Jump to content

A polite plea to dawdlers.


noddyboater

Featured Posts

1 minute ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I kind of get the feeling that a few are viewing overtaking in a boat in the same fashion as they look at overtaking in a car, but as you have said the hydrodynamics is totally different. If I overtake in a car it isn't going to make the car that I'm passing go any slower whereas in a boat that is exactly what does happen. Two boats travelling in the same direction are drawing twice as much water in the same direction and both are in a shallower area of canal since they cannot both be in the middle, and by both drawing the water they are both making the canal even shallower. Two boats travelling in opposing directions are drawing from the same bit of water for a lot shorter period of time, and once they've passed the problem ceases to exist (as they effectively start pushing water back up the canal towards one another).

All true. But surely if you like to travel at tickover, being slowed down for a minute as a boat overtakes you doesn’t really matter. If it did matter to you, surely you would be going at a normal speed in the first place?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, nicknorman said:

All true. But surely if you like to travel at tickover, being slowed down for a minute as a boat overtakes you doesn’t really matter. If it did matter to you, surely you would be going at a normal speed in the first place?

But how do you know that the boat you are trying to overtake is only on tickover? You also have to take some responsibility for slowing him down by virtue of the fact that you are behind him. The example I quoted earlier of crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is a case in point. The boat behind got so close to me that I was virtually stationary in the water. It would have made no difference whatsoever to have increased my engine speed to full speed, in fact it would simply have made the situation even worse since he was already drawing my water. If I increased engine speed all that I would have done was move more water, not moved any more boat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

But how do you know that the boat you are trying to overtake is only on tickover? You also have to take some responsibility for slowing him down by virtue of the fact that you are behind him. The example I quoted earlier of crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is a case in point. The boat behind got so close to me that I was virtually stationary in the water. It would have made no difference whatsoever to have increased my engine speed to full speed, in fact it would simply have made the situation even worse since he was already drawing my water. If I increased engine speed all that I would have done was move more water, not moved any more boat.


Obviously if we have caught them up from far behind, they are going more slowly than us. How much slower can be assessed by the rate of closure. The effect you mention is going to slow them, but only by a very small amount. Something like a trough aqueduct is of course going to make the effect more significant, but most of us spend less than 0.1%  of our time on such aqueducts so you point is an exception not normality.

 

The obvious indications of a boat ahead at or close to tickover are virtually no sign of prop wash and virtually no discernible ripples from the bow. But surely you know this?

 

 If we are only very slowly catching them up, eg we are doing 3.5mph and they are doing 3.4 mph, then I am not fussed about overtaking and we will reduce from say 1300rpm to 1200 rpm, no big deal. It is the people who you come up behind rapidly with their boats barely making a ripple from the bow or the prop, that are the issue. Our boat does about 2 to 2.5 mph at tickover (depending on depth etc) and any slower, we have to go into neutral.

 

I can’t help feeling that if you put more effort into thinking about how to considerately let others pass you, and less effort into thinking up reasons why they shouldn’t, the world would be a better place.

  • Greenie 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Something like a trough aqueduct is of course going to make the effect more significant, but most of us spend less than 0.1%  of our time

 

Don't exaggerate Nick.  I think you're probably an order of magnitude out here, maybe two!

 

0.01% or 0.001% is far more likely.  I'm not sure exactly how many yards of narrow aqueduct trough there are out of 2,000 miles of CRT waterways, but I'd be astonished if it was over 2 miles ...

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

I say again, the hydrodynamics of boats passing in opposite directions is different from in the same direction. Also the time for which an accurate position to avoid a collision is much shorter in one case than the other. The traditional docey-do method of passing in opposing directions, esp if both deep drafted, does not work for overtaking.

 

It seems like you're assuming that the overtaken boat simply carries on at exactly the same speed, prolonging the time and distance needed (a lot). I'm assuming the overtaken boat cooperates and either slows or stops to allow a much easier overtake - then its not much different than boats passing in opposite directions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, nicknorman said:


Obviously if we have caught them up from far behind, they are going more slowly than us. How much slower can be assessed by the rate of closure. The effect you mention is going to slow them, but only by a very small amount. Something like a trough aqueduct is of course going to make the effect more significant, but most of us spend less than 0.1%  of our time on such aqueducts so you point is an exception not normality.

 

The obvious indications of a boat ahead at or close to tickover are virtually no sign of prop wash and virtually no discernible ripples from the bow. But surely you know this?

