VolockiesAudlem Flight.

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

  Especially as a single hander. They tend to try to squirt you through the lock and sometimes even tell you to "Stay on the boat", which I never do in locks. I stepped off the boat at Hilmorton a summer or two ago and the volly who told me to "Stay on the boat" harrumphed and said to me "Have it your way then" and stomped off back to his gaggle of mates leaving me to work the lock myself. RESULT!!!!

I do the same. I don't single hand as such, but Diana could well be setting the next lock, I always get off,

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I do the same. I don't single hand as such, but Diana could well be setting the next lock, I always get off,

 

Yes. One only has to be at the helm and have the bow fender catch in a gate while the lock is being filled by someone "up there", who opens the paddles then walks off to experience the full horror of your boat being about to sink and you being in the one place where you can do nothing about it. 

 

Fortunately my weak link snapped but for a moment I thought it wasn't going to. But ever since, I always get off with a windlass. 

 

 

Its one of those risks that few other boaters seem to appreciate. Oddly. 

 

[David Mack]

29 minutes ago, MtB said:

Yes. One only has to be at the helm and have the bow fender catch in a gate while the lock is being filled by someone "up there", who opens the paddles then walks off to experience the full horror of your boat being about to sink and you being in the one place where you can do nothing about it. 

Happened to me going down Foxton. Volly lifted the bottom paddle and walked away, while the stem post got caught between the gates and held up. Stern continued to descend and I was on the back between the wing walls for the lock above, so could not just step off. Fortunately the stem freed itself and the boat dropped so no harm done, but it could have been different.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Not having a 72’ boat but a mere 48’ I am quite happy to stay on the boat and keep the boat away from the top gates as the boat rises. 
Keeping the stern close to the bottom gates is not a problem. 
 

I don’t mind if lockies speed up my journey on flights that I’ve done many times on my own. I’ve nothing to prove to myself anymore. If someone is willing to work me through a lock then let them. Equally I’m willing to do it all myself.
 

However I’ll admit if I come to a lock I’ve never done before then I like to take my time and study the area a little. So yeah, when I’m in holiday mode I guess help can be a little  irritating/annoying. 
But when I’m doing locks I’ve now done countless times any help to get me through quickly is much appreciated. 
 

I’ve now done Hatton several times on my own, I hope there’s a lockie to help next time. 🙏🏻 

[MtB]

31 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

Not having a 72’ boat but a mere 48’ I am quite happy to stay on the boat and keep the boat away from the top gates as the boat rises. 

 

 

As is every other boater who has never experienced the horror of being on the boat when you NEED to be on the bank. 

 

 

 

Which rather illustrates my point.

 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Oh the horror and the drama, 😮 

 

perhaps being ON the boat would stop you getting your bow stuck in the first place? or learn to rope the boat back while you’re on the bank. 
Can’t blame your skipper skills on a lockie. 🤷‍♀️

 

[Mike Todd]

51 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

Not having a 72’ boat but a mere 48’ I am quite happy to stay on the boat and keep the boat away from the top gates as the boat rises. 
Keeping the stern close to the bottom gates is not a problem. 
 

I don’t mind if lockies speed up my journey on flights that I’ve done many times on my own. I’ve nothing to prove to myself anymore. If someone is willing to work me through a lock then let them. Equally I’m willing to do it all myself.
 

However I’ll admit if I come to a lock I’ve never done before then I like to take my time and study the area a little. So yeah, when I’m in holiday mode I guess help can be a little  irritating/annoying. 
But when I’m doing locks I’ve now done countless times any help to get me through quickly is much appreciated. 
 

I’ve now done Hatton several times on my own, I hope there’s a lockie to help next time. 🙏🏻 

Depends: there was a case a few years back at, I think Ricky, where a single hander left his boat in a filling lock to pick up refreshments at the adjacent cafe. The boat drifted back before the fill started and the rudder was caught between the gates, leading to a sinking. At last he was not on board!

