Jump to content

More volockie hassle


nicknorman

Featured Posts

2 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

So what do you do when you come to an official manned lock flight something like the Bingley 5 rise? Do you get off and tell them not to touch the locks as you want to do them all? No as you wouldn’t get through. 

Certainly have done Bingley in the past on our own, before the flight was manned. But anyway, Bingley has an employed lock keeper, with some volunteers as assistants. I can’t recall encountering a power-crazed employed lock-keeper, that is the remit of the (some) volunteers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Apart from the infirm and people who have no idea what they are doing, I don’t really see the point of going boating on the canals if you “appreciate” other people doing most of the work. Why not just stay at home and watch one of those 8 hour videos of cruising eg the K&A in real time?

 

Im guessing you are a volockie and think you are god’s gift to boaters, well I have news for you, you ain’t!

I have traveled with other boats and heard the comment, O there is a volunteer, I wont have to do anything. Some people would like all the locks mechanised and automatic.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, ditchcrawler said:

I have traveled with other boats and heard the comment, O there is a volunteer, I wont have to do anything. Some people would like all the locks mechanised and automatic.

Yes you are right, but that is their choice (even though I don’t understand it!).

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Apart from the infirm and people who have no idea what they are doing, I don’t really see the point of going boating on the canals if you “appreciate” other people doing most of the work. Why not just stay at home and watch one of those 8 hour videos of cruising eg the K&A in real time?

 

Im guessing you are a volockie and think you are god’s gift to boaters, well I have news for you, you ain’t!

It didn’t seam to bother you a couple of years ago when you came over the L&L on your way to Leeds when you seamed to have a Volunteer follow you down helping your friend with the locks,  I passed you and your partner in a lock just before Leeds when you came out, so get off your high horse. 

Edited by PD1964
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

It didn’t seam to bother you a couple of years ago when you came over the L&L on your way to Leeds when you seamed to have a Volunteer follow you down helping your friend with the locks,  I passed you and your partner in a lock when you came out, so get off your high horse.

 

LOL.

 

Hope you dont mean on the Wigan flight......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

It didn’t seam to bother you a couple of years ago when you came over the L&L on your way to Leeds when you seamed to have a Volunteer follow you down helping your friend with the locks,  I passed you and your partner in a lock when you came out, so get off your high horse.

I am very tall so I need a high horse. I think what you are saying is that some volockie latched onto us and “helped” us with a couple of locks and we were too polite to tell him that we’d rather do it ourselves. I certainly can’t recalled being followed by any volockie for any great distance, although since you don’t specify where on the L&L you are talking about (and it’s quite a long canal) there isn’t much to jog my memory with. There were a couple of professional lockies as I recall one assisted us through one lock, the other just moaned that we were traversing the locks as a single boat and thus wasting water - even though the bywashes were flowing freely!

5 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

LOL.

 

Hope you dont mean on the Wigan flight......

Hopefully not as we went up that flight not down, and received no assistance, only hassle.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

I am very tall so I need a high horse. I think what you are saying is that some volockie latched onto us and “helped” us with a couple of locks and we were too polite to tell him that we’d rather do it ourselves. I certainly can’t recalled being followed by any volockie for any great distance, although since you don’t specify where on the L&L you are talking about (and it’s quite a long canal) there isn’t much to jog my memory with. There were a couple of professional lockies as I recall one assisted us through one lock, the other just moaned that we were traversing the locks as a single boat and thus wasting water - even though the bywashes were flowing freely!

Hopefully not as we went up that flight not down, and received no assistance, only hassle.

The Volunteer said he’d come down from Newlay locks, maybe he was helping you get down quickly so to get a spot near the Foxes ? before Granary Wharf got too full. Anyway I don’t mind a volunteer doing a lock for me and yes I would be annoyed if it caused danger to my boat, but fortunately this has not happened of yet. Take it easy and enjoy.

