BEGINNERS COCK UPS

[CRAGGY]

It seems everytime i go out on my boat there is a mini disaster.The latest is today as the sun came out i decided to leave the security of my new berth in the mariner,and chugged down the canal,surely nothing could go wrong today.But it can with me,i thought there was just enough width here for turning around,but no,i managed to jamb the bloody thing between a bunch of tree roots and shallow water on the otherside.Good job there was no one around.I had to abandon ship and tug and sweat,but managed to free the brute.And crept back to the mariner,only to spend 20 minuets trying to reverse back into a tight space between two other narrowboats.How do you steer them backwards?.They seem to do as they please, Craggy

[alan_fincher]

It seems everytime i go out on my boat there is a mini disaster.The latest is today as the sun came out i decided to leave the security of my new berth in the mariner,and chugged down the canal,surely nothing could go wrong today.But it can with me,i thought there was just enough width here for turning around,but no,i managed to jamb the bloody thing between a bunch of tree roots and shallow water on the otherside.Good job there was no one around.I had to abandon ship and tug and sweat,but managed to free the brute.And crept back to the mariner,only to spend 20 minuets trying to reverse back into a tight space between two other narrowboats.How do you steer them backwards?.They seem to do as they please, Craggy

Don't worry - you will not be the first or last to misjudge canal width for turning.

 

We are only 50 feet, and I've looked at bits of canal I'm convinced are wider than that. (They weren't ).

 

I always thought that some boats reversed fairly well, and others didn't, (our seems to be in the latter category!). But the engineer in our marina seems to be able to get most to - something he achieves with large amounts of throttle, and more nerve than I have.

 

It does get easier, but try practicing your turning (and reversing!) on days that don't have high winds, until you get the hang of it.

 

You were lucky, by the way - I reserve my biggest gaffes to the times that there are many dozens of spectators!

[blackrose]

It seems everytime i go out on my boat there is a mini disaster.The latest is today as the sun came out i decided to leave the security of my new berth in the mariner,and chugged down the canal,surely nothing could go wrong today.But it can with me,i thought there was just enough width here for turning around,but no,i managed to jamb the bloody thing between a bunch of tree roots and shallow water on the otherside.Good job there was no one around.I had to abandon ship and tug and sweat,but managed to free the brute.And crept back to the mariner,only to spend 20 minuets trying to reverse back into a tight space between two other narrowboats.How do you steer them backwards?.They seem to do as they please, Craggy

 

We call that BAD SEAMANSHIP!

 

I tried to turn a 45ft boat around once when I first came to Rickmansworth trying to get into my new mooring. I'd only been on the boat for a week. I got severly slagged off by my fellow moorers in the pub for months after that.

[Chris J W]

Learning to wind is fun! I soon learnt that if you think there's just enough room ... then there probably isn't! My first winding was a complete balls up as I managed to have the bow in the wrong place entirely on the wrong side of the cut ...

 

 

(psst! Could you stop using all capitals (known as 'shouting') in your subject headers? Ta!)

[cirrusvfr]

Had a bit of a "moment " myself whilst turning around. 66 foot boat with a bit of breeze and we were also on the Llangollen, which has a current ( 1 to 1and 1/2 knots) as well !

Didn't get stuck, but what should have been a exercise completed in about 3 back and forths, and 3 minutes eventually turned into 20 back and forths and 15 minutes........ oh and the daylight was going fast as well.

[stickleback]

My marina is designed to be embarrassing - it took AGES to get used to the wind always blowing in a particular direction, and once we had got used to that , being able to predict which way it would blow the front of the boat and how to compensate, the bloody wind blew from the other end of the marina when there was an open day. So dozens of people had a great laugh at our expense . Until they tried to help - when EVERYONE turned out to be an amateur!!!!!

 

Wind is the enemy!!!

 

Stickleback

[Chris J W]

Teehee! I think my worst "moment" was the morning after coming through Standege - very little sleep from the night before, several early starts previous days and an early start that morning and I really wasn't in the mood to be boating again at 8am. BW took the first three off down the locks with me as tail end-very-much-the-Charlie ...

 

Made my way into the lock ... turned round to make sure I was over the cill before apply a bit of reverse to slow down. But as I was facing backwards I, ah-hem, moved the throttle backwards relative to me and the boat shot forward ... so I utterly over compensated and the boat shot out back again ... and over compensated again ... and again ... not a fun start to a not fun day!