[David Mack]

12 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

Oh the horror and the drama, 😮 

 

perhaps being ON the boat would stop you getting your bow stuck in the first place? or learn to rope the boat back while you’re on the bank. 
Can’t blame your skipper skills on a lockie. 🤷‍♀️

 

71ft 6in long boat going down Foxton. You have to put the bow on the gate as otherwise you risk the stern catching on the cill as the lock empties. My mistake was to stay on the boat when assured by the vollockie that they had everything under control. Never again.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

4 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Depends: there was a case a few years back at, I think Ricky, where a single hander left his boat in a filling lock to pick up refreshments at the adjacent cafe. The boat drifted back before the fill started and the rudder was caught between the gates, leading to a sinking. At last he was not on board!

 

that’s the point though isn’t it ? If he’s been aboard he’d have kept the boat away from the gates 

Just now, David Mack said:

71ft 6in long boat going down Foxton. You have to put the bow on the gate as otherwise you risk the stern catching on the cill as the lock empties. My mistake was to stay on the boat when assured by the vollockie that they had everything under control. Never again.

yes as I said I’ve not got a 72’ boat, I don’t have those issues.  
 

[ditchcrawler]

Boats also get caught on the lock sides going up or down on narrow locks and my boat is on the skinny side 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I’ve not fed mine for awhile, it’ll be skinnier than yours. 
 

It’s caught it’s self but been ok. 
if I’d been on the boat I could have pushed against the lock side to free it 🤷‍♀️

 

 

[Nightwatch]

29 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Boats also get caught on the lock sides going up or down on narrow locks and my boat is on the skinny side 

Ours has a 6’ 8” beam. 

[Grassman]

 

 

 

As we all know, when ascending locks there's a tendency for your boat to be pulled or lurched forwards, and sometimes a fair bit of reverse is needed to counteract this, or better still know how the lock works and raise the paddles accordingly. In some instances I will ease the bow fender onto the gate once I'm above the cill and keep a slight forward gear to keep it there.

 

Now some of you may disagree with me on this but I reckon 3 of the Fradley Locks are amongst the worst in the country for the amount of 'pull' when going up them, and certainly more so than a lot of others in my opinion.   

 

An experienced boater will of course be aware of this and be prepared to an extent, but due to these being particularly 'severe', some may still be caught unawares, and irrespective of whether they are private boaters or hirers I've no way of knowing how experienced they are.

 

So when lock volunteering I always ask if they've been up these locks before , and if they haven't I try to diplomatically mention the issue without sounding bossy or like a high handed know it all, and offer advice (not instructions!) accordingly. It works, as I've never had a negative response to this. 

 

Like with most things in life it has a lot to do with how you approach and deal with people.

[Alan de Enfield]

The 1st time we hired (many moons ago from Middlewich boats) they told us that when ascending the best way to avoid any problems was to drift to the front gate, engage gear, leave it at tickover and allow it to slide up the cill and gate.

 

It avoids all of the 'being thrown forward and banging about'.

[ditchcrawler]

6 minutes ago, Grassman said:

Now some of you may disagree with me on this but I reckon 3 of the Fradley Locks are amongst the worst in the country for the amount of 'pull' when going up them, and certainly more so than a lot of others in my opinion.   

 

 

I would say the Napton flight is worse

[nicknorman]

1 hour ago, Grassman said:

 

 

 

As we all know, when ascending locks there's a tendency for your boat to be pulled or lurched forwards, and sometimes a fair bit of reverse is needed to counteract this, or better still know how the lock works and raise the paddles accordingly. In some instances I will ease the bow fender onto the gate once I'm above the cill and keep a slight forward gear to keep it there.

 

Now some of you may disagree with me on this but I reckon 3 of the Fradley Locks are amongst the worst in the country for the amount of 'pull' when going up them, and certainly more so than a lot of others in my opinion.   

 

An experienced boater will of course be aware of this and be prepared to an extent, but due to these being particularly 'severe', some may still be caught unawares, and irrespective of whether they are private boaters or hirers I've no way of knowing how experienced they are.

 

So when lock volunteering I always ask if they've been up these locks before , and if they haven't I try to diplomatically mention the issue without sounding bossy or like a high handed know it all, and offer advice (not instructions!) accordingly. It works, as I've never had a negative response to this. 

 

Like with most things in life it has a lot to do with how you approach and deal with people.

