Actual use of anchors in emergencies on UK canal/river network

[Tacet]

1 hour ago, MartynG said:

It does look like anglers are at greater risk of accidental death than motorboaters 

https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/leisure-safety/inland-waters-risk-assessment.pdf

 

 

No.  Motorboating is shown as having the highest risk on that graph.

[Momac]

42 minutes ago, Tacet said:

No.  Motorboating is shown as having the highest risk on that graph.

So it does . I read it incorrectly .

 

[Jerra]

12 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

How many boaters on the canals do you actually see wearing lifejackets? If they aren't volunteer or full time lockies, virtually no-one.

I do.   Having had a lot of experience with cold water shock (it very nearly got me once) seen many other trying to cope with a sudden unexpected dip, I stood on the side of an empty lock and looked down, I thought if you go in there at your age dressed as you are you won't come out alive.

 

We all wear life jackets when on deck.

[Scholar Gypsy]

3 minutes ago, Jerra said:

I do.   Having had a lot of experience with cold water shock (it very nearly got me once) seen many other trying to cope with a sudden unexpected dip, I stood on the side of an empty lock and looked down, I thought if you go in there at your age dressed as you are you won't come out alive.

 

We all wear life jackets when on deck.

Me too, since I started doing a lot of single handed boating on the Fenland rivers. It could be days before another boat / person comes past. 

[Tim Lewis]

On my very first canal boat holiday we had an engine failure on the River Severn not long after leaving a lock heading upstream. Being November there was a fair flow taking us towards the weir. We deployed the anchor but with the Severn there having a sandstone base it took a while to engage, a very scary experience!

 

Saying that in the 40 years of extensive river and tidal experience since I have never been on a another vessel that has to have to deploy an anchor in anger 🙂

 

Tim

[Tacet]

On 30/09/2022 at 11:14, IanD said:

If you take all the above factors and multiply them together -- because that's how probabilities work -- then we get the following:

 

Typical risk case (extended CCer, moves 3 days a week, 1 day per week of cruising on rivers, decent design/maintenance, Danforth) : risk = 1x

Highest possible risk case (liveaboard, on the move all the time, half the time on rivers, poor design/maintenance, no anchor) : risk = 160x higher (let's call it 100x since all numbers are guesswork)

Lowest possible risk case (holiday boater, minimum moving, mostly canals, excellent design/maintenance, advanced anchor) : risk = 160x lower (let's call it 100x since all numbers are guesswork)

 

 

None of this is my opinion -- though the numbers are my guesstimates, and might well be wrong -- because the methods used to work out risk are factual and well-known.

 

 

I would like to be awkward about the numbers, please.  In terms of your typical case of 1, just how much is 160x (times?) lower?

 

More relevantly, we each have to make our own assessments in such matters.  Alan never leaves home without a first class anchor - but is happy to drive for drive a car for five or more hours without a break.  

 

The "why would you chance it when your life is at stake?"  argument is a fallacy.  We could reduce the risks of injury in a car by wearing Formula 1 type safety gear (fire-proof underwear anybody?) but mostly we don't because the risk is too small.  

 

[IanD]

19 minutes ago, Tacet said:

I would like to be awkward about the numbers, please.  In terms of your typical case of 1, just how much is 160x (times?) lower?

 

More relevantly, we each have to make our own assessments in such matters.  Alan never leaves home without a first class anchor - but is happy to drive for drive a car for five or more hours without a break.  

 

The "why would you chance it when your life is at stake?"  argument is a fallacy.  We could reduce the risks of injury in a car by wearing Formula 1 type safety gear (fire-proof underwear anybody?) but mostly we don't because the risk is too small.  

 

 

I did say that the absolute risk (as opposed to relative risk) wasn't clear because I couldn’t find any data, but it must be very small otherwise we'd all be aware of loads of boats (the "higher risk" ones) who have suffered the horrible fate Alan keeps describing (anchor fails, over a weir, sinks/drowns) -- when I'm sure this is a once-in-many-years occurrence for all boats on the UK canals (so maybe once-per-millenium or longer for an individual boater?), certainly *far* less  common than boats sinking in locks.