[steelaway]

It seems everytime i go out on my boat there is a mini disaster.The latest is today as the sun came out i decided to leave the security of my new berth in the mariner,and chugged down the canal,surely nothing could go wrong today.But it can with me,i thought there was just enough width here for turning around,but no,i managed to jamb the bloody thing between a bunch of tree roots and shallow water on the otherside.Good job there was no one around.I had to abandon ship and tug and sweat,but managed to free the brute.And crept back to the mariner,only to spend 20 minuets trying to reverse back into a tight space between two other narrowboats.How do you steer them backwards?.They seem to do as they please, Craggy

 

 

Im sure ever one on here has a story to tell.

Reversing does get a bit easier as you get used to the boat - but for now reversing will just give you more room to go foward.

I have ended up in some real tangles, this years embarasing moment was trying to reverse into the mooring outside the Leeds Armouries.

I picked my spot next to a friend(who had chickened out and gone in forward)

In my defence it was blowing a bit but I had eventually to settle on a mooring eight berths away.

Of course everyone in the marina came on deck to watch the clown.

 

Alex

[Chris J W]

Chatting to a cabbie once and he found it very hard to believe that, on the whole, boaters can be very modest about things done well, and then have far more fun boasting about the utter cock-ups!

 

[Gibbo]

It's all to do with kidology...........

 

You do not decide where you want the boat to be, then try to put it there.

 

What you do is meddle with the tiller, meddle with the throttle, and swap between forwards and astern. You then watch where the boat goes and make it look like that's where you wanted it to go. If you end up crabbing to the wrong side of a pound pointing in the wrong direction you simply lean over the side and pick something up out of the canal. That makes you look like a real expert having manoeuvered the boat into such a difficult place.

 

As long as you look convincing nobody has anything to laugh at.

 

Gibbo

[nigel fryer]

It's all to do with kidology...........

 

You do not decide where you want the boat to be, then try to put it there.

 

What you do is meddle with the tiller, meddle with the throttle, and swap between forwards and astern. You then watch where the boat goes and make it look like that's where you wanted it to go. If you end up crabbing to the wrong side of a pound pointing in the wrong direction you simply lean over the side and pick something up out of the canal. That makes you look like a real expert having manoeuvered the boat into such a difficult place.

 

As long as you look convincing nobody has anything to laugh at.

 

Gibbo

Spot on - feign confidence every time.

Even when my husband put me in a bush while winding he still looked as if it was intentional.

Come to think of it, maybe it was......!

 

 

 

Spot on - feign confidence every time.

Even when my husband put me in a bush while winding he still looked as if it was intentional.

Come to think of it, maybe it was......!

Can i just say it was a fine BUSH !!

[Odana]

But why is it if a bloke moors his boat in a tree it's obviously a very windy day, whereas if I so much as bump a bridge on a tight turn, it's cos I'm a 'woman driver'?

 

But then there was that lock this summer where I didn't flip the centre line in my normal expert manner in a lock this summer and ended up pulling the canoe, the poles, the broom and a couple of plants off. In front of several very amused fishermen.

[alan_fincher]

But then there was that lock this summer where I didn't flip the centre line in my normal expert manner in a lock this summer and ended up pulling the canoe, the poles, the broom and a couple of plants off. In front of several very amused fishermen.

We spent a couple of years with only one centre line, becoming deft at flicking over mushroom vents and Morco flue.

 

Even so we lost a few mugs and drinks glasses, and I came close to whipping my specs into the cut.

 

We now attach two centre lines, one for each side - it's so obvious, and without a doubt the most productive change of technique we ever came up with.

 

Now when some unexpected happening causes you to have to make for the opposite bank to the one you were planning for, we don't add to the confusion by trying to do a last minute centre line flip too.

[Keeping Up]

As long as you look convincing nobody has anything to laugh at.

A tip that I found on another canal forum:

 

"Put an old watch or similar in your pocket and should you fall in with a captive audience ( you will never fall in alone) you can surface and throw the watch with a triumphant flourish onto the towpath and say loudly "managed to find it" !!!!!!! ."

[Moley]

But why is it if a bloke moors his boat in a tree it's obviously a very windy day, whereas if I so much as bump a bridge on a tight turn, it's cos I'm a 'woman driver'?

In defence of 'women drivers', while going ahead of our boat to the next lock (going up the Stratford, I think) and finding the bloke (coming down) taking rather too much time over it, looking back down the canal he noticed our boat diagonally across the canal and passed some adverse comment about Mrs. Mole's helmsmanship.

 

I hastened to point out that she was really quite competent at the tiller and was merely picking greengages while he was fannying about.

 

Sure enough, by the time he exited the lock, our boat was out of the bushes and on a perfect lock approach.

Edited November 28, 2008 by Moley

[alan_fincher]

In defence of 'women drivers', while going ahead of our boat to the next lock (going up the Stratford) and finding the bloke (coming down) taking rather too much time over it, looking back down the canal he noticed our boat diagonally across the canal and passed some adverse comment about Mrs. Mole's helmsmanship.