I’m not sure Fradley is particularly bad, many of the T&M locks with 2 top ground paddles are similar and at complete odds with eg the Coventry locks.

Bow fender on top gate is one technique and probably the only one for a longer boat, but it does come with the risk of bow getting caught on something and sinking the boat. Risk = probability of it happening multiplied by the consequences, so whilst the probability is low, the consequences are severe and this is why we don’t do it that way. It is also slower, because a shorter boat has to take some time to creep up to the distant gate below “ramming speed” before the paddles can be opened. And it creates wear on the bow fender.

 

We keep our 59’ boat right at the back of the lock, both paddles can be fully opened on the Fradley locks without the need for much reverse. PROVIDED we stay right at the back. If we let the boat drift 6’ forward of the bottom gate the suction increases rapidly and it may be difficult to prevent a runaway. Control of the boat comes down to reacting to its pitch attitude rather than subsequently reacting to its movement. The flow from the paddles causes reduced water pressure which puts a slope on the water near the front, boat slides down the slope. But as I said, the first thing that happens is the bow goes down, only then does the boat start to move forwards. Reacting at the bow going down stage is the secret to keeping the boat at the back of the lock.

 

 

Edited May 27 by nicknorman

[IanD]

Keeping the bow fender up against the top cill is fine so long as this is smooth or has a metal rubbing plate attached so the boat can slide up, which many do.

 

But some locks -- for example, some of the Cheshire locks coming up towards Red Bull -- have horizontal bars across the cill face which can catch bow fenders (the boat in front of us had lots of trouble with this), and in this case staying right back against the bottom gates is safer, though you do need to make sure you don't start to get pulled forwards because once moving this can be impossible to stop, as Nick said.

 

There's no single strategy that works for all locks, you need to observe the lock and choose one that does...

Edited May 27 by IanD

[Ex Brummie]

All comments seem to advise against leaving boat unattended in the lock.

Going back to Vlockies, I've only ever had two disagreements, and both were about leaving locks in a flight before an opposing boat has started to leave the lock to avoid mooring up in the pound. The v's at Atherstone seem particularly prone to filling pounds. As they fill a lot slower than they empty, a pound can soon get overloaded. The one time on the Southern Stratford at Wilmcote(?), I was descending when there were 2 boats grounded in the pound with another coming up. I refused to exit until I could pass the oncoming boat and go straight into the lock. The grounded boats could go nowhere. I waited in the lock until the boat above had left and water started to come down lifting the grounded boats. The volunteer gave me a tirade of verbals until he saw I had solved his problem. (And I was ahead of two boats when reaching the basin for moorings 😉)

[Lady M]

While it obviously suits single handers to be on the lockside, with our crew of two the approach is normally that the person on the boat is responsible for the boat and the person on the lockside is responsible for the lock.  However the lock operator should also observe the effect of working the lock on the boat and respond to any instruction from the steerer.  In my experience, things tend to go wrong when the lockside person does not watch the boat in the lock.

[Grassman]

19 minutes ago, Lady M said:

While it obviously suits single handers to be on the lockside, with our crew of two the approach is normally that the person on the boat is responsible for the boat and the person on the lockside is responsible for the lock.  However the lock operator should also observe the effect of working the lock on the boat and respond to any instruction from the steerer.  In my experience, things tend to go wrong when the lockside person does not watch the boat in the lock.

 

 

 

Similar to this is when the lockie just blindly begins operating the paddles without checking with the person at the helm first, and the same applies of course when it's other boaters helping out.

Edited May 27 by Grassman

[IanD]

23 minutes ago, Grassman said:

 

Similar to this is when the lockie just blindly begins operating the paddles without checking with the person at the helm first, and the same applies of course when it's other boaters helping out.

 

If I'm helping out other boaters -- often because they're going through the locks more slowly than us, so I go ahead to help them out -- I always ask if they want a hand first, and then check with the steerer before opening any paddles. Because it's their boat in the lock, and their problem if anything goes wrong, so they get to say how the lock is worked. If they say to only open the paddle slowly that's what I'll do, even if I'd do it faster if it was my boat... 😉 

[nicknorman]

26 minutes ago, Grassman said:

 

Similar to this is when the lockie just blindly begins operating the paddles without checking with the person at the helm first, and the same applies of course when it's other boaters helping out.

