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Is youtube ruining the canals?


doratheexplorer

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18 hours ago, jpcdriver said:

My take on the Minimalist Bingley video was after the event what they were most concerned about the way the local lockies behaved, being very dismissive about the level of danger involved.

 

I

I can completely believe that CRT lockies can overlook basic safety.

 

Here's my experience from last year:

 

Locking out onto the Thames at Brentford.  2 lockies had arrived to see boats through.

I took Beau into the lock first.  There was another fairly wide boat coming in with me so I loosely tied my stern line on to a bollard to give them plenty of space to aim at.  I knew that once on the tideway I'd have no opportunity to pee so took the chance to nip inside for a pee.  I was quick, but by the time I'd got back onto the deck, the other boat was in, the gates were shut and the lock was emptying, quickly.  No communication to see if skippers or crew were ready, or even visible.  Nothing.  My boat was already hanging up at the stern as I came out of the hatch.  I screamed at the lockies to stop emptying the lock and and they just stood there staring at me like gormless idiots.  By the time they realised what was happening the rope had snapped and the boat crashed down into the lock.  Luckily the only damage was to the rope.  I got the impression that the 2 lockies had no idea about safety or anything.  They just turned up in a van when a passage was booked, pressed a few buttons and then went on their way.

Edited by Dave_P
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2 hours ago, Dave_P said:

I can completely believe that CRT lockies can overlook basic safety.

 

Here's my experience from last year:

 

Locking out onto the Thames at Brentford.  2 lockies had arrived to see boats through.

I took Beau into the lock first.  There was another fairly wide boat coming in with me so I loosely tied my stern line on to a bollard to give them plenty of space to aim at.  I knew that once on the tideway I'd have no opportunity to pee so took the chance to nip inside for a pee.  I was quick, but by the time I'd got back onto the deck, the other boat was in, the gates were shut and the lock was emptying, quickly.  No communication to see if skippers or crew were ready, or even visible.  Nothing.  My boat was already hanging up at the stern as I came out of the hatch.  I screamed at the lockies to stop emptying the lock and and they just stood there staring at me like gormless idiots.  By the time they realised what was happening the rope had snapped and the boat crashed down into the lock.  Luckily the only damage was to the rope.  I got the impression that the 2 lockies had no idea about safety or anything.  They just turned up in a van when a passage was booked, pressed a few buttons and then went on their way.

Almost exactly the same happened when I went out, the other boat was in first, tied in and decided to check his weed hatch, I came in and gates shut paddles opened. I saw what was happening and sat on the horn to attract the lockies attention. The rope was tight but not snapped

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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

Almost exactly the same happened when I went out, the other boat was in first, tied in and decided to check his weed hatch, I came in and gates shut paddles opened. I saw what was happening and sat on the horn to attract the lockies attention. The rope was tight but not snapped

Maybe they'll learn when they sink a boat?

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On 14/03/2022 at 15:55, doratheexplorer said:

There are currently two active threads on here which both involve new members looking for advice on their first boats which they plan to have built.  In both cases the boats they describe are likely to give them some issues.

 

It seems that both new members have had their ideas sparked by watching boating channels on youtube.  These channels tend to portray a world of idyllic loveliness which inevitably makes their viewers want to join in.

 

I'm not surprised by this, since it's the way youtube works.  Content creators get paid from the adverts which appear before and during their videos, and the more people who view, the more they get paid.  So it makes perfect sense for their content to lean towards making the canals look perfectly lovely and focus only on the positives, minimising the negatives.  This is because the majority of viewers are non-boaters who enjoy pretty and relaxing videos of narrowboats chugging along next to flowery hedgerows and under interesting old bridges.  I get it, I really do.  I'd rather watch a video like that, rather than a realistic portrayal of narrowboat life.

 

But the upshot of this is that more and more people are getting a skewed idea of what boat life is actually like.  A friend came boating with me last weekend because she's thinking of getting a boat.  Why?  Because she's been avidly watching youtube videos and sucking up all the loveliness...

 

Broadcast TV shows don't have quite the same impact it seems because they're just short series.  But these youtube channels put out new content every week, drawing their viewers further and further into their world.

 

I don't know what the answer is, but I do blame youtube for encouraging many new boaters onto the cut when they have a very innaccurate idea of what's in store.

YouTube is a platform for people to post their videos. As far as I know YouTube do not produce the content.

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On 14/03/2022 at 20:27, Quattrodave said:

 

I think I'm a good tenant.... silly question, from a landlords point of view, what makes a not so good tenant? Are good tenants hard to come by?

Yes good tenants are hard to come by.

On 14/03/2022 at 21:45, MtB said:

 

Easier to describe a 'good tenant'. One who pays the rent reliably and keeps the place clean and tidy, including the garden. That pretty much sums it up. 

 

Also, a practical tenant who tends to fix trivial stuff themselves (rather than calling the LL to say the window won't shut or the fence has blown down or the grill no longer works in the cooker) is a massive bonus. I now seem to have loads of these and I hang onto them by NEVER increasing the rent. I have one tenant paying half the going rate as they have been with me best part of 20 years. They know they are getting a raving bargain and never bother me with ANYTHING , probably n case I review the rent, aha!! 

 

 

I agree 100%

 

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I blame technology & social climbing, in the 50s/60s relatively few people fancied slumming it on a narrowboat especially as it was considered a low place in the social order, now with inverters/TVs/wifi etc etc canal life has become comfy & 'respectable'. 

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8 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

I blame technology & social climbing, in the 50s/60s relatively few people fancied slumming it on a narrowboat especially as it was considered a low place in the social order, now with inverters/TVs/wifi etc etc canal life has become comfy & 'respectable'. 

 

A very perceptive point. 

 

When I was a child my parents used to warn me to avoid the people on the boats as they were trouble, like gypsies. 

 

Nowadays attitudes amongst land dwellers are very different.

 

 

 

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