Edited by PD1964
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes now you mention it, some chap did assist us in those last few locks, just 2 or 3 I think. But we still didn’t get into Granary, but fortunately did get into the Armouries. As I think I’ve said, I don’t really have a problem with being given a bit of assistance, especially closing up or setting ahead, but I do object when the volockies start telling us what to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

Anyway I don’t mind a volunteer doing a lock for me and yes I would be annoyed if it caused danger to my boat, but fortunately this has not happened of yet.

 

 

The more boating you do, statistically, the more risk you are of a volockie causing you problems.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

The more boating you do, statistically, the more risk you are of a volockie causing you problems.

Your at more risk of any hazards on the canals the more you use them and the more boating you do, not Rocket Science(or were you trying to be funny?)
  Maybe you should start a Poll on here with a simple Yes or No answer, with the title of something like “Do canal users want CaRT Volunteers on the canal system”

  I’m sure you’ll be able to find a template online that you could cut’n’paste to help you.

Edited by PD1964
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did CRT consult boat users about the "volunteer lock keepers" before they were introduced? I can't remember if there was any sort of proper consultation and taking of feedback about the whole thing or if it is just done to make the corporate image better.

 

It seems very inappropriate for these people to not be identifiable. 

 

 

 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, PD1964 said:

So what do you do when you come to an official manned lock flight something like the Bingley 5 rise? Do you get off and tell them not to touch the locks as you want to do them all? No as you wouldn’t get through. 

When ever I have done bingley they have never been a problem, merely talking to me and not touching the lock.   However if needed I would ask them to let me work the lock myself.

 

However there a few full time lockies and IMO far too many volunteers who merely want the power of working the lock themselves rather than asking what you want.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Unicorn Stampede said:

 

 

Poor form and the wrong person might remove the phone from your hand without asking...

...thereby adding theft to assault. A violent thief is not the sort of person who should be "assisting" the public, I'd say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I assume that everyone has read the new Licence Terms and Conditions, you know, section 11.2  the part where it says "The Boat Licence does not give You any priority of passage on the Waterway. You must follow the directions of Our employees and volunteers".

 

That can be read on a number of levels, and is one of the several remaining requirements that NABO are trying to get removed or amended.

  • Greenie 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I assume that everyone has read the new Licence Terms and Conditions, you know, section 11.2  the part where it says "The Boat Licence does not give You any priority of passage on the Waterway. You must follow the directions of Our employees and volunteers".

 

That can be read on a number of levels, and is one of the several remaining requirements that NABO are trying to get removed or amended.

Slippery slope here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, john6767 said:

We came down Wilmcote about a month ago, go no help at all from the volockies, all they seemed to want to do was help the boat in front down, despite the fact they had loads of crew, and I don’t think it was a hire boat.  Perhaps that was a good thing in retrospect.

 

The week before that I gave a volly on Hatton a telling off, as he turned a lock on us for a boat he was helping that was not even in the pound above and we were about 30 yds from the lock in the pound below.  He said the lock was more than half full and it was to save water, so I pointed to the by-wash which was pouring over, he just could not understand.  This was at the bottom of the flight, and we moored in the pound 4 locks up overnight, and we actually got very good help from the bunch on the next day.  It is so variable, you have no idea how it is going to go.

 

As an aside to something I saw on Twitter, anyone know if there is any truth that CRT’s insurance does not cover the volockies?  I find that hard to believe.

Ive had several run ins with the vols at Hatton over the years....from them telling me I shouldn't lower paddles in the correct manner....hatton are designed to self lower...to turning a lock round on me as I approached it for a boat several locks away in the other direction....I made my thoughts known on both occasions and was told Id be reported to CRT....to which I replied go ahead.....that wasn't well received!

 

I will say that last year things had improved and the vol just set the lock ahead which was far more preferable and to my mind how they should work....I shall see if its the same this year!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, magnetman said:

Slippery slope here. 

