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Horns: does anyone use them anymore?


BrumBargee

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  • 3 months later...

I haven't read this thread yet but it's relevant, as I was excited last week when I was winding my boat and saw someone come around the corner. First occasion I have ever had to give four blasts ("I am turning around") though tempted, I really couldn't justify to give two more blasts to say which way around.

 

Being that I was at 90 degrees to the canal in a winding hole, it probably wasn't completely necessary but I couldn't let the opportunity go to waste!

The only two reasons to use my horn that I ever really get are when going round a blind corner (one blast, "I am here") and on the rare occasions it makes sense to pass on the left - two blasts. I haven't ever heard anything other than the blind corner blasts from other boaters. I have strong doubts most other boaters even know what even the two blasts mean, nor need to use a horn, let alone ever use them.

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  • 1 year later...

EDIT: I now realise it's two years later! Sorry, I somehow lost track of which thread I was reading.

 

The problem I've had with sounding the horn at corners is that it still doesn't communicate location well enough to determine right of way, nor intention.


I honk, they honk, now I know they're there but not whether they've decided to wait for me or expect me to do so.

 

Unless it's a totally blind corner it seems more straightforward just to slow down and be prepared to yield to anyone who emerges at the last second. Lark's tiny so it's always easier for me to get out of the way than the other boat.

 

I always sound the horn before pulling out at junctions or similar. Even with the direction signals if I'm feeling bored. No-one seems to understand them.

Edited by Francis Herne
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I was following a trip boat, several people on the stern looking forward, I gave then one toot, and they moved to std! I made a polite comment as I went past on their port side. Apparently they were all oaps, just like me, as it happens....

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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

I was following a trip boat, several people on the stern looking forward, I gave then one toot, and they moved to std! I made a polite comment as I went past on their port side. Apparently they were all oaps, just like me, as it happens....

 

I don't think that you used the correct signal for I wish to overtake:giggles: I think that you indicated that you were going to ram the bank. :giggles:

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2 hours ago, LadyG said:

I was following a trip boat, several people on the stern looking forward, I gave then one toot, and they moved to std! I made a polite comment as I went past on their port side. Apparently they were all oaps, just like me, as it happens....

A boat load of OAP's with STD's sounds alarming. Horn or no horn.

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7 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I don't think that you used the correct signal for I wish to overtake:giggles: I think that you indicated that you were going to ram the bank. :giggles:

I was signalling I was about to ram their backside!

Indeed, I was keeping it low key,  wide river, but they were travelling at my tickover speed and well on the RHS of the fairway, so I was forced to do something, rather than surprise them. They decided to move over to port, I just smiled as I passed by,  wide berth, and made some polite comment about sound signals.

 

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On 15/05/2021 at 02:13, Alan de Enfield said:

 

In the last couple of days there has been a thread about 'training'.

 

It wouldn't hurt for hire boats to have the signal sheet attached next to the helm and the hire companies to explain that it is the hirers own interest to give a 3-4 secind toot when approaching a blind turn or bridge hole.

 

Boat owners could even do the same.

 

We have to start somewhere.

 

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"

"Lao Tzu)

 

 

Certainly Foxhangers on the K&A  had the sound signals on a sticker just below the instrument panel when we hired from them in 2009.

But the reality was the only sound signal we ever heard was a warning about tiks some where over there, when passing the miles of poorly moored, and maintained boats.

35 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

A few years ago I was heading from Hockley Port towards the main line on the Soho loop, I went to press the horn but, being unfamiliar with the boat I got the engine stop button instead.... 

Been there, done that! 

Also washed the windscreen on the car instead of a solid flash of full beam headlights.

 

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Don't get me started on horns. I live at a tunnel entrance, that has timed entry only and you can see all the way through to the other end. Yet every other boat goes into the tunnel and insists in a long blast of their horn.

 

What's the f**king point?

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2 hours ago, junior said:

Don't get me started on horns. I live at a tunnel entrance, that has timed entry only and you can see all the way through to the other end. Yet every other boat goes into the tunnel and insists in a long blast of their horn.

 

What's the f**king point?

There is a big CRT notice saying blow your horn. I do it to see if you are at home.

2 hours ago, LadyG said:

 and made some polite comment about sound signals.

 

What that you gave the wrong one?

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Many moons ago we were coming down from Teddington to Brentford, there had been a festival that featured a large RNLI boat just upstream from Teddington. 

At the same time I decided to turn upstream into Brentford  the Coxswain got the RNLI boat up on the plane. Sounded horn with 4 short blasts followed by one short blast. You have never seen a boat drop off the plane quite so quickly. He then responded with two short blasts to indicate a change if course that would take them astern of my boat.

I love it when things work as they should.

 

 

 

And for those that say I should have waited, that would have meant a tussle with Kew Bridge. 

 

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I've given three short blasts at a bridge before now to indicate to an incoming boat that I will let them have the bridge, then been accused of excessive horn use and that they heard me the first time.

I've also carried on when an oncoming boat has given three blasts to then be hit by them as they weren't going astern but that was their signal for I'm ploughing on regardless.

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I can't help feeling that horn signals (apart from a single long blast at a blind bridge/corner) are a bit pointless on a canal as it's far more likely than not that the other boat won't have a clue what is being signalled and, indeed, may even react badly.

 

Different on a river where the other boat is very clearly being steered by someone who should know e.g. an RNLI boat.

Edited by Lily Rose
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I seem to recall reading in WW a few years ago that the UK had got an exemption from an EC regulation requiring canal boats to sound their horn for a minute when approaching a bridge.  

 

When we hired a boat for a week on the Norfolk Broads a couple of decades ago and couldn't find a button for the horn, I was told they had removed the horns from all their boats. Apparently waterside residents had complained about being kept awake by revelling holidaymakers sounding their horns at night.

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