A loaded pair

[David Mack]

A nice bit of pair boating, and one unhelpful idiot!

 

[Jon57]

 Nice clip until the meeting of the oncoming boat. No apologies from the crew apperntly or even a smile. Sense of entitlemen from them was a shame. 😕

[DShK]

The oncoming boat did what I have experienced people doing repeatedly - panic due to seeing something slightly intimidating approaching, leading to under confidence, stopping/slowing down to "let you pass" and the inevitable drift into your path. I ended up ramming a boat this very week for the same reason.

 

Half the time this happens because 1)people don't know how to use a horn 2) don't know what a horn means 3) people mooring on bridges and blind bends.

Edited November 11 by DShK

[Rob-M]

It gets interesting when someone thinks they can get through a bridge between the two boats as they don't realise the butty is being towed.  So many boaters today aren't aware of towing pairs and just don't know that the worse thing to do in most situations is to stop the forward propulsion, I regularly say to others keep it in forward so you have some steering.

[Ray T]

You couldn't get a more experienced crew manning the working pair than those aboard. I know them both and they are not "Entitled."

[Francis Herne]

9 hours ago, Jon57 said:

 Nice clip until the meeting of the oncoming boat. No apologies from the crew apperntly or even a smile. Sense of entitlemen from them was a shame. 😕

What are they supposed to have apologised for?

They were going along in a safe and considerate way, slow past moored boats in a narrow bit and so with very little steerage way on the butty.

 

The other boat wedged itself across their path and through the middle of the pair through sheer incompetence and despite their best efforts to avoid it.

 

There's a cheery 'morning' at the end.

Edited November 12 by Francis Herne

[Quattrodave]

Did I read Jon57's 'entitlemen' comment differently... I assumed he ment the crew on the single boat not the crew of the pair.... 🤷‍♂️

 

The crew of the pair did a great job... the single boat however, didn't....

[ditchcrawler]

Well I watched it a couple of times and I would just say "Shit Happens", The pair were coming through a narrow bit and the private boatser tried to wait against the weir. Unfortunately he was up the ass of a moored boat and could only try his hardest to stop completely, there wasn't room to continue between the moored boats and the motor. The motor without doubt will have drawn his bows out and had Matt not been towing, which the private boater may or may not have been aware of at the time, there wouldn't have been a problem.
You could even say all the moored boats on the outside of the bend were the problem.

[Mike Tee]

All the private boater had to do was step off with the centre line and wait a couple of minutes - if he was in too much of a hurry he's got the wrong leisure pursuit! 

[Francis Herne]

43 minutes ago, Quattrodave said:

Did I read Jon57's 'entitlemen' comment differently... I assumed he ment the crew on the single boat not the crew of the pair.... 🤷‍♂️

Fair point. I'm too used to the stereotypical criticism of 'entitled historic boat owners'.

 

It doesn't really look like entitlement to me on that side though - I'm pretty sure the oncoming boat intended to stop and wait, it was just the execution that was lacking.

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, Mike Tee said:

All the private boater had to do was step off with the centre line and wait a couple of minutes - if he was in too much of a hurry he's got the wrong leisure pursuit! 

Yes, if he'd realised his boat was going to be pulled out from the bank by the passing motor instead of staying against it.

 

Which an experienced/expert boater should have known, but maybe he isn't one and thought he'd be OK having pulled in to the bank.

 

If he was in too much of a hurry he wouldn't have tried to be nice and stopped, he'd have carried on and passed the pair -- and ironically there wouldn't have been a problem, with opprobrium being heaped onto his head by posters basically saying "What a muppet, I would have known better" -- the kind of boater superiority/elitism that gives some boaters a bad name... :-( 

Edited November 12 by IanD

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

20 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Well I watched it a couple of times and I would just say "Shit Happens", The pair were coming through a narrow bit and the private boatser tried to wait against the weir. Unfortunately he was up the ass of a moored boat and could only try his hardest to stop completely, there wasn't room to continue between the moored boats and the motor. The motor without doubt will have drawn his bows out and had Matt not been towing, which the private boater may or may not have been aware of at the time, there wouldn't have been a problem.
You could even say all the moored boats on the outside of the bend were the problem.

interesting scenario,

had I come across the pair I think I’d have slowly kept going and squeezed passed between them and the moored boats,

 

(I think I heard the steerer of the butty say”there was plenty of room”)

 

4 hours ago, Rob-M said:

I regularly say to others keep it in forward so you have some steering.

its kind of my idea,

unless its absolutely necessary keep going, don’t stop 😃

 

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

39 minutes ago, Mike Tee said:

All the private boater had to do was step off with the centre line and wait a couple of minutes - if he was in too much of a hurry he's got the wrong leisure pursuit! 

