SLOW DOWN

[booke23]

36 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

One of the things you have to bear in mind is that if you yell at anyone on the cut, there's a good chance you'll see them again a bit further on.  

 

This is very true….never engage in unpleasantries with a boat that’s pointing in the same direction as you. You’re bound to encounter them again later! 

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, Tony1 said:

 

From my recent experience, it is a small minority of boats that actually slow down.

The most common thing is for them to cut the revs at about 50 yards away, and then sail past in tickover but still at almost full speed. 

But most times there is no harm done, apart from a momentary irritation, so I just ignore it. It just is what it is. 

And to be honest, I can understand how people get frustrated by passing long lines of moored boats at slow speed, like the golden mile near Tattenhall. 

 

Personally, I always slow down, or nearly always. 

On one of the rare occasions when I failed to slow down I was told that I was going too fast by an older gentleman stood on the bank.

I was giving three of my younger brothers and five of their teenage boys a go at driving the boat, and in focusing too much on their steering I failed to notice they weren't slowing down to pass a few boats. 

I turned back and shouted to the guy that I thought we were only doing about 2.5 mph, at which he shouted 'rubbish!', and we carried on.

One of the nephews said: 'do they always shout like that?', and I replied that sometimes they did.

As luck would have it, the whole crew of us were walking back down the towpath about half an hour later so that the lads could get their cars, and who should we see up ahead but the shouty gentleman. 

I decided to give him a scare. My younger brothers are rather burly-looking chaps and their lads take after them, so it was quite a crew that approached the old man. 

I scowled fiercely at him as we approached, stepped out to block his path, and as angrily as I could spat out: 'hey mate!'

He stopped dead, recognising me as the man he shouted at earlier, and looked very worried. 

Then I immediately stopped scowling, and beamed at him.

'I just wanted to apologise for passing too fast earlier on,' I said brightly.

'You were absolutely right, and I just didn't realise how fast we were going. Well spotted mate.'  

Without another word I moved on and the whole clan passed him by. 

One of the things you have to bear in mind is that if you yell at anyone on the cut, there's a good chance you'll see them again a bit further on.  

 

Even better - have to share a flight of locks!

[Arthur Marshall]

59 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

From my recent experience, it is a small minority of boats that actually slow down.

The most common thing is for them to cut the revs at about 50 yards away, and then sail past in tickover but still at almost full speed. 

But most times there is no harm done, apart from a momentary irritation, so I just ignore it. It just is what it is. 

And to be honest, I can understand how people get frustrated by passing long lines of moored boats at slow speed, like the golden mile near Tattenhall. 

 

Personally, I always slow down, or nearly always. 

On one of the rare occasions when I failed to slow down I was told that I was going too fast by an older gentleman stood on the bank.

I was giving three of my younger brothers and five of their teenage boys a go at driving the boat, and in focusing too much on their steering I failed to notice they weren't slowing down to pass a few boats. 

I turned back and shouted to the guy that I thought we were only doing about 2.5 mph, at which he shouted 'rubbish!', and we carried on.

One of the nephews said: 'do they always shout like that?', and I replied that sometimes they did.

As luck would have it, the whole crew of us were walking back down the towpath about half an hour later so that the lads could get their cars, and who should we see up ahead but the shouty gentleman. 

I decided to give him a scare. My younger brothers are rather burly-looking chaps and their lads take after them, so it was quite a crew that approached the old man. 

I scowled fiercely at him as we approached, stepped out to block his path, and as angrily as I could spat out: 'hey mate!'

He stopped dead, recognising me as the man he shouted at earlier, and looked very worried. 

Then I immediately stopped scowling, and beamed at him.

'I just wanted to apologise for passing too fast earlier on,' I said brightly.

'You were absolutely right, and I just didn't realise how fast we were going. Well spotted mate.'  

Without another word I moved on and the whole clan passed him by. 

One of the things you have to bear in mind is that if you yell at anyone on the cut, there's a good chance you'll see them again a bit further on.  

 

If 2.5mph is the speed to pass moored boats, I hardly need to bother as my normal cruising speed is just under 3. And as I still seem to catch boats up, they must be going slower. I don't think anyone has overtaken me in years, including on the Llangollen, which would surely imply that almost everyone is going well under 4mph and therefore not speeding.

The ones who annoy me are those who slow down to such an extent I have to keep dropping out of gear. There are more of those than there are the speeders.