 

I know I have said this before but we never do the "thumbs up" thing and neither do lots of others. This creates difficulty when helping other people, when you don't get a reaction from the steerer you don't quite know what to do. Or if you wind without thumbs up you get shouted at. Sometimes you can't win!

 

IMO it is blindingly obvious whether they (or I) are ready for the paddles to be opened - after all, what are they expecting to happen next after the gates are closed? If we are present and correct on the tiller and looking calm we just wind the paddles. If we have fallen overboard, or looking anxiously head down at something in the engine room, then we don't. Body language is the all powerful clue!

It's only a bloody lock, one really doesn't need a signed contract before opening a paddle.

[IanD]

4 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

 

I know I have said this before but we never do the "thumbs up" thing and neither do lots of others. This creates difficulty when helping other people, when you don't get a reaction from the steerer you don't quite know what to do. Or if you wind without thumbs up you get shouted at. Sometimes you can't win!

 

IMO it is blindingly obvious whether they (or I) are ready for the paddles to be opened - after all, what are they expecting to happen next after the gates are closed? If we are present and correct on the tiller and looking calm we just wind the paddles. If we have fallen overboard, or looking anxiously head down at something in the engine room, then we don't. Body language is the all powerful clue!

It's only a bloody lock, one really doesn't need a signed contract before opening a paddle.

You might think it's blindingly obvious, but if it's not your boat in the lock then it's not your decision to make, even if you think you know better than the boater does.

 

Turn it round the other way and ask yourself how happy you'd be if someone else -- a volockie, say -- made such a decision on your behalf?

 

Oh I forget, that's what the thread is about... 😉 

Edited May 27 by IanD

[Lady M]

I agree that a 'thumbs up' is a useful signal even when it's just your crew person.  We once had two others wind up the paddles very quickly, the boat shot back in the lock and the rudder was bent.  Fortunately it was a single lower gate Oxford Canal lock.  The boat was scarcely in the lock, I was not ready and my crew was still shutting the lower gate.

[nicknorman]

27 minutes ago, IanD said:

You might think it's blindingly obvious, but if it's not your boat in the lock then it's not your decision to make, even if you think you know better than the boater does.

 

Turn it round the other way and ask yourself how happy you'd be if someone else -- a volockie, say -- made such a decision on your behalf?

 

Oh I forget, that's what the thread is about... 😉 

 

The thing is, the latest generation of prissy, insecure and control freaky boaters do like a contract signed in blood before anyone else may dare to touch THEIR lock with THEIR PRECIOUS boat in it. All part of the dumbing down of boating. It is not rocket science!

 

But the older generation of more experienced boaters think it is just a lock and what do you expect to happen next after the gates are closed? Operating a paddle without checking the boat and the steerer look OK is clearly wrong, but there is no need for a signed agreement that the bleedin' obvious is going to happen next when it is obvious that the steerer is waiting for the bleedin' obvious to happen.

 

The problem is that both these groups think they are right and so there is potential for conflict. This being perhaps one of the reasons why people helping other people at locks is in decline.

 

As I recall when Mr Grassman helped us at Fradley, he did not wait for any silly boy scout thumbs up gestures from me, he just got on with opening the paddle on the other side from Jeff as clearly I was ready and waiting for the bleedin obvious to happen.

18 minutes ago, Lady M said:

I agree that a 'thumbs up' is a useful signal even when it's just your crew person.  We once had two others wind up the paddles very quickly, the boat shot back in the lock and the rudder was bent.  Fortunately it was a single lower gate Oxford Canal lock.  The boat was scarcely in the lock, I was not ready and my crew was still shutting the lower gate.

That was clearly bad crewing. Good crews don't need a thumby gestures to know when to operate the paddles. It's funny how in my 55 years of canal boating I have never felt the need for that sort of thing other than in some sort of very unusual locks. This issue I suspect is a bit like the speeding boats SLOW DOWN thing. Because we tie our boat up properly I can't recall any boat passing us at a speed that might have warranted a "slow down" even though some have been fairly brisk. I have never shouted "slow down". Ever. In 55 years. As I said, all part of the dumbing down of boating and society in general.