 

 

In extremis :

 

You could be sat at the top of a flight waiting to go down, buy the Volly doesn't like the look of you, so lets everyone else down, and up and you are left there - make a fuss or just 'go for it' and you lose your licence for non-compliance.

 

Volley says "I'm working the lock", you refuse to let him and do the lock yourself and you lose your licence for non-compliance.

 

Volley says "no mooring there there is a fishing match tommorrow", you moor anyway and lose your licence for non-compliance

 

 

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

In extremis :

 

You could be sat at the top of a flight waiting to go down, buy the Volly doesn't like the look of you, so lets everyone else down, and up and you are left there - make a fuss or just 'go for it' and you lose your licence for non-compliance.

 

Volley says "I'm working the lock", you refuse to let him and do the lock yourself and you lose your licence for non-compliance.

 

Volley says "no mooring there there is a fishing match tommorrow", you moor anyway and lose your licence for non-compliance

 


however as we know, the Ts and Cs have no standing in law. Licensing of boats is controlled by the 1995 act which places the well known 3 requirements to be met at which point a licence will be issued. The licence cannot legally be revoked on CRT’s whim. And they know that.

 

In addition, any T/C that says “you must obey our volunteers” is clearly an unreasonable one. A rogue volunteer might say “you must give me all your money / murder my enemy for me” etc etc. Unreasonable Ts and Cs are not binding. Had the T/C said “you must obey the lawful and reasonable instruction of our volunteers” then it might not be an unreasonable one, but that isn’t what it says.

 

But actually think the point of the T/C is for places like Watford and Foxton where some degree of organisation of traffic is needed.

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I assume that everyone has read the new Licence Terms and Conditions, you know, section 11.2  the part where it says "The Boat Licence does not give You any priority of passage on the Waterway. You must follow the directions of Our employees and volunteers".

 

Yet CART also states that vollies are there to "assist boaters". Are the two statements not incompatible?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every vlockie I met (singlehanding) last year asked if I wanted them to help with the lock, and when I said yes, every single one checked with me before raising a paddle. It did look as if the message had got through, so maybe it's a problem in just a few places with just a few people - there's always going to be some. But I can see why they like doing it - same reason Nick does, it's one of the fun bits of boating. Take their fun away and they won't do the drudgery bits either.

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having done quite a bit of single handed boating and short handed (travelling when the children were infants and babies so we couldn't just lock 'em inside the boat) a bit of help would have been appreciated, particularly closing gates behind us when leaving locks.  I find that's the best bit of French automated locks, you look behind you and the gates are closing - magic.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Athy said:

Yet CART also states that vollies are there to "assist boaters". Are the two statements not incompatible?

 

 

Yes - but that is not unusual. It allows them to take action irrespective of doing, or not doing something.

 

Even the Bible has conflicting instructions

 

Luke 6:29. states, “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.” 

 

Leviticus 24:19-22 states  "And whoever causes an injury to a neighbor must receive the same kind of injury in return: Broken bone for broken bone, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Anyone who injures another person must be injured in the same way in return".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Arthur Marshall said:

Every vlockie I met (singlehanding) last year asked if I wanted them to help with the lock, and when I said yes, every single one checked with me before raising a paddle. It did look as if the message had got through, so maybe it's a problem in just a few places with just a few people - there's always going to be some. But I can see why they like doing it - same reason Nick does, it's one of the fun bits of boating. Take their fun away and they won't do the drudgery bits either.

If they were all like that, I’d be happy! Unfortunately they aren’t, and the lack of consistency is a big problem. Ultimately it is bad “quality control” by CRT - failing to continue to monitor the behaviour of their volunteers once they have a tick in the box for their initial training,

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

Even the Bible has conflicting instructions

 

Luke 6:29. states, “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.” 

 

Leviticus 24:19-22 states  "And whoever causes an injury to a neighbor must receive the same kind of injury in return: Broken bone for broken bone, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Anyone who injures another person must be injured in the same way in return".

Not really - those are from the New and Old Testaments respectively. CART's two pronouncements are both from their current testament.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.