Staffs & Worcs - Any advice?

[Spencer]

Hi

 

After announcing ourselves as Christmas boaters I went searching for some advice on where to moor on our trip up the Staffs & Worcs on our way to the Shroppie.

 

I would be grateful for any recent local knowledge on where best to moor to stay away from the defective DNA element of society. We are nervous little boaters and don't want to face stones, abuse or trouble of any kind if we can avoid it. We take it easy (whole reason for choosing this lifestyle) each day usually only moving in the morning, and pubs aren't important as neither of us drink (I can hear gasps of surprise!).

 

Very grateful for any advice available, we are moving to Hinksford tomorrow (Tuesday), then to the edge of Wombourne Wednesday, Thursday will be a huge intake of breath to get through to the other side of Wombourne and back into the countryside then we have to face the final leg to the Shroppie Friday.

 

Thanks

 

Spencer & Linda

[DHutch]

*Looks at nicholsons, tracing the StafFs n' Worcs with fingar*

 

Urrrm, yeah.

- I only have the national map here, all the guides are on the boat. But there now where really that i wouldnt moor i dont thing.

 

Last year when we where in that area (going from market drayton way to Gu and onto london), we spent a night at Autherley before doing the Wolverhampton flight, and then the next night just above factory locks (just round the corner from the locks, slightly down the arm to tipton jn, right on the corner, on the bit of towpath that doesnt lead anywhere, becuase the main towpath is going up the bridge). Both nights where fine, we then left the boat unattended in the basan above farmers locks for 10days.

 

The year before last was the last night we actually did the lenght of the Staffs&Worcs (going from whixhal to trentlock, nottongham) im not sure where we stoped. Tbh, at 21M 12L you could do it in a day, and tixals a nice place to moor.

- However, as we passed autherley at minday (and tixal for the matter) we must have stoped somewhere... I remember pasing penkridge fair early in the day, so possably we spent the night at gailey. I dont know. Usally we just plod on till about 8ish, then look at the map, and pick somewhere nice within about an hour cruising range.

 

 

 

Daniel

[Keeping Up]

If you're starting a day from near Wombourne, I'd suggest getting as far as Dimmingsdale lock that day. There's a really nice mooring above the lock. Then the following day you can easily make the run round to Autherley Junction and start up the Shroppie.

 

Happy cruising

Allan

[John Orentas]

I would be grateful for any recent local knowledge on where best to moor to stay away from the defective DNA element of society. We are nervous little boaters and don't want to face stones, abuse or trouble of any kind if we can avoid it. We take it easy (whole reason for choosing this lifestyle) each day usually only moving in the morning, and pubs aren't important as neither of us drink (I can hear gasps of surprise!).

 

Spencer & Linda

Hi Spencer & Linda.

 

 

 

Are you planning to spend the rest of your life cowering in dread of your fellow men. These fears of yours are a state of mind and do not reflect reality, I have been boating for nearly thirty years and have not suffered a single incident such as you seem to be living in fear of. You will never get the full enjoyment out of your boat until you can manage to change your attitude to the rest of society. It is sad that these exaggerated ideas are propagated so freely by the media and even on forums such as this one.

[david and julie]

You will never get the full enjoyment out of your boat until you can manage to change your attitude to the rest of society.

FFS John you've made me spill my drink!!!!

This is a joke, isn't it????

[John Orentas]

FFS John you've made me spill my drink!!!!

This is a joke, isn't it????

 

 

Hi D. & J.

 

No it's not a joke at all and the last thing in the world I would ever want someone to do is waste a drink. So many people are influenced by the horror stories of these perceived problems, marauding hooligans and the like. The vast majority of it is pure urban myth. I moor in a marina which has approximately 200 non residential moorings and have done so for twenty years, ten years ago two boats were broken into and a couple of TV's and videos were stolen, tough on them but on the plus side 198 boats have been totally undisturbed for a decade.

 

When you are cruising, yes you sometimes pass under a bridge with a group of teenagers hanging around on top, whether an individual finds that intimidating or not is up to them, I normally don't.

