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We share lock working with Iain getting off and winding paddles and moving heavy gates as well as driving the boat in and out of locks. This method works well for us and that is how we have done locks for years.

I must admit I am a bit surprised at how many males just stand there holding the tiller and never stepping  off the boat at locks.

I always think how badly trained they are ?

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6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Is 'putting the kettle on' part of working the locks - there doesn't seem to be much else left.

I do some paddles and gates. We share them. I don't want to be considered greedy ?

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1 hour ago, Justin Smith said:

Could someone please explain to me why it is usually the women doing the hard work and the men just cruising in and out of the locks ? ! ?

I have never understood it at all. My wife pilots the boat in usually ever since she was pregnant and we thought it inadvisable for her to be exerting herself too much, it was that trip which gave her the confidence. She's very good at it too, in some ways better than me because she has more patience.

We just had a week on the Oxford and there were some gates and paddles (esp the top paddles) which I, as a 6ft 11 stone bloke, was really struggling with even with my "4 hole windlass". How women are expected to shift them I do not know. The worst was Somerton deep lock but there were others including some where the top gate was leaking so much water through that it was making it difficult to open the bottom gates even with the paddles open....

I think that, we all know the real answer to that question, but forum members (who are overwhelmingly male) don't want to admit it. 

 

If there are so many women who are nervous of steering the boat, the simple question is - why?

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39 minutes ago, haggis said:

We share lock working with Iain getting off and winding paddles and moving heavy gates as well as driving the boat in and out of locks. This method works well for us and that is how we have done locks for years.

I must admit I am a bit surprised at how many males just stand there holding the tiller and never stepping  off the boat at locks.

I always think how badly trained they are ?

Timothy West probably trained them 

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8 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

If there are so many women who are nervous of steering the boat, the simple question is - why?

 

 

I can only quote my own experiences and not speak for anyone else.

 

Lack of spatial awareness being the main one.

 

Our car is damaged on every corner and I have not done any of them (only one other person drives the car)

 

Previous cars have had the back end stoved in when reversing out of the drive into a parked car, on an other occasion, reversed across our yard into a HUGE tractor.

 

Another example is the DiL who reversed out of her parking spot straight into the side of our car smashing her rear lights and offside side quarter and 'compressing' the wheel arch on our car.

 

Then folks wonder why I don't want to spend £80k on a new electric car, or let them handle the boats in close-quarters.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

I can only quote my own experiences and not speak for anyone else.

 

Lack of spatial awareness being the main one.

 

Our car is damaged on every corner and I have not done any of them (only one other person drives the car)

 

Previous cars have had the back end stoved in when reversing out of the drive into a parked car, on an other occasion, reversed across our yard into a HUGE tractor.

 

Another example is the DiL who reversed out of her parking spot straight into the side of our car smashing her rear lights and offside side quarter and 'compressing' the wheel arch on our car.

 

Then folks wonder why I don't want to spend £80k on a new electric car, or let them handle the boats in close-quarters.

Are you implying that women are physically incapable of driving safely?  The road accidents stats seem to say the opposite.

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14 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

on an other occasion, reversed across our yard into a HUGE tractor.

I once bought a Land Rover Series 3 The lad selling it said "one careful owner, then my Dad got it!  He managed to back it into a Combine in the middle of a 60 acre field!".

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58 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Are you implying that women are physically incapable of driving safely?  The road accidents stats seem to say the opposite.

Women are better drivers than men, certainly safer, because they tend to be less aggressive. If I had to choose between sharing the roads with all women drivers or all men I'd choose the former every time, so I am not biased against women drivers. I think it's probably true to say men tend to be better at parking, but nobody, generally speaking, gets killed  or seriously injured parking, which is what really counts.

On the canals my wife is as good as me at steering, though we have a forte in different areas, she concentrates better than me for one.

Edited by Justin Smith
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I remember in the pre-discriminating past that BW stated that all the mechanisms on the canals were suitable for a nine stone female to operate.

 

I enjoy working the locks. I also enjoy steering.

 

I would say that some of the dizziest boaters that I have encountered have been women and some of the most arrogant have been women also.

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40 minutes ago, Justin Smith said:

Women are better drivers than men, certainly safer, because they tend to be less aggressive. If I had to choose between sharing the roads with all women drivers or all men I'd choose the former every time, so I am not biased against women drivers. I think it's probably true to say men tend to be better at parking, but nobody, generally speaking, gets killed  or seriously injured parking, which is what really counts.

