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CRT training vlockies today, wrongly


LadyG

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1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

It doesn't work like that. We remember the names of people's boats,but only vaguely the people on them.Β I suffer from this face-blindness thing, so I don't recognise anyone, ever, including my wife and kids fairly often.

Luckily my boat name is fairly memorable, even if I'm not, so I do get greeted by forum members, when I have to disguise my confusion as I haven't a clue who they are or the fact that I've met them many times before.

I know the feeling. I got greeted like a long lost friend by a boater last week, I don't have a clue who he was

12 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Is it time again to suggest CWDF window stickers for boats, so forum members can identify fellow members?

I've got one

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On 23/07/2022 at 05:56, Paul C said:


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orΒ waiting for intimate eye contact or a secret squirrelΒ signal. JFDI..........please.....

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I have to confess I do exactly that. I try to wait until the helmsman indicates he is ready. 50% of the time, it is a very long wait……

Edited by Derek Porteous
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12 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I know the feeling. I got greeted like a long lost friend by a boater last week, I don't have a clue who he was

I've got one

And I saw a Harnser on the Llangollen the other week and called out β€œHallo Brian”. Β Wrong Harnser, as it turned out.

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Just a quick question on lock etiquette from today. We arrived at Atherstone top. A boat in front was draining the top lock. His crew had gone ahead to set the next lock which is maybe 50yds ahead. A volockie was in attendance on the bottom gates. By the time I got there, the bottom gates had been open for a while but the boat was still in the lock not moving. I kind of hinted that he might like to vacate the lock as we were behind but he indicated that he was waiting for the next lock to be set for him before leaving this one. Bearing in mind there was zero wind, no currents etc I thought this a bit unreasonable and hinted more strongly. β€œOh well, if you INSIST, I’ll go” I said β€œI’m not INSISTING but it is normal practice, isn’t it?”. He left anyway.

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So was I out of order expecting him to vacate the lock straight away, bearing in mind nothing coming the other way? I suppose in the great scheme of things it didn’t affect our progress much if at all, but it just seemed a bit selfish to cling on to the lock whilst we were standing around waiting to close the gates. What says the forum?

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His lock, he is in it.Β 

Some are not as rashΒ  at boating as you are. You tore past me on the Oxford summit last weekend as though there was a race on, your BF steering I think.Β  ( funny beard, leg tats? )

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And you are at Atherstone already?

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2 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

His lock, he is in it.Β 

Some are not as rashΒ  at boating as you are. You tore past me on the Oxford summit last weekend as though there was a race on, your BF steering I think.Β  ( funny beard, leg tats? )

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And you are at Atherstone already?

We always pass moored boats at tickover, having gone to tickover a couple of boat lengths before the boat and not going very fast in the first place (definitely no breaking wash). However we are deep drafted and displace a lot of water, and the summit level was significantly down. Despite all that, any boats that are tied up properly don’t move. Any boats that aren’t tied up properly definitely move.

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So you are either a liar (and I don’t take kindly to you lying about the behaviour of my husband), or you don’t know how to tie your boat up properly. Which is is?

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11 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Just a quick question on lock etiquette from today. We arrived at Atherstone top. A boat in front was draining the top lock. His crew had gone ahead to set the next lock which is maybe 50yds ahead. A volockie was in attendance on the bottom gates. By the time I got there, the bottom gates had been open for a while but the boat was still in the lock not moving. I kind of hinted that he might like to vacate the lock as we were behind but he indicated that he was waiting for the next lock to be set for him before leaving this one. Bearing in mind there was zero wind, no currents etc I thought this a bit unreasonable and hinted more strongly. β€œOh well, if you INSIST, I’ll go” I said β€œI’m not INSISTING but it is normal practice, isn’t it?”. He left anyway.

Β 

So was I out of order expecting him to vacate the lock straight away, bearing in mind nothing coming the other way? I suppose in the great scheme of things it didn’t affect our progress much if at all, but it just seemed a bit selfish to cling on to the lock whilst we were standing around waiting to close the gates. What says the forum?