[cheshire~rose]

Well said John!

 

Of course there will always be a possibility of incidents in life where a chance meeting with some undesirable person (or persons) that are unpleasant and it makes no difference if you are on the canal, driving your car or out in the street at the time.

 

To avoid it happening we would all have to become hermits that never left our homes and then that undesirable group of society would be free to turn our streets, neighbourhoods and canals into ghettos, a complete no go area for the likes of you and me.

 

It is only if decent law abiding people continue to go about their business / leisure with confidence that stops the undesirables taking over.

 

Ok, admittedly my cruising experience is limited but I HAVE once been through the outskirts of Manchester with a dire warning from the hire company about where not to moor and have also been through many other urban areas. I have to say I have never experienced ANY problems at all. I also choose to frequently walk along the towpath. I do not have a dog and I am usually on my own but have never experienced a single problem. The reverse in fact, everyone I meet is so friendly and I often end up striking up a conversation with a dog walker, fisherman or a boater working the locks.

 

Moving away from the canal, I live right by the town centre and if I go out into the town during the evening (sometimes with work colleagues) I usually walk home. In the time it would take me to get to the taxi rank and possibly wait for a taxi I can be home. My friends all think I am mad but I am extremely safety concious and stay alert to my surroundings and stay safe. Yes I am fully aware that something could happen but then I could get run over by a bus today and I refuse to let FEAR of a percieved threat stop me from enjoying my life. After all even if I did get in a taxi would I really be safe?

 

This same percieved fear is stopping many people from cruising through some areas of the canal netwok which is a huge pity. If it were me my only fear from cruising these areas would be that of getting something undesirable stuck round the prop! Lets face it that can happen anywhere!

[anhar]

Whenever someone expresses fear of anything as in this thread, there are always people who tell us that well, in thirty years or whatever it has never happened to them, the implication being of course that the fears are exaggerated or virtually non existent. You get a similar response when people ask for opinions on, say, a brand of boat central heating which has widely reported problems. Some people say that they think the criticism is excessive because they personally have had no problems. They draw a false general conclusion from their own experience.

 

The proper measure of the extent of eg. bandits or the reliability some piece of kit etc. is not individual personal experience at all. It is the statistical incidence of the events occurring, ie. the sum of a sufficient sample of personal experiences. With the bandit fears that our reader expressed in this thread, those responding that they have never experienced this or as we've heard, walk home through the worst areas of town alone in the middle of the night, may merely have been lucky. Similarly those that have had these problems may merely have been unlucky.

 

The only way to judge the extent of things like this is the volume of incidents. If we're talking banditry for example as here, then to make an assessment of certain areas you would need to know how many such incidents occurred. You could then make a judgement as to whether you wish to go there or not. If you could ascertain that in fact a certain spot had had quite a few such events, then reason suggests that whatever anybody says here about how they've never experienced such things, you would be well advised to avoid that spot, the reason being that the likelihood is greater of being attacked there then at some other more peaceful location.

 

Thus I find it unhelpful when a few people say that they personally have never experienced these events and draw from this the wrong conclusion that therefore the fears are exaggerated. That conclusion does not follow at all.

 

regards

Steve

Edited December 26, 2006 by anhar

[boatchad]

They draw a false general conclusion from their own experience.

How do you draw a false general conclusion from something you have personal experience of, surely pre-judging a situation before you have personal experience is much more a case of drawing false conclusions?

 

The only way to judge the extent of things like this is the volume of incidents.

 

 

Now this really is a generalisation. As only the negative incidents are reported how is it possible to make a balanced judgement based on totally one-sided figures. If all passages through an area were reported both positive and negative, it would probably appear that for possibly every 1000 passages only 1 reported a bad incident.

 

 

you would be well advised to avoid that spot, the reason being that the likelihood is greater of being attacked there then at some other more peaceful location.

By avoiding a falsely assumed possible hot spot then the so called bandits have won, the few who do tackle the passage become an oddity and in the eyes of the so called bandits, a fair target because the boater becomes a trespasser on the bandits previously won patch.

