What are your top crewing tips?

[John Holden]

One thing I'd say, is that when in locks always look at the steerer for any hand signals. Especially when going up, don't lift any paddle until he gives you a signal to say "OK", and then keep watching him. It's easy to get distracted by all the other interesting things around you, but it is you who controls what happens to the boat in the lock and the steerer can do little more than wave at you and hope

 

Having once avoided sinking a boat by being a miserable beggar who insisted that lock operators stand by the lock gates rather than go off daisy petal counting I can confirm how important it is to follow this rule, and don't just watch for the signal to raise paddles, watch for the mad jumping about that indicates that the paddles should be dropped PDQ.

[blackrose]

"NEVER EVER tie a rope from a boat going down a lock."

 

If you have crew then that's good advice, but I've been tying ropes when going downhiLl in locks for 10 years when I'm single-handed. If you know what you're doing it's fine and there's more than one way to skin a cat, so I disagree with all this NEVER EVER stuff.