 

I hastened to point out that she was really quite competent at the tiller and was merely picking greengages while he was fannying about.

In these politically correct days that really ought to be helmspersonship, didn't it ?

[Iain_S]

My marina is designed to be embarrassing - it took AGES to get used to the wind always blowing in a particular direction, and once we had got used to that , being able to predict which way it would blow the front of the boat and how to compensate, the bloody wind blew from the other end of the marina when there was an open day. So dozens of people had a great laugh at our expense . Until they tried to help - when EVERYONE turned out to be an amateur!!!!!

 

Wind is the enemy!!!

 

Stickleback

 

Barton Turns?

 

Iain

[denboy]

do everything slowly you can always pull out and try again if you do everything with vast ammounts of power when your new you tend to cock it up faster

[stickleback]

Barton Turns?

 

Iain

 

Not Barton Turns - is that bad too??! Mine is near the Northampton arm on the GU. I'm going to suggest having a wind sock fitted! (To the marina - not to me!!) For those of us who don't rely on a bow thruster (and the number of people who do - on even a mildly breezy day, boats manoeuvre in and out sounding like a lawn mower!!)

[Naughty Cal]

Our marina is as bad with the wind. We had only had the boat a couple of days when we lined up ready to reverse into our berth. Lined her up turned side on to the the wind for the last reverse, ended up four berths down the line prefectly lined up to hit a nearly new Sealine. We soon rectified that and have since learned the technique for getting into our berth in the wind. On the plus side evrybody that tried to moor up that day did pretty much the same manouvre.

[gbmud]

Just to further muddy the reputation of hire boaters...

 

Last year, while hiring on the T+M, I managed to spill a mug of tea all over the rear deck. I asked my wife if she would steer while I mopped the spilled tea and so, as she steered, I set about mopping the tea using water from the cut by just dipping the mop in over the side. The whole job only took about 30 seconds and I was just completing the job when there was a great crash which nearly sent me sprawling through the open door and into the cabin. I looked up to see that my wife had crashed the boat into another, stationary boat at the side of the cut. When I asked what the hell was going on she replied that she was watching me rather than where we were going - which almost left me speechless. So in this case, it was not that she was unable to steer, she was merely unable to divide her attention properly - or that she was so stunned by the sight of me cleaning up a mess I had made!

 

Gladly the other party was very good about it and we kept our deposit.

 

Chris

[Barry]

I did a similar thing on a holiday on the broads in 05

 

My attention wandered for a moment and, on hearing rustling noises accompanied by worried squeeks I looked up to see that I was about to sweep my beloved off the side of the boat with a tree

 

A strong girl with a firm grip, she was able to duck and hold on while I threw the boat into reverse so in the end she merely recieved a few caresses from leaves and a mild birching

 

 

 

On my second boating holiday on the Thames my wife (at the time) and I were sharing the holiday with another couple on their first boat trip. The guy was a driving instructor who could not seem to grasp that the engine in reverse was the only brake he had. When stopping the boat he repeatedly ignored my request to go into reverse saying that the rope around around the bollard would stop the boat because it was only water we were in

 

It worked the first time but on the second he ripped the cleat clean out of the boat

Edited November 28, 2008 by Bazza2

[T.A]

I did a similar thing on a holiday on the broads in 05

 

"she merely recieved a few caresses from leaves and a mild birching"

 

Was the birching really necessary after all it was your fault

[AlanH]

I've been boating for eight years and I still can't reverse well. The damn thing always goes the wrong way and I usally end up going three steps back and two forward.

 

My best cock up howver was with a caravan:

 

I parked this caravan on a slight slope which ended in a low (8") wall. The other side of the wall was a very steep drop of about 30ft to a river. It was the first trip of the year and the caravan had been stationary all winter.

I reversed the car up to the caravan.

I got out of the car and went to hitch it on but I was a couple of inches short.

"Thats no problem" I thought " I'll pull the caravan up to the tow ball by hand"

I then took the caravan brake off and found it to be seized on so I got back in the car in order to reverse the couple of inches.

I overdid it and the tow ball hit the caravan towbar, the jolt released the brake and the caravan started to head for the drop.

In panic, I leapt out of the car and dashed back to the caravan just in time to stop the wheels hitting the wall.

I then wiped my brow before realising that I had left the car (an automatic) in "drive" and it was heading for a garage door opposite my caravan parking place. I did manage to get in and stop it in time but I was pleased that it was 6:30 am. and no-one else was around

[arpeeuk]

I thought that when you'd accidentally stuck someone in a bush and there was an audience you always shouted "Did you get it" to which the reply is always "Yes, got it" and a great big smile