On the canals my wife is as good as me at steering, though we have a forte in different areas, she concentrates better than me for one.

My quote was a response to Alan, not you. 

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3 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Could someone please explain to me why it is usually the women doing the hard work and the men just cruising in and out of the locks ? ! ?

I have never understood it at all. My wife pilots the boat in usually ever since she was pregnant and we thought it inadvisable for her to be exerting herself too much, it was that trip which gave her the confidence. She's very good at it too, in some ways better than me because she has more patience.

We just had a week on the Oxford and there were some gates and paddles (esp the top paddles) which I, as a 6ft 11 stone bloke, was really struggling with even with my "4 hole windlass". How women are expected to shift them I do not know. The worst was Somerton deep lock but there were others including some where the top gate was leaking so much water through that it was making it difficult to open the bottom gates even with the paddles open....

 

It is less the norm these days than it used to be. For most of our 20 years ownerership of Helvetia Jan almost always took the boat into the locks, with me operating the lock, it was the same a few weeks ago when we hired a narrowboat for the week.

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We do both although on the whole I tend to do more lock working and Jacqui tends to do more of the steering in and out of locks. 

Th only occasion I can remember where she did all the work and I did nothing but steer for a lot of locks in a row was the occasion when I broke one ankle and severely bruised the other at the third lock down the Wolverhampton flight, and all I could do was sit on the taff rail of our cruiser stern hire boat and waggle the tiller, leaving her to do all the work for the rest of the flight.

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6 minutes ago, David Schweizer said:

 

It is less the norm these days than it used to be. For most of our 20 years ownerership of Helvetia Jan almost always took the boat into the locks, with me operating the lock, it was the same a few weeks ago when we hired a narrowboat for the week.

Funnily enough, whilst working the locks on our last trip, I asked one or two women why they did it that way, and they both said it was a matter of confidence in steering the boat, esp if any other boats are around, or any gongoozlers. They also didn't like their husbands going on at them if they accidentally scraped the boat, which is sometimes impossible not to do anyway, esp if there's a bend just before the lock. My wife tends to be more bothered then me about making a bollox of any manoeuvre, as we all do every now and again (esp when there's an audience) and it takes her an hour or two to get over it

It may also be women like meeting people and chatting more as you do when you're doing the locks ?

44 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I remember in the pre-discriminating past that BW stated that all the mechanisms on the canals were suitable for a nine stone female to operate.

 

I enjoy working the locks. I also enjoy steering.

 

I would say that some of the dizziest boaters that I have encountered have been women and some of the most arrogant have been women also.

It should still be like that, and the swing bridges. We were on the LL a few years ago and one swing bridge was so difficult to move I would not have been able to do it had a passer by not helped me, it was quite impossible.

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4 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Could someone please explain to me why it is usually the women doing the hard work and the men just cruising in and out of the locks ? ! ?

I have never understood it at all.

 

Likewise, as a single-hander-from-the-beginning who very much prefers not being on the boat in a lock even when I have the option to do so. Madness, isn't it?

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C will not steer the boat, that's it end of.

She used to occasionally steer the barge but that had a steering wheel not a waggly stick. I wish she would steer but it's become my job.

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9 hours ago, Justin Smith said:

Could someone please explain to me why it is usually the women doing the hard work and the men just cruising in and out of the locks ? ! ?

I have never understood it at all. My wife pilots the boat in usually ever since she was pregnant and we thought it inadvisable for her to be exerting herself too much, it was that trip which gave her the confidence. She's very good at it too, in some ways better than me because she has more patience.

We just had a week on the Oxford and there were some gates and paddles (esp the top paddles) which I, as a 6ft 11 stone bloke, was really struggling with even with my "4 hole windlass". How women are expected to shift them I do not know. The worst was Somerton deep lock but there were others including some where the top gate was leaking so much water through that it was making it difficult to open the bottom gates even with the paddles open....

On the Calder Navigation and other Yorkshire canals the ladies struggle with the stiff paddles and heavy gates. That's why my other half steers while I do locks. Plus she's a much better steerer than me.

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8 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

Are you implying that women are physically incapable of driving safely?  The road accidents stats seem to say the opposite.

 

That's only because the super proficient male drivers manage to avoid them. :)

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