 

 If we are only very slowly catching them up, eg we are doing 3.5mph and they are doing 3.4 mph, then I am not fussed about overtaking and we will reduce from say 1300rpm to 1200 rpm, no big deal. It is the people who you come up behind rapidly with their boats barely making a ripple from the bow or the prop, that are the issue. Our boat does about 2 to 2.5 mph at tickover (depending on depth etc) and any slower, we have to go into neutral.

 

I can’t help feeling that if you put more effort into thinking about how to considerately let others pass you, and less effort into thinking up reasons why they shouldn’t, the world would be a better place.

No it isn't going to slow them by' ...a very small amount...' the closer to the back of the boat in front you get, the more you are going to be slowing them down. It would seem that you expect people to stop and get out of your way if they are doing more than 0.1 mph slower than you, I on the other hand don't have any expectation of anyone stopping and getting out of my way and I find the world a better place for it. 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Wanderer Vagabond said:

 It would seem that you expect people to stop and get out of your way if they are doing more than 0.1 mph slower than you, I on the other hand don't have any expectation of anyone stopping and getting out of my way and I find the world a better place for it. 

 

How or where did you get that from?!?!!????

 

I didn't infer that from what Nick wrote. In fact, I think he explicitly stated that if they're only going marginally slower than him, its not worth overtaking anyway and he's happy to adjust to their pace.

 

 

Here is the actual text I remembered, for the hard-of-comprehending:

 

9 hours ago, nicknorman said:

 

If we are only very slowly catching them up, eg we are doing 3.5mph and they are doing 3.4 mph, then I am not fussed about overtaking and we will reduce from say 1300rpm to 1200 rpm, no big deal.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Paul C said:

 

How or where did you get that from?!?!!????

 

I didn't infer that from what Nick wrote. In fact, I think he explicitly stated that if they're only going marginally slower than him, its not worth overtaking anyway and he's happy to adjust to their pace.

 

The figure he gave that he'd be happy with to stay behind was 3.4mph if he had been doing 3.5mph, that'll be 0.1mph!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Wanderer Vagabond said:

The figure he gave that he'd be happy with to stay behind was 3.4mph if he had been doing 3.5mph, that'll be 0.1mph!!

 

But that doesn't mean he'd NOT be happy if the speed difference was MORE THAN 0.1mph. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

I say again, the hydrodynamics of boats passing in opposite directions is different from in the same direction. Also the time for which an accurate position to avoid a collision is much shorter in one case than the other. The traditional docey-do method of passing in opposing directions, esp if both deep drafted, does not work for overtaking.

The hydrodynamics are indeed different.  But if boats can pass in opposite directions there is fundamentally enough room to overtake, contrary to the suggestions of some.  The technique needs to be appropriate to the manoeuvre, as always.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

No it isn't going to slow them by' ...a very small amount...' the closer to the back of the boat in front you get, the more you are going to be slowing them down. It would seem that you expect people to stop and get out of your way if they are doing more than 0.1 mph slower than you, I on the other hand don't have any expectation of anyone stopping and getting out of my way and I find the world a better place for it. 

When you are several hundred yards behind, you are going to slow them down a very small amount, not detectable. If you are1/2 boat length behind then it might be noticeable.

 

I realise that if everyone held identical views and values to you then no doubt your world would be a better place. But the thing is, in fact people have a wide range of views and values and the world is better when people accept that and are considerate towards those diverse views and values.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Tacet said:

The hydrodynamics are indeed different.  But if boats can pass in opposite directions there is fundamentally enough room to overtake, contrary to the suggestions of some.  The technique needs to be appropriate to the manoeuvre, as always.

I think you are still in the car driver's mindset whereby if a road is wide enough for two cars from opposite directions to pass, it is wide enough to overtake on. The difference in the canal is that both boats want to occupy the centre of the channel and when overtaking that is simply impossible, at least one has to get out of the centre channel to let the other pass.

 

The trouble with adopting the car driver's mindset is that it isn't really comparable in any way to navigating a narrow boat. Does it make any difference to the wear on the motorway if I'm travelling at 50mph or 70mph? no not at all. Does it make any difference to the wear on the canal banks if I'm travelling at 2.5mph or 4mph? yes it does, quite a lot. If I try to travel at 3.5mph along the South Oxford summit I'm going to be putting a lot of erosion on the banks, which then makes it a bit pointless complaining about CRT not maintaining the system when people are trying to go faster. The 4mph advisory by CRT isn't a target, it's a limit. As I've said I'm quite content to stop and let people pass, but I'm not going to criticise someone (as long as they are travelling at a speed my boat is capable of going down to) for going slower since they are causing less damage to the infrastructure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I think you are still in the car driver's mindset whereby if a road is wide enough for two cars from opposite directions to pass, it is wide enough to overtake on. The difference in the canal is that both boats want to occupy the centre of the channel and when overtaking that is simply impossible, at least one has to get out of the centre channel to let the other pass.