[ditchcrawler]

7 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

Yea - wide and deep!

 

Most of it but I spent several hours moored outside Thorn Marine by the bridge. You noticed when some people went through there

27 minutes ago, booke23 said:

 

This is very true….never engage in unpleasantries with a boat that’s pointing in the same direction as you. You’re bound to encounter them again later! 

I encounter one as I was coming back. I tried not to engage in unpleasantries but he objected to me asking him how much longer he intended to run his engine, well it was just past 10pm, he was still humpy in the morning and we saw him on our return journey on his home moorings, with his engine running.

[ditchcrawler]

5 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

If 2.5mph is the speed to pass moored boats, I hardly need to bother as my normal cruising speed is just under 3. And as I still seem to catch boats up, they must be going slower. I don't think anyone has overtaken me in years, including on the Llangollen, which would surely imply that almost everyone is going well under 4mph and therefore not speeding.

The ones who annoy me are those who slow down to such an extent I have to keep dropping out of gear. There are more of those than there are the speeders.

I have read a fraise elsewhere, "Moored with wet ropes" Ie. they are so slack they keep dipping in the water

[Tony1]

2 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

If 2.5mph is the speed to pass moored boats, I hardly need to bother as my normal cruising speed is just under 3. And as I still seem to catch boats up, they must be going slower. I don't think anyone has overtaken me in years, including on the Llangollen, which would surely imply that almost everyone is going well under 4mph and therefore not speeding.

The ones who annoy me are those who slow down to such an extent I have to keep dropping out of gear. There are more of those than there are the speeders.

 

My normal speed is almost the same- just under 3mph. The odd time I've revved it up on empty stretches, it doesnt really go much faster than 3.5mph, so I take it easy on the engine and stay just under 3mph. 

I've no idea what the recommended speed is to pass moored boats, but I aim for about 2mph, which feels respectfully slow, and a good few times I've had people thank me for passing slowly, including two days ago when passing the line of offside moored boats near bridge 134 on the shroppie.

My impression on the Llan last summer was there were loads of people going past moored boats faster than 3mph, which is what I consider to be unsociable speeding.

In fact the ABC day trip boat seemed to be doing at least 5mph most times it passed me (which it did a lot).

I passed one woman between bridge 50 and 49 who held up her snapped mooring chain and said that a speeding boat had just moved her boat so violently that the chain snapped. 

In my view, the 4mph 'speeding' guideline is not the one to apply when passing moored boats. 

 

[cuthound]

15 hours ago, Tony1 said:

 

My normal speed is almost the same- just under 3mph. The odd time I've revved it up on empty stretches, it doesnt really go much faster than 3.5mph, so I take it easy on the engine and stay just under 3mph. 

I've no idea what the recommended speed is to pass moored boats, but I aim for about 2mph, which feels respectfully slow, and a good few times I've had people thank me for passing slowly, including two days ago when passing the line of offside moored boats near bridge 134 on the shroppie.

My impression on the Llan last summer was there were loads of people going past moored boats faster than 3mph, which is what I consider to be unsociable speeding.

In fact the ABC day trip boat seemed to be doing at least 5mph most times it passed me (which it did a lot).

I passed one woman between bridge 50 and 49 who held up her snapped mooring chain and said that a speeding boat had just moved her boat so violently that the chain snapped. 

In my view, the 4mph 'speeding' guideline is not the one to apply when passing moored boats. 

 

 

I don't there is a fixed speed to pass boats. It depends on how they are moored.

 

I always try to see how tight their mooring lines are, if they are moored on Armco or rings and if they are moored on pins, the state of the bank and slow to an appropriate speed.

 

My home mooring on the Warkwicksire Ring, so I get to see lots of passing boats. However in the eight years I have been here I have noticed a gradual increase in the number of speeding boats.

 

I think it is just another part of the old canal etiquette dying off. I still slow down, because that's how I was taught 50 years ago and what I have always done but now I am definitely in the minority.

[doratheexplorer]

For the umpteeth time, can we all please stop obsessing about mph?  It's likely that none of you have any accurate way to measure your speed anyway.  Suitable speeds differ from place to place.  I'm on a very deep and wide canal with big commercial boats passing.  It makes little difference how fast they go.  The small cruisers and kayak seems to make my boat rock more anyway.  The only thing that matters is your impact on other boats and the bank.  If you're travelling at a speed which is causing a soft bank to erode, or causing boats to lurch around on their moorings - then SLOW DOWN!

