy with 40 years experience working an living on canals.

... and, it seems, 40 years of repeating the same action over and over again, each time expecting a different outcome. There’s a name for that I seem to recall!

[Athy]

27 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

... and, it seems, 40 years of repeating the same action over and over again, each time expecting a different outcome. There’s a name for that I seem to recall!

Consistency?

Optimism?

- neither of them bad traits.

[Thomas C King]

Well that answers that then. It seems like there isn't much speeding? I've just been bumped by another boat, which seems to happen a couple of times each week (at least) is this something you have all just learned to put up with? I don't know how they do it sometimes...

 

We're moored pretty sturdily, the boat doesn't bump around.

[Naughty Cal]

5 minutes ago, Thomas C King said:

Well that answers that then. It seems like there isn't much speeding? I've just been bumped by another boat, which seems to happen a couple of times each week (at least) is this something you have all just learned to put up with? I don't know how they do it sometimes...

 

We're moored pretty sturdily, the boat doesn't bump around.

I can count on one hand the number of times that we have been bumped into (that we know about) by another boat in the last 13 years. So no I would not say that is common.

[Tracy D'arth]

18 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

Are you moored anywhere near @Boater Sam?

 

Unfortunately Sam is still locked down in the Philippines. If you go onto ThunderB you will find out. His son is trying to get him back, has been since March.
Sam has vowed never to post on here again, I can't blame him. He is active on YBW.com though.

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

He is active on YBW.com though.

 

I presume he has moderated his posting technique then, they wouldn't put up with him as long as this forum did if he hasn't changed.

[Tracy D'arth]

39 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I presume he has moderated his posting technique then, they wouldn't put up with him as long as this forum did if he hasn't changed.

That is a very unpleasant comment to make about an old guy. He is one of the most helpful people I know, on this forum he was insulted and sworn at I believe.

Now the poor old boy has been stuck in the Philippines away from anyone he knows since March.

There are lots of folk around the canals who like him.

What is your problem? Will you ever be old and a bit tetchy?

TD'

[Machpoint005]

I have a very old satnav on the boat: it is so old that a speed indication is about all it can do. It tells me that my usual cruising speed is 2.6mph. If I'm in a hurry (why?) I can get up to 2.7mph.