 

The trouble with adopting the car driver's mindset is that it isn't really comparable in any way to navigating a narrow boat. Does it make any difference to the wear on the motorway if I'm travelling at 50mph or 70mph? no not at all. Does it make any difference to the wear on the canal banks if I'm travelling at 2.5mph or 4mph? yes it does, quite a lot. If I try to travel at 3.5mph along the South Oxford summit I'm going to be putting a lot of erosion on the banks, which then makes it a bit pointless complaining about CRT not maintaining the system when people are trying to go faster. The 4mph advisory by CRT isn't a target, it's a limit. As I've said I'm quite content to stop and let people pass, but I'm not going to criticise someone (as long as they are travelling at a speed my boat is capable of going down to) for going slower since they are causing less damage to the infrastructure.


You do seem to be applying a scattergun approach to try to justify your attitude. Nobody mentioned 4mph, nobody mentioned  creating a breaking wash, so why are you suddenly talking about it as a justification to disallow people to overtake?

I would of course agree that overtaking on a boat is not the same as overtaking in a car, but I would put this into the category of “stating the bleedin obvious”

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boating today and a boat pulled out just behind me after attempting to pull out in front with their stern line still attached ;)

When we stopped about an hour and a half later it took over half an hour before they appeared.

We were cruising at 3.7mph* and slowing down for moored boats. 

It would have driven me nuts sitting behind them at 2.5mph for over two hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*according to my slide mounted GPS any more revs and we didn't go any faster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:


You do seem to be applying a scattergun approach to try to justify your attitude. Nobody mentioned 4mph, nobody mentioned  creating a breaking wash, so why are you suddenly talking about it as a justification to disallow people to overtake?

I would of course agree that overtaking on a boat is not the same as overtaking in a car, but I would put this into the category of “stating the bleedin obvious”

Perhaps you'd care to highlight the bit where I mentioned a breaking wash (possibly going to be difficult, because I didn't), I merely pointed out that you are going to be eroding the infrastructure more by travelling faster than you will be doing by travelling slower. On the other hand a breaking wash can often suddenly appear when you've previously been travelling at your favoured 3.5mph as part of the canal becomes shallow, are you going to slow down for it? or are you going to say,"I'm within the speed limit"? And if you are content to slow down to stop the breaking wash, why not for a slower boat?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Perhaps you'd care to highlight the bit where I mentioned a breaking wash (possibly going to be difficult, because I didn't), I merely pointed out that you are going to be eroding the infrastructure more by travelling faster than you will be doing by travelling slower. On the other hand a breaking wash can often suddenly appear when you've previously been travelling at your favoured 3.5mph as part of the canal becomes shallow, are you going to slow down for it? or are you going to say,"I'm within the speed limit"? And if you are content to slow down to stop the breaking wash, why not for a slower boat?

Because the CRT rules (let’s not argue about the enforceability of them) says “no breaking wash” and this is for a good reason, breaking wash erodes the banks and can harm wildlife. It is a feature of the system, in the same way that cycling up hill or into wind is, that’s just the way things are and no point resenting it.

 

But there is a big difference between a feature of the system, Vs the whim of an individual and the consequence of that whim being forced on other people.

 

Anyway, we are going round in circles. The bottom line as I see it is that if someone comes up behind us (which happens fairly often because we are deep drafted) I will facilitate their overtake as soon as I can. I would expect the same in return. Let everyone go at whatever speed they want to is my motto. And the same applies in the car, I tend to drive quite fast along the rural Scottish roads that I frequent, but if someone comes up behind I’ll try to facilitate their overtake as best I can.

 

Yours seems to be that you’re going at the speed you want to go at and if anyone wants to go faster, well tough. Just relax and go at my speed. I’m in front so get over it.
 

It’s pretty clear to me which one of us is the more considerate, but perhaps your brain works in a different way to mine and you really think you are the better person. Who knows!

Edited by nicknorman
  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I average 3mph and the boat is happy at that speed. Much less and I get huge vibration until I drop right down. This means, I think , that if I'm really catching someone up quickly, they are going about half my speed, which is fine for them, but not me or my old engine. So I see no reason why I should sit behind them, get shaken to bits and take twice as long to get to where I want to go. Nor can I see why they should want me to.