 

In some places where the canal is narrow and it's shallow at the sides, and the bank is either very high or very low next to the water, you will be causing problems at 2mph, so just forget how many miles per hour you think you are doing, engage your brain, look at what's going on around you, and adjust your speed accordingly.

[tree monkey]

7 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Engage your brain, look at what's going on around you

That's a dangerously radical idea

[GUMPY]

5 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

It's likely that none of you have any accurate way to measure your speed anyway. 

Please Miss, Miss, Miss.  I know exactly what my speed just was* I have a fixed GPS on the slide that is only there to tell me what speed I am cruising at.

You would be amazed how many people overestimate speed from the bank/boat. It always gives me great pleasure to tell them they are wrong

 

 

 

* I say was  because GPS does not give you your actual speed at that moment but the speed over the previous few metres 

[Hudds Lad]

Don't forget there's also perceived or mental speed, if the stationary boat does not hear a change in engine note they assume you're speeding.

I tend to slow well before passing, but leave a little bit on so i can then knock that off when in earshot  

[doratheexplorer]

1 hour ago, Loddon said:

Please Miss, Miss, Miss.  I know exactly what my speed just was* I have a fixed GPS on the slide that is only there to tell me what speed I am cruising at.

You would be amazed how many people overestimate speed from the bank/boat. It always gives me great pleasure to tell them they are wrong

 

 

 

* I say was  because GPS does not give you your actual speed at that moment but the speed over the previous few metres 

And how do you determine the accuracy of the gps?  For example:  Have you ever measured out a 500m straight section of canal and timed yourself covering that distance, then calculated your speed and compared it to the gps reading? 

[GUMPY]

10 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

And how do you determine the accuracy of the gps?  For example:  Have you ever measured out a 500m straight section of canal and timed yourself covering that distance, then calculated your speed and compared it to the gps reading? 

I own at least three devices that have GPS all made by different manufacturers, strangely they all read the same so its highly unlikely that they are not correct. One of which I use to maximise my speed on the road and if that was wrong I would have got a ticket by now.

If they were  all the same make then there is a remote possibility that the manufacturer has got it wrong but they are not.

 

In any case its far more likely to be correct than some bod on the towpath.

[doratheexplorer]

16 minutes ago, Loddon said:

I own at least three devices that have GPS all made by different manufacturers, strangely they all read the same so its highly unlikely that they are not correct. One of which I use to maximise my speed on the road and if that was wrong I would have got a ticket by now.

If they were  all the same make then there is a remote possibility that the manufacturer has got it wrong but they are not.

 

In any case its far more likely to be correct than some bod on the towpath.

Has your GPS addiction taken over your life?

Do you dream of buying a new GPS unit?

Is it affecting your job/relationships/friendship?

Do you need help to get your GPS addiction under control?

Then contact GPSanonymous and enlist on our 12 step programme.

Help is out there...

[MtB]

GPS is notoriously inaccurate at very low speeds IME. 

[IanD]

3 minutes ago, MtB said:

GPS is notoriously inaccurate at very low speeds IME. 

Depends on the GPS, some are much better than others. I designed a GPS chipset some years ago and we benchmarked it against competitors, there were big differences especially at slow speeds...

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

Depends on the GPS, some are much better than others. I designed a GPS chipset some years ago and we benchmarked it against competitors, there were big differences especially at slow speeds...

 

Indeed, and the hard bit is identifying the accurate ones when you're in the shop choosing. 

 

Is low speed accuracy ever tested in reviews of them? I've never looked. The resolution of the GPS app on my iPhone is 1mph (or was last time I experimented with it).

[IanD]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Indeed, and the hard bit is identifying the accurate ones when you're in the shop choosing. 

 

Is low speed accuracy ever tested in reviews of them? I've never looked. The resolution of the GPS app on my iPhone is 1mph (or was last time I experimented with it).

 

Not usually, it might be in publications that focus on walking or cycling (or canoeing, or boating?). A lot of GPS apps read down to 0.1mph, so blame Apple if yours doesn't 😉

Edited May 5, 2022 by IanD

[doratheexplorer]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Indeed, and the hard bit is identifying the accurate ones when you're in the shop choosing. 