 

I agree completely with your second two paragraphs, the problem is that most people really *don't* understand risk -- they worry irrationally about bad things (like this whole anchor discussion, or nuclear power) that are far less likely to cause them a problem than other things they don't even notice as part of "everyday life".

 

That's human nature -- though it's not helped by sensational and/or fearmongering headlines when unlikely things do go wrong, especially on the Internet, which distorts people's views about what they *should* be worrying about... 😞

Edited October 3, 2022 by IanD

[IanD]

3 hours ago, Tacet said:

No.  Motorboating is shown as having the highest risk on that graph.

True, but don't forget that this includes "fell off powerboat" or "powerboat sank in rough seas" incidents, which I would suggest are far more common (per "boater-day", as well as absolute numbers) than "drowning after narrowboat swept over a weir and sinks after anchor fails"... 😉

 

(would love to see some actual data though...)

Edited October 3, 2022 by IanD

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

True, but don't forget that this includes "fell off powerboat" or "powerboat sank in rough seas" incidents, which I would suggest are far more common (per "boater-day", as well as absolute numbers) than "drowning after narrowboat swept over a weir and sinks after anchor fails"... 😉

 

(would love to see some actual data though...)

That is where I had doubts about your statement:

 

"in fact far more people die from falling down the stairs than drowning on the canals"

 

Of course they do because millions of people use stairs everyday whereas if every boat on the system were out at once with an average crew of 4 you would only have in the region of 140,000 to 150,000 people.

 

Not a good comparison IIMO.

[Paul C]

6 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

Me too, since I started doing a lot of single handed boating on the Fenland rivers. It could be days before another boat / person comes past. 

Except they're rivers, not canals.....  

[PaulJ]

2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Except they're rivers, not canals.....  

Some bloody straight rivers around there..😀

[Paul C]

It would be good for SG to clarify the proper name of the waterways he was referring to. I've not heard the term "fenland rivers" and a Google search doesn't bring anything relevant up. 

[Tacet]

6 hours ago, IanD said:

 

I did say that the absolute risk (as opposed to relative risk) wasn't clear because I couldn’t find any data, ery small otherwise we'd all be aware of loads of boats (the "higher risk" ones) who have suffered the horrible fate Alan keeps describing (anchor fails, over a weir, sinks/drowns) -- when I'm sure this is a once-in-many-year.....

My query was more pedantic.  What number is 160 times lower than 1?  Maybe minus 159? But not a sensible probability 

More likely you meant 1/160

[LadyG]

I wear a lifejacket on a few occasions  most are related to being singlehanded 

I wear one on the Trent.

I wear one when conditions are treacherous.

I wear one when I think I'll might drown and some poor person might have to pull me out.

If I think there is a safety issue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by LadyG

[Wanderer Vagabond]

3 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I wear a lifejacket on a few occasions  most are related to being singlehanded 

I wear one on the Trent.

I wear one when conditions are treacherous.

I wear one when I think I'll might drown and some poor person might have to pull me out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having some direct experience of the last one, what makes you think that wearing a lifejacket is going to make things any easier for someone pulling you out? I was standing by a lock once when an elderly lady fell in and her lifejacket immediately inflated. It was still a PITA to try to get her out of the canal again though. We eventually got her out by sinking a tarpaulin under her and lifing her out on what was essentially a sling.

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Having some direct experience of the last one, what makes you think that wearing a lifejacket is going to make things any easier for someone pulling you out? I was standing by a lock once when an elderly lady fell in and her lifejacket immediately inflated. It was still a PITA to try to get her out of the canal again though. We eventually got her out by sinking a tarpaulin under her and lifing her out on what was essentially a sling.

Usually the emergency services will assist If casualty is dead . Not saying it's a good part of their job, but it's expected that it will happen from time to time.

I expect the lifejacket will prevent my death 

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by LadyG

[Scholar Gypsy]

2 hours ago, Paul C said:

Except they're rivers, not canals.....  