Mostly I avoid such folk by starting early before they get up. Sometimes I stop and make tea, but if we've ended up in a convoy, that's not practical, so I bully my way past them, assuming I'm second in the queue. If not, I just get bad tempered.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I average 3mph and the boat is happy at that speed. Much less and I get huge vibration until I drop right down. This means, I think , that if I'm really catching someone up quickly, they are going about half my speed, which is fine for them, but not me or my old engine. So I see no reason why I should sit behind them, get shaken to bits and take twice as long to get to where I want to go. Nor can I see why they should want me to.

Mostly I avoid such folk by starting early before they get up. Sometimes I stop and make tea, but if we've ended up in a convoy, that's not practical, so I bully my way past them, assuming I'm second in the queue. If not, I just get bad tempered.

Now for a moment imagine you're working,  on a stretch of canal around 3 miles long. You've done the run around 200 times up to now, the job is half done. 

The 6 mile round trip can easily be done twice a day, including loading/unloading and a couple of locks. That keeps everyone involved happy. 

But then you get stuck behind a dawdler,  he's seen you, he knows you're working. You just helped the dopey bugger through the lock. But there's no way he's pulling over.

That's when I get bad tempered!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going back to cars and overtaking on many of the roads I drive it's easy to pass another car coming the other way but almost impossible to overtake another car without putting both parties in danger.

I guess many only drive on A roads😂

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

Because the CRT rules (let’s not argue about the enforceability of them) says “no breaking wash” and this is for a good reason, breaking wash erodes the banks and can harm wildlife. It is a feature of the system, in the same way that cycling up hill or into wind is, that’s just the way things are and no point resenting it.

 

But there is a big difference between a feature of the system, Vs the whim of an individual and the consequence of that whim being forced on other people.

 

Anyway, we are going round in circles. The bottom line as I see it is that if someone comes up behind us (which happens fairly often because we are deep drafted) I will facilitate their overtake as soon as I can. I would expect the same in return. Let everyone go at whatever speed they want to is my motto. And the same applies in the car, I tend to drive quite fast along the rural Scottish roads that I frequent, but if someone comes up behind I’ll try to facilitate their overtake as best I can.

 

Yours seems to be that you’re going at the speed you want to go at and if anyone wants to go faster, well tough. Just relax and go at my speed. I’m in front so get over it.
 

It’s pretty clear to me which one of us is the more considerate, but perhaps your brain works in a different way to mine and you really think you are the better person. Who knows!

Once again making assertions on my behalf that I have never made. Perhaps you could possibly highlight anywhere on this thread where I have intimated what speed I go at (again, it is going to be difficult because I haven't). I'm not going to come onto a thread and get very aerated (which you seem to be doing) because someone wants to travel slower than I may be doing. IF they are travelling at a speed that is so slow that my boat in unable to travel at, then that is a different issue, as I've previously said. The fact is that, unlike you, I have no righteous expectation that others should have to accommodate me. If they happen to do so, then all well and good, but if they don't, that's life.

 

An example where I'm going to do nothing at all to accommodate an overtaker would be travelling on an ebbing tide from Cromwell to Torksey on the Trent. Now this is a wide river, and so far the conversation has been about narrow canals. I'm not going to try to stop them overtaking me, but the decision and responsibility for any consequences are entirely theirs. Most cruisers will have a shallower draft than my boat so they aren't likely to be a problem, but if another narrow boat chooses to try to overtake,my sole concentration will be to keep within the navigation channel since last year, when water levels were down, I inadvertently drifted about 12 feet out of the charted channel towards the centre of the river (I have a GPS tracker that shows my track on the river), and found myself riding over a sand-bar. The only accommodation I will make to anyone overtaking is that I will avoid a collision (COLREGS) but other than that I will not be changing course on their behalf under any circumstances. 

On 24/05/2023 at 17:11, Victor Vectis said:

Changing the subject slightly……

Talking of speeding boats, what’s the PB  you have made on your boat?

(Excluding on the back of a lorry etc)

 

Ours is 12.7mph. 

That is a curious one for the inland waterways, what does a PB actually prove? Unless you've got a hell of an engine on your boat I would guess that your PB was either being carried by a river current or on a flooding tide. The fastest my boat has gone was 10 knots under Tower Bridge but then I would probably have been travelling at a similar speed sitting on a log since the flooding tide generated most of that speed.