 

Is low speed accuracy ever tested in reviews of them? I've never looked. The resolution of the GPS app on my iPhone is 1mph (or was last time I experimented with it).

I do a bit of running now and then.  I was tracking my runs on my iphone (is that GPS?).  I got to be able to do a reasonably comfortable 5km run.  So I went to a ParkRun (which is an organised, weekly 5km run in a park).  I put my phone app on as usual.  I was much dismayed to find that when my app said '5km', I still had a full half km to run!!  I asked one of the organisers about it, and she said the course was accurately measured out and that phone apps frequently overestimate distance.  Interestingly, I discovered that I could zoom right into the maps of my run, and when I did, it looked like I'd been drunkenly zig-zagging from side-to-side all the way.  Except I knew I hadn't.  Then I bought a gps watch, which gave much more accurate readings.

 

It was as if the gps in my phone was constantly trying to pinpoint me and failing. 

[MtB]

18 minutes ago, IanD said:

A lot of GPS apps read down to 0.1mph, so blame Apple if yours doesn't 😉

 

It's easy for people to confuse display resolution with the underlying measuring accuracy. They are not the same thing as you no doubt appreciate.

 

The app I have on the fone is not by Apple, I found it in the app store. Its called "SPEEDOMETER", V3.1

 

If I walk up and down the garden it jumps about displaying 1,2 or 3 randomly. Whole numbers.

 

 

[GUMPY]

Phone GPS are not always as accurate as dedicated GPS and phone apps are even worse.

One designed for walking (which is what I have on the boat) are accurate at low speeds.

The other red herring with phones is that they use WiFi and Bluetooth as well  to fix your location, when we go boating it takes a week before Google decides that my WiFi has moved from the marina and whilst outside boating it's fine but as soon as I am connected to the boats WiFi it places me back at the marina 😱

An app called GPS test is fairly accurate if you want to use your phone for speed.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chartcross.gpstest

Edited May 5, 2022 by Loddon

[Arthur Marshall]

If it takes me twenty five minutes to pass two mile posts, then I reckon I'm doing a bit less than 3mph. And it does. I sure can't get between two in a quarter of an hour. So I'm used to that pace.

But as said above, what matters is the effect you have on the canal sides and moored boats and that's what you have to be aware of.

[ditchcrawler]

My Ipad is no where near as good as my cheap Redmi phone

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Indeed, and the hard bit is identifying the accurate ones when you're in the shop choosing. 

 

Is low speed accuracy ever tested in reviews of them? I've never looked. The resolution of the GPS app on my iPhone is 1mph (or was last time I experimented with it).

 

The Android app that I use (Ulysse) has a button to select high or low speeds.

 

When on the low speed setting it discriminates to 0.1mph.

 

I don't know how accurate it is, but is clearly shows the boat slowing significantly through bridgeholes and shallow areas on a constant engine speed.

[IanD]

47 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

The Android app that I use (Ulysse) has a button to select high or low speeds.

 

When on the low speed setting it discriminates to 0.1mph.

 

I don't know how accurate it is, but is clearly shows the boat slowing significantly through bridgeholes and shallow areas on a constant engine speed.

 

A setting like this changes the algorithms that are used to smooth the position and estimate speed from it, so the slow-speed accuracy is better (and less noisy) but it responds to big changes in speed more slowly.

 

Obviously resolution and accuracy are not the same, just because it reads to 0.1mph doesn't stop the reading jumping up and down even at constant speed -- this is exactly the behaviour I was referring to earlier when I mentioned benchmarking. If you plotted the tracks some devices wobbled from side to side like a drunk, others gave a much smoother and more accurate track.

 

There's a massive amount of signal processing going on here to try and get from the raw and noisy location signal (which is updated tens of times per second) to reliable position/speed estimates, Kalman filters and all sorts of predictive tracking for those who are interested. Devices (or apps) which have had more effort put into optimising this can perform much better. There are also differences between how good the GPS antennas are, ones with low gain will give bigger errors and more noise in both position and speed.

 

And almost none of this is properly tested, just "will it give a location and how long does it take to lock" -- which is also down to the quality of the hardware and the algorithms... 😉

 

(I use the GPS Test app too, it can also read down to 0.1km/h (or mph) but I haven't tested it while walking or on a boat)

Edited May 5, 2022 by IanD