 

 

Thus I find it unhelpful when a few people say that they personally have never experienced these events and draw from this the wrong conclusion that therefore the fears are exaggerated. That conclusion does not follow at all.

 

I also find negative postings unhelpful! Stay away from wrongly concluded hot spots and sooner or later we will be reduced to travelling up and down isolated, much over crowded stretches of conceived nice bits, all the linking stretches that pass through towns and cities will have become no go areas.

[Stephen Fulcher]

This is all a matter of personal views.

 

People exercise differing degrees of caution when deciding where to moor.

 

For example, as someone who lives in Kidderminster I would never entertain mooring near Falling Sands Viaduct because I know the local area. I do however see lots of boats moored in that area, and I am sure 99.9% never have a problem.

Edited December 26, 2006 by Stephen Fulcher

[John Orentas]

Whenever someone expresses fear of anything as in this thread, there are always people who tell us that well, in thirty years or whatever it has never happened to them, the implication being of course that the fears are exaggerated or virtually non existent.

 

Thus I find it unhelpful when a few people say that they personally have never experienced these events and draw from this the wrong conclusion that therefore the fears are exaggerated. That conclusion does not follow at all.

 

regards

Steve

 

 

Hi Steve.

 

The problem with these cases is that it is usually only the very occasional trip when a boater experiences problems that will be reported, people who have no problems whatsoever in the same area never mention their trip. Anyone who daily reads the tabloid press, and I hasten to add I am certainly not one of them will know that the pages are filled with stories of mayhem, general violence and other omens of a degenerate society. I try to point out to people that such stories are not published because they are commonplace, but because they are rare.

 

Yes I admit that I am one of those respond to many of these alarmist threads, mainly because I believe some sort of ballance should be maintained.

Edited December 26, 2006 by John Orentas

[anhar]

Hi Steve.

 

The problem with these cases is that it is usually only the very occasional trip when a boater experiences problems that will be reported, people who have no problems whatsoever in the same area never mention their trip. Anyone who daily reads the tabloid press, and I hasten to add I am certainly not one of them will know that the pages are filled with stories of mayhem, general violence and other omens of a degenerate society. I try to point out to people that such stories are not published because they are commonplace, but because they are rare.

 

Yes I admit that I am one of those respond to many of these alarmist threads, mainly because I believe some sort of ballance should be maintained.

Hi John/boatchad/Stephen

 

I agree that the press has the effect of exaggerating, often to a ludicrous extent, various threats. You'll recall for example that it's not long ago that we were all going to drop dead from avian flu, those few of us remaining that weren't already wiped out in terrorist attacks that is. As you suggest, sensible people take all of this reporting with a skipload of salt.

 

But what I'm saying is that someone trying to assess the likely scale of a problem at the personal level such as attacks on boats by scumbags or the reliability of some kit, can't easily do so from a tiny number of personal experiences. If someone has had a problem in a particular place from "bandits" then they are likely to be heavily biased against that spot, even if their experience is in fact a very isolated incident. And on the other hand, someone visiiting the same place without incident is likely to say the fears are over estimated. Both answers on their own give a misleading account of that place to an enquirer. Both may have just been lucky/unlucky. The scale of the risk though remains unknown unless we know how frequently trouble has occurred there.

 

As I say the same thing happens with the sort of discussions we have here on kit. Supposing I'm considering gettting a set of replacement batteries from that well known brand Everflat. Being a cautious geezer I come on here and ask my fellow boaters their opinions before buying. A couple of responses say they have used Everflats for years and they were perfect. Am I any the wiser? If I listen to the answers then I should have no hesitation in going for them. But I cannot in truth rely on the responses. The people mean well but the answers don't tell me what I need to know. They're just a couple of vociferous satisfied customers. What I really need to know in order to judge the likelihood of getting decent quality is a wide sample of users experiences. Maybe 80% of Everflats fail in an unacceptably short period and the two responses on the board were merely those in the minority whose batteries were fine.

 

My point is just that a tiny number of personal experiences of something may well not be a representative opinion upon which to base a decision.