I don’t think he could have stepped off, as it looks like there was some sort of barrier out from the concrete edge/path maybe some sort of bywash/run off, which can be seen in the opening post.

 Just a case of inexperience, probably never met a pair of boats on a long tow before on a bend with moored boats, as the butty guy said if he just kept going he would have been ok. The Narrowboater probably thought he wouldn’t have got through without scraping boats. 
 Just put it down to experience and learn from it. We all started once and we’ve all made mistakes and still do. 

Edited November 12 by BoatingLifeUpNorth2

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

18 minutes ago, BoatingLifeUpNorth2 said:

 Just put it down to experience and learn from it. We all started once and we’ve all made mistakes and still do.

exactly,

there was no real harm done,

but it does help to put hands up and say “I fkd up” “how could I have done it better?”

 

[Wafi]

8 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

but it does help to put hands up and say “I fkd up” “how could I have done it better?”

^ this. I stopped before a bridge 'ole (on the offside) to let someone through a few months ago, and managed to get myself broadside across the canal. The people on the other boat and I had a good laugh about it once I'd sorted myself out, but if I'd been defensive we'd probably have all left the scene feeling p*ssed-off.

 

Love the video, I could sit and watch footage of well-handled pairs all day, and the incident did give us the opportunity to see exactly how to drop and then pick up the tow when it goes wrong..

[Mike Todd]

I cannot recall when I last encountered a moving long lined pair!

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

1 minute ago, Mike Todd said:

I cannot recall when I last encountered a moving long lined pair!

when you do you can guarantee there’ll also be a bridge hole, a bend and moored boats 😃

 

[Jon57]

3 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I cannot recall when I last encountered a moving long lined pair!

 

1 minute ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

when you do you can guarantee there’ll also be a bridge hole, a bend and moored boats 😃

 

Wouldnt it of been interesting if they met at the same place at the same time. A smile and a thank you, and I bid you a good morning would go down well possibly 😏

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Mike Tee said:

All the private boater had to do was step off with the centre line and wait a couple of minutes - if he was in too much of a hurry he's got the wrong leisure pursuit! 

He was alongside the weir  so depending on level of the water may have been flooded 

[Stroudwater1]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

He was alongside the weir  so depending on level of the water may have been flooded 

Agree, There’s not much water flowing usually is there but there’s a significant drop compared to the towpath- pretty near canal level. It’s a bit algified in places too. It’s not a thing I would have done in the circumstances. 
 

It wasn’t clear what the boater was doing, once sucked out by much drag from Tench he seemed to panic. 

[IanD]

4 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

Agree, There’s not much water flowing usually is there but there’s a significant drop compared to the towpath- pretty near canal level. It’s a bit algified in places too. It’s not a thing I would have done in the circumstances. 
 

It wasn’t clear what the boater was doing, once sucked out by much drag from Tench he seemed to panic. 

I don't see what he could have done about it though. At least, without a bow thruster to hold the boat against the bank, though this would obviously be anathema to some CWDF posters... 😉 

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, BoatingLifeUpNorth2 said:

I don’t think he could have stepped off, as it looks like there was some sort of barrier out from the concrete edge/path maybe some sort of bywash/run off, which can be seen in the opening post.

 

[BoatingLifeUpNorth2]

53 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

He was alongside the weir  so depending on level of the water may have been flooded 

 

 

33 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

But looking at the photos from the video, there’s some sort of piled posts a metre or more out from the wear, maybe the full length of the concrete weir/bywash so he couldn’t of got to the bank, you can see them in the video at point.

 

 

 

Edited November 12 by BoatingLifeUpNorth2

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, BoatingLifeUpNorth2 said:

 

 

 

But looking at the photos from the video, there’s some sort of piled posts a metre ish out from the wear, maybe the full length of the concrete weir/bywash so he couldn’t of got to the bank, you can see them in the video at point.

 

 

 

The piling is the front edge or the weir , The bit you can see is only just wet, but it slopes down to where the back wall goes back further, so he may or may not have been able to step off the stern.
I suppose it all depends what goes through you mind as the back end of the motor goes by and you spot the butty coming and how fast is your decision making.

[IanD]

14 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

The piling is the front edge or the weir , The bit you can see is only just wet, but it slopes down to where the back wall goes back further, so he may or may not have been able to step off the stern.
I suppose it all depends what goes through you mind as the back end of the motor goes by and you spot the butty coming and how fast is your decision making.

Either way I suspect lots of boaters would have made the same perfectly justifiable decision -- let's keep out of the way instead of trying to pass a loaded pair in a narrow section with moored boats! -- and ended up with exactly the same problem, with no easy way out once the boat starts to get pulled out (unless you have a BT, which is obviously verboten...).

 

I've seen far more stupid boater behaviour on many occasions which *does* deserve the kind of comments some posters are making about this... 😉 

Edited November 12 by IanD