Would also depend on whether you could tell if another boat was ascending. It can annoy me when boats insist on turning a lock, only to end up queuing in the next, perhaps rather short, pound. In some cases (I'm thinking of Hurleston as an example) having more than two passing boats in an intermediate pound is a recipe for problems. I would say that what you proposed isΒ notΒ 'normal practice'. The lock keepers would be within their rights to instruct you not to turn the lock - in the recent past that has been used on parts of the GU to conserve water, with up to half an hour being enforced, waiting for another boat to share. Whilst the master is in control of his/her boat once going through the lock, keepers do have authority over the wider traffic issues. Does not matter if they are volunteers.

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3 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

We always pass moored boats at tickover, having gone to tickover a couple of boat lengths before the boat and not going very fast in the first place (definitely no breaking wash). However we are deep drafted and displace a lot of water, and the summit level was significantly down. Despite all that, any boats that are tied up properly don’t move. Any boats that aren’t tied up properly definitely move.

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So you are either a liar (and I don’t take kindly to you lying about the behaviour of my husband), or you don’t know how to tie your boat up properly. Which is is?

I know that breaking wash was once a good test of not speeding but in today's context I would suggest that is no longer sufficient, especially with shallower canals such as the Oxford and with larger displacement boats. I think that most advice today is not just to observe speed limits but also to take into account the effect of your boat on those moored whom you are passing. I wasn't there so I don't know what happened but just speaking in general terms.

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I am also somewhat easily annoyed by those who take delight at shouting 'slow down' to every passing boat as a sort of entertainment. Especially when I have been on tick over for several boat lengths! (And they did not move!)

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I think the other boat was being bloody perverse, staying in the lock despite the open gate while waiting for his crew to set the next lock and knowing you were waiting to turn the lock he was hogging.

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Presumably he would have done the same all down the flight had you not discussed it with him.Β 

Edited by MtB
To finesse a point.
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8 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Would also depend on whether you could tell if another boat was ascending. It can annoy me when boats insist on turning a lock, only to end up queuing in the next, perhaps rather short, pound. In some cases (I'm thinking of Hurleston as an example) having more than two passing boats in an intermediate pound is a recipe for problems. I would say that what you proposed isΒ notΒ 'normal practice'. The lock keepers would be within their rights to instruct you not to turn the lock - in the recent past that has been used on parts of the GU to conserve water, with up to half an hour being enforced, waiting for another boat to share. Whilst the master is in control of his/her boat once going through the lock, keepers do have authority over the wider traffic issues. Does not matter if they are volunteers.

No as I mentioned in the text, no boats were coming up. I knew this because there were 3 volockies on, they have radios, and the ones further down reported no boats coming up, not too surprising at 10am on an 11 lock flight.Β I quite agree about not turning locks unnecessarily such that 2 boats end up waiting in a pound, but that wasn’t the case here.

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I disagree that volockies have the power to control whether a lock is turned or not, they don’t. Although I’m sure they might like to pretend they do. I had a big argument about this with a volockie on the Wilmcote flight a couple of years ago. I made a complaint and at no point did CRT say that the volockie was within his rights to control whether I turned a lock or not (needless to say, I didn’t turn a lock inappropriately).They could ask, I suppose. We recently had a problem with volockies inappropriately turning locks to our favour against oncoming boats, so basically many of them don’t have a clue how to manage traffic.

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They do have β€œpower” at the likes of Foxton and Watford to sequence boats but that is not the same thing.

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10 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I know that breaking wash was once a good test of not speeding but in today's context I would suggest that is no longer sufficient, especially with shallower canals such as the Oxford and with larger displacement boats. I think that most advice today is not just to observe speed limits but also to take into account the effect of your boat on those moored whom you are passing. I wasn't there so I don't know what happened but just speaking in general terms.

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I am also somewhat easily annoyed by those who take delight at shouting 'slow down' to every passing boat as a sort of entertainment. Especially when I have been on tick over for several boat lengths! (And they did not move!)

No breaking wash for cruising when there are no moored boats, but of course when passing moored boats that is much too fast, we always pass moored boats at tickover except on big rivers. 2’8” draft means big prop means that even at tickover there is quite Β a bit of water movement, but going into neutral seems a bit extreme - although we do sometimes do that if we see people trying to tie up etc.

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Been out for a month, so far no-one has shouted SLOW DOWN so I think the evidence points to Tracy just being nasty and spiteful because she (he) doesn’t like me and likes to remind me of that at every opportunity.

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