 

regards

Steve

Edited December 26, 2006 by anhar

[Chertsey]

As I say the same thing happens with the sort of discussions we have here on kit. Supposing I'm considering gettting a set of replacement batteries from that well known brand Everflat. Being a cautious geezer I come on here and ask my fellow boaters their opinions before buying. A couple of responses say they have used Everflats for years and they were perfect. Am I any the wiser? If I listen to the answers then I should have no hesitation in going for them. But I cannot in truth rely on the responses. The people mean well but the answers don't tell me what I need to know. They're just a couple of vociferous satisfied customers. What I really need to know in order to judge the likelihood of getting decent quality is a wide sample of users experiences. Maybe 80% of Everflats fail in an unacceptably short period and the two responses on the board were merely those in the minority whose batteries were fine.

 

My point is just that a tiny number of personal experiences of something may well not be a representative opinion upon which to base a decision.

 

regards

Steve

 

But isn't the point of asking on a forum like this to get as large a number of responses as possible so there is some chance of statistical representativeness? For example, if I were reading this and had bad experiences of the Staffs and Worcs, I would say so, wouldn't I? In fact I can add to the numbers of people who haven't, when we came down in the summer from Great Haywood to Autherley we had no hint of trouble anywhere. I agree that that's not decisive but it all adds to the information that can be weighed in the balance. And I do agree with John, even though fears may sometimes turn out to be justified, we can't let those fears control the other 99.9 per cent of our lives.

 

Happy new year!

[Spencer]

Thanks everyone for your responses. We will moor up above the Dimmingsdale locks as recommended, and I am heartened by those who report pleasant cruising along this stretch of the system.

 

I also appreciate the views of people on the subject of banditry. I admit I tend to worry about this subject more than your average Joe, and I regret that it sometimes does rule my decisions. However, we did not let it stop us choosing the lifestyle we wanted on the canals, and that decision was made with full awareness of all the media reports on trouble.

 

I will take heart from those of you reporting many years without trouble, but I will at the same time continue to exercise caution when I moor up to reduce the chances of any 0.01% incidents happening to me or mine.

 

I too am looking forward to decades of boating without incident, and despite being on the water for only a week, we have already met many friendly joggers, fishermen and boaters. May this be a sign of times to come

 

Thanks again

 

Spencer

[carlt]

That monkey you've got as an avatar looks like it's holding a gun. I always moor well away from armed primates.

 

BTW my hands are shaking as I type this but, once again, I agree with John O!

Edited December 26, 2006 by carlt

[John Orentas]

That monkey you've got as an avatar looks like it's holding a gun. I always moor well away from armed primates.

 

 

And what would you call a large primate carrying a gun ?

[carlt]

And what would you call a large primate carrying a gun ?

 

Sir!

 

Edited to say: or of course: guerrilla.

Edited December 26, 2006 by carlt

[Edders]

And what would you call a large primate carrying a gun ?

Sir, or anything he wants you to

 

Edders

[Theo]

And what would you call a large primate carrying a gun ?

 

 

"Sir"

 

Nick

[Grasshopper]

Hmmm.

 

Undoubtedly the 'newspapers' exagerate a number of overhyped threats like avian flu & terrorists. But most of the low level oikishness, which is what we are talking about here, DOESN'T get reported. Because it is too common and is un-newsworthy. People don't even bother reporting it to the police any more because they can take no action. It is just part of day to day life.

 

I live in a quiet road in a prosperous part of leafy Surrey. Yet every Saturday night in the small hours, a merry band of drunkem and/or drugged out yobs make their way back from the pubs & clubs of the local town down my road towards the nearby small council estate (no easy dig at council estates or their inhabitants intended - I grew up on a large one outside Romford - it is just a fact). On their way, they break car wing mirrors, throw pots of plants over cars, break down fences and daub grafitti. Anyone attempting to confont them is threatened. I've lost count of how many times I've had to repair my fence.

 

And I talk to enough people to know that my experiences are not unique. And I'm pretty sure that they aren't a figment of everