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New Statesman article on narrowboats.


Delta9

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It was certainly different, more entertaining than your average travelogue. Not to be taken too seriously though. I too have wondered why its almost always the female of the species who has to work the locks. Not sure if its because the men are too lazy, or because the women can't drive?

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I too have wondered why its almost always the female of the species who has to work the locks. Not sure if its because the men are too lazy, or because the women can't drive?

 

Puzzles me why the big, strong men drive the boat and the small, less-strong women do the physical work too! 95% of crews do it this way around! I meet loads of women when I work the locks while Mrs W drives the boat like a professional.

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Puzzles me why the big, strong men drive the boat and the small, less-strong women do the physical work too! 95% of crews do it this way around! I meet loads of women when I work the locks while Mrs W drives the boat like a professional.

 

So why don't you try asking them? I often do, and the answer I get mostly from the wimmins working the locks while their blokes loungwe against the tiller waiting is... "Oh I prefer to work the locks, that way I don't have to drive to boat in".

 

Honest. Ask a few and see. Germaine Greer would turn in her grave (if she were dead).

 

MtB

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Working the locks is the way you get to talk to other people - everyone knows women like a gossip!

 

I can take the boat through locks but by preference prefer to do the locks.

 

Everyone has their own way of doing locks and it is not for anyone else to criticise peoples choice. I do think it is a pity more women are not willing to give steering the boat a try but last year I was left fuming when 2 strong men stood and watched me struggle to move a particularly heavy gate on the way into Chester on a hot day. Instead of offering to help they said I should make "him" do it.

 

They were a little less cocky when I advised them that "he" had just had an operation on his foot and was not supposed to be doing anything.

 

That article is interesting as it is one persons take on boating and boaters after a very short time on board. I suspect many of us could have been just as wrong in our interpretation of things if we had written about life on the canal after just a week on it. If we went back and read what we had written a few years later we are ikely to cringe.

 

Hopefully Alan White will return to the canal again, and again and... his viewpoint will change

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I do at least half of the steering, I reckon we probably do locks at a ratio of two thirds MB, one third me. I do not find when out and about that I am hugely in the minority by being the gurl steerer.

I think women who boat regularly wouldn't even consider avoiding steering (or accepting not being "allowed" to)! while a lot of holiday users and hirers seem to fall into the "man control boat" approach. Is steering into locks supposed to be particularly challenging or something? I am confused.

Plenty of men like to gossip too, and not all women are by default huge fans of it!

Edited by Starcoaster
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I enjoyed the article :) A lot of land folk I meet, are in awe and jealous when hearing that we live aboard...permanently....:) I find that I get on with all boaters I meet....you can never even dream or imagine the back story of people in boats...it is just too varied...........and it actually doesnt matter at all...to me....I definately dont travel around labelling boaters into different groups....that would be stupid

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People do seem to do locks differently. I don't interfere with how others' want to do locks, but will help if asked to. Some people are keen to do it all themselves though.

 

If I drive the boat in a lock, I'll rarely "just" drive. If going downhill, I'll do one or both paddles (crew will shut gate), if its a deep lock I'll get back on, if its shallow enough to get onto the boat without the ladder I'll open one of the gates once its empty. If going uphill, I'll often open the gates and if I can get off without hands on the immersed rungs of the ladder (about 8 feet or less), shut at least one gate and do one side of the paddles to go up.

 

If there's a flight of locks and its close enough to walk to the next to set it up, I'll finish off the current lock including opening and closing the gates.

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Well, the article had some paragraphs of pure b*ll*cks, but the sociological analysis was fascinating. Canal society is riven with schisms and fissures and has been since before Rolt was ousted for the IWA by Aickman. It's amazing how we all rub along together, really.

 

 

MP.

  • Greenie 1
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I think one of the reasons why boaters out on the cut (if not on here :D ) get on, is because each and everyone has choosen to be on his or her boat. And that choice element puts us all in a single group. Boaters. Nobody is forced, nobody has to be a boater. And because of that, nomatter our social, political or other leanings, when we briefly meet, at a lock or swingbridge, we are kindred spirits. Even if we tut afterwards ...

  • Greenie 1
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I do at least half of the steering, I reckon we probably do locks at a ratio of two thirds MB, one third me. I do not find when out and about that I am hugely in the minority by being the gurl steerer.

I think women who boat regularly wouldn't even consider avoiding steering (or accepting not being "allowed" to)! while a lot of holiday users and hirers seem to fall into the "man control boat" approach. Is steering into locks supposed to be particularly challenging or something? I am confused.

Plenty of men like to gossip too, and not all women are by default huge fans of it!

And I'm slowly training her out of stopping the boat by hitting the gates or the sill, lol!

 

wink.png

 

MtB

(OMg I'm in trubble now!)

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I feckin KNEW you'd drop some comment about "steering into the lock means you're supposed to steer into the water of the lock not the bank," but I resisted pre-empting you with a sarky quip, thinking I'd give you the benefit of the doubt, but NO, I should have bloody known better!

I do NOT krash into the cill or the gates! Who battered Reg most recently in a lock? YOU! judge.gif

Edited by Starcoaster
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"Of more interest are the other main breed of full time dwellers. They’re constantly on the move: many of them will only be allowed to stay in one spot for 14 days, unless they have permission from the local authority. They’re hard to pin down in other ways. They look rather like the middle class retirees, but they’ve turned feral. The beautifully-kept roof garden will be replaced by piles of firewood and fuel drums. Scruffy, basic clothes will be clustered on a miniature washing horse nearby. They look rather more bedraggled than their hippy counterparts."

 

Tee hee that's us! I never thought of myself as feral biggrin.png

 

I found it rather amusing - isn't stereotyping grand.

 

And on the question of lock duties, Dave steers and we both work the locks. He's single handed so often while I've been at work that he's off the boat as soon as it's stopped and gets to the paddles before I've closed the gate. It doesn't have to be one or t'other you know.

Edited by Ange
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