 

It's all a bit confusing. In East Anglia (where most of the Fens are) You've got

• things called Rivers that are entirely manmade, eg the New Bedford River,
• The new course of the River Nene, which is manmade
• things that were rivers that are now really drainage canals (eg the old course of the River Nene, through March)
• rivers that are a mix of river and drainage canal (eg the Ely Ouse, which is over 4m deep in places), but which are controlled in such a way that at some locations the water level goes down when the river is in flood. 

Anyway, on any of the Fenland waterways I would not like to fall in without a lifejacket on.

PS John Pomfret explains it all nicely here:  

 

Edited October 3, 2022 by Scholar Gypsy

[peterboat]

1 hour ago, LadyG said:

I wear a lifejacket on a few occasions  most are related to being singlehanded 

I wear one on the Trent.

I wear one when conditions are treacherous.

I wear one when I think I'll might drown and some poor person might have to pull me out.

If I think there is a safety issue

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually Its a wise thing, one of our moorers was on the trent when he had a heart attack, trade stern he fell in and drowned. Coroner's enquiry said he would have survived if he had been wearing a lifejacket. His mate was on board but by the time he got to the tiller and turned around it was to late.

Edited October 3, 2022 by peterboat

[Captain Pegg]

I spent a career managing some serious risks (and still advise on them if someone pays me to) but I really, really don’t want to be studying data in respect of my leisure boating. That would defeat the object of why I do it.

 

For my professional boating it’s a bit different but a lot of those considerations are about giving confidence to your client and keeping your insurer onside rather than a forensic examination of your own safety. That tends to follow from the former.

 

Hence on my own boat I have ended up with the slightly muddled scenario of having an anchor (an inherited CQR of unknown weight) and probably a slightly dubious anchor point in a 50+ year old welded t-stud.

 

Plus I’ve never practised deploying the anchor so I’d probably not have a clue if I really had to do so in anger.

 

Set against that is that I don’t spend a lot of time on rivers other than in transit between canals. After all a narrow boat is a canal craft not a river craft.

 

I did though have an engine cut out on a boat while on the Thames in Oxford. Despite the fact I was heading upstream i steered to the side, stepped off with the centre line and tied up while I fixed the problem with the engine.

 

Fair play to folk who wear life jackets on rivers and the riskier elements of canals. Frankly, it makes sense.

 

So, in summary, er….  I have nothing much to add to this thread.

 

[Rob-M]

22 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

How many boaters on the canals do you actually see wearing lifejackets? If they aren't volunteer or full time lockies, virtually no-one.

I've seen quite a few this year on the canals, most looked like they were single handing but there have been many where there were two people.

[Captain Pegg]

10 minutes ago, Rob-M said:

I've seen quite a few this year on the canals, most looked like they were single handing but there have been many where there were two people.

Clearly a small minority but I agree it’s not almost nobody.

 

Earlier this year I even saw one chap get off his boat, lock it up and head off on foot down the towpath wearing his life jacket.

 

We’ve all got different appetites for risk.

[Jerra]

Just now, Captain Pegg said:

Clearly a small minority but I agree it’s not almost nobody.

 

Earlier this year I even saw one chap get off his boat, lock it up and head off on foot down the towpath wearing his life jacket.

 

We’ve all got different appetites for risk.

If wearing a life jacket is second nature to you on the boat it is easily done, both I and Mrs J have started to leave the boat while still wearing the jackets (separate occasions).

[Captain Pegg]

2 minutes ago, Jerra said:

If wearing a life jacket is second nature to you on the boat it is easily done, both I and Mrs J have started to leave the boat while still wearing the jackets (separate occasions).

Accidentally by omission?

 

I got the distinct impression this chap knew he was still wearing it. He walked some distance.

[GUMPY]

Sad thing is that many wear life jackets without crutch straps which makes the jacket about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Yet these people think they are reducing their risk

 

[Rob-M]

26 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Sad thing is that many wear life jackets without crutch straps which makes the jacket about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

Yet these people think they are reducing their risk

 

The life jacket that probably saved my life when I fell in the river Avon as a non swimming child didn't have a crutch strap but it kept me a float until my father was able to come and rescue me.