 

What I regard as a better judge of 'achievement' was being able to keep up about 3 - 3.5 knots all the way from Tarleton to Asland Lamp pushing into a flooding tide with engine running at about 85% - 90% of full throttle without overheating (and then pushing into an ebbing tide all the way to Preston).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Once again making assertions on my behalf that I have never made. Perhaps you could possibly highlight anywhere on this thread where I have intimated what speed I go at (again, it is going to be difficult because I haven't). I'm not going to come onto a thread and get very aerated (which you seem to be doing) because someone wants to travel slower than I may be doing. IF they are travelling at a speed that is so slow that my boat in unable to travel at, then that is a different issue, as I've previously said. The fact is that, unlike you, I have no righteous expectation that others should have to accommodate me. If they happen to do so, then all well and good, but if they don't, that's life.

 

An example where I'm going to do nothing at all to accommodate an overtaker would be travelling on an ebbing tide from Cromwell to Torksey on the Trent. Now this is a wide river, and so far the conversation has been about narrow canals. I'm not going to try to stop them overtaking me, but the decision and responsibility for any consequences are entirely theirs. Most cruisers will have a shallower draft than my boat so they aren't likely to be a problem, but if another narrow boat chooses to try to overtake,my sole concentration will be to keep within the navigation channel since last year, when water levels were down, I inadvertently drifted about 12 feet out of the charted channel towards the centre of the river (I have a GPS tracker that shows my track on the river), and found myself riding over a sand-bar. The only accommodation I will make to anyone overtaking is that I will avoid a collision (COLREGS) but other than that I will not be changing course on their behalf under any circumstances. 


 

you didn’t intimate what speed you go at nor did I elude to it. This is because the actual speed you go at is irrelevant. In your opinion the speed you go at (which probably varies according to your mood) is the speed. The right speed. And any other speed is wrong. Or at least, any other speed will not be accommodated because it differs from your speed.

 

You have presented various scenarios where on a narrow shallow canal, overtaking might be difficult. Fair enough. But if you are extending that to making out that overtaking on the tidal Trent is problematic, then you lose all credibility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, nicknorman said:


 

you didn’t intimate what speed you go at nor did I elude to it. This is because the actual speed you go at is irrelevant. In your opinion the speed you go at (which probably varies according to your mood) is the speed. The right speed. And any other speed is wrong. Or at least, any other speed will not be accommodated because it differs from your speed.

 

You have presented various scenarios where on a narrow shallow canal, overtaking might be difficult. Fair enough. But if you are extending that to making out that overtaking on the tidal Trent is problematic, then you lose all credibility.

Have you been on the Trent? do you know what you are talking about?? (if not where lies your credibility) As I clearly stated I was only about 12 feet off the charted channel and ran over a sand-bar so anyone who thinks I might change course in any way whatsover to accommodate them overtaking me on the Trent is going to be seriously disappointed. If they wish to venture off the charted channel on an ebbing tide, they are perfectly free to do so, but if they get stuck I'm, not going back for them.

 

You are also, once again, making wrong assumptions on my behalf. How many times to I have to repeat that I'm quite content to move over to let people pass before you stop make false accusations?

Edited by Wanderer Vagabond
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Have you been on the Trent? do you know what you are talking about?? (if not where lies your credibility) As I clearly stated I was only about 12 feet off the charted channel and ran over a sand-bar so anyone who thinks I might change course in any way whatsover to accommodate them overtaking me on the Trent is going to be seriously disappointed. If they wish to venture off the charted channel on an ebbing tide, they are perfectly free to do so, but if they get stuck I'm, not going back for them.

 

You are also, once again, making wrong assumptions on my behalf. How many times to I have to repeat that I'm quite content to move over to let people pass before you stop make false accusations?

What will you do if meeting a boat travelling in the opposite direction on the Trent?

 

I am not sure what chart you use, but does it really show the navigable channel as the same width as your boat?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Tacet said:

What will you do if meeting a boat travelling in the opposite direction on the Trent?

 

I am not sure what chart you use, but does it really show the navigable channel as the same width as your boat?

Why would someone be coming up from Torksey to Cromwell on an ebbing tide? When they get there they wont be able to lock. (and just to add that navigation rules are that the boat being carried by the tide/current has priority, so it is upstream boat's responsibility to get out of the way).

 

In answer to your second question, yes the Tidal Trent navigation charts are pretty specific as to where you should be on the river (and they are updated to account for any changes). To give you some idea of what the chart looks like, this is my GPS track along the river (so I hold the copyright to this image, it hasn't been pilfered from the chart, but the chart looks pretty much identical).

 

image.png.4d170cf19e91bd44f48de9b23344aea8.png

image.png.3940d3cca653f974d9fbdca048a68631.png

 

I'll leave you to gauge as to the accuracy.

Edited by Wanderer Vagabond
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.