More blacking lost to goslings.

[Puffling]

It's a variation on the AI dilemma: does the self-driving car avoid an old lady wandering blindly into the road by steering into a group of schoolchildren waiting at the bus stop or run her over?

 

I was passing through a narrow bridge hole yesterday, lined up with about a 9" clearance each side. As you do. Two Canada geese with four goslings were swimming sedately just ahead of me. Even going ahead at tickover there was little time to react to what followed. As they tend to, the adult geese became agitated and swam back through the bridge hole, goslings in tow, when they saw the boat was moving past them. This placed the goslings in a perfect position to be crushed between metal hull and stone edging, if I had then lessened the gap by steering into the next bend, as I would prefer to have done. Lots of alarmed honking and tweeting* followed. Obviously, I spared the goslings, maintained the gap they had and ended up grazing the stone bank edge with the bow for a few yards before managing to turn. Blacking removed. Fortunately above the waterline where I can reach to touch up, if that half-finished tin of Balastic is still usable from September last year. It was an easy call to make in this case, but if another boat had been moored just beyond the bridge, it would have been a proper dilemma. 

 

At least no schoolchildren, old ladies, or indeed goslings, had been harmed in the incident.

 

* and that was just me at the helm!

[Jen-in-Wellies]

There is a strong back current when a boat goes through a narrow bridge hole. The goose family might not have had much choice and decided to go with the flow, as it where. Glad no goslings were harmed in composing your post!

[system 4-50]

1 hour ago, Puffling said:

It's a variation on the AI dilemma: does the self-driving car avoid an old lady wandering blindly into the road by steering into a group of schoolchildren waiting at the bus stop or run her over?

It takes out the children, better for reducing climate change.

[Francis Herne]

The big ugly tear in my cratch cover was caused by cygnets on the Curly Wyrley in very similar circumstances.

[Paul C]

I've been in a similar situation but NOT altered course in the bridgehole, resulting in no contact with the bridge. The (I think it was a) goose, disappeared from view but popped up unharmed - it must have gone underwater, survived/avoided the prop, and no harm done. 

 

So I'd not worry too much about them.

[Tracy D'arth]

1 hour ago, Francis Herne said:

The big ugly tear in my cratch cover was caused by cygnets on the Curly Wyrley in very similar circumstances.

Wow, you let swans helm your boat?  RYA trained?

 

I had a family, cob, hen and 5 cygnets join me in a narrow lock.  I saw them in the pound but then they sailed in unseen as I was approaching and then tried to swim back out down the sides of the boat, there just was not room for the adults.

Eventually they flapped, scrambled and struggled past as I was on the gunwale holding the boat over as far as I could.

Having a full sized swan try to pass you with its wings fully extended is an unrepeatable experience.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Tracy D'arth

[GUMPY]

Canada Geese are expendable, my blacking is not

[IanD]

44 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Canada Geese are expendable, my blacking is not

Canada Geese are prolific generators of disgusting green poo and little else... 😞

[enigmatic]

I'm always impressed how ducklings' perfect sense of the wrong direction, which usually involves furiously swimming alongside the boat as the mother quacks frantically in the background.

[PeterF]

10 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I'm always impressed how ducklings' perfect sense of the wrong direction, which usually involves furiously swimming alongside the boat as the mother quacks frantically in the background.

We call them turbo ducklings

[enigmatic]

5 minutes ago, PeterF said:

We call them turbo ducklings

It really is impressive how far one kick of their legs can take them, especially when they decide to race you rather than calmly paddling back towards their mother

[Francis Herne]

33 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I'm always impressed how ducklings' perfect sense of the wrong direction, which usually involves furiously swimming alongside the boat as the mother quacks frantically in the background.

The flow of water under the boat in gear tends to pull things against the side.

 

Discovered with my canoe next to workboat Phoenix that it'll "stick" to the side quite solidly and be pulled along without being attached in any way. Not so much with Lark's V hull and tiny prop. Terry Darlington's book has a second-hand anecdote of the same happening to a narrowboat alongside a big French freight barge!

Edited May 10, 2023 by Francis Herne

[Peugeot 106]

Last summer  we were moored at Bath. At around 5 am my wife disappeared. When she came back I asked her where she’d been. She claimed she was worried she’d trapped a duck family in the deep lock, couldn’t sleep for worry and had gone to make sure they had got out ok........

[Jen-in-Wellies]

Have had swans follow the boat in to locks on several occasions in order to get on to another pound. Easier than flying, or walking round. Getting airborne is a lot of faff and flapping for a swan. In a small pound, there just isn't a long enough runway. Had a mother duck lead her ducklings in to a lock after my boat to do the same thing. Duckling can't fly and if the bank is too steep, they can't get out to walk round either.

The oddest one was on the Grand Union some years ago. When the canal was upgraded to wide locks in the 1930's, many of the old narrow locks were left as bywashes, with the bottom gates replaced with a weir. I was going through a wide lock and noticed a mother duck below the adjacent narrow lock bywash weir, calling to her half dozen ducklings a the top. One by one, the ducklings tumbled over the edge and fell the six feet to the lower level. Duckling are essentially little balls of fluff, so a fall like that is nothing to them. Once they had got themselves the right way up again, they were fine. The dives scored 0/10 for elegance. The last duckling took a lot of persuading from Mum to step off the edge. 

[Dav and Pen]

We had a whole family in a lock with us on The Burgundy canal luckily the lock is 5m wide and we are just over 4.1m. The effect of being pulled together by passing boats is well known especially in shallow waters and a mistake new comers make is to go into neutral instead of keeping in slow ahead. There is actually a name for this effect but I can’t remember it (like a lot of other things) and it caused a big accident on the R. Plate when I was first at sea.

[cuthound]

33 minutes ago, Dav and Pen said:

We had a whole family in a lock with us on The Burgundy canal luckily the lock is 5m wide and we are just over 4.1m. The effect of being pulled together by passing boats is well known especially in shallow waters and a mistake new comers make is to go into neutral instead of keeping in slow ahead. There is actually a name for this effect but I can’t remember it (like a lot of other things) and it caused a big accident on the R. Plate when I was first at sea.

 

It's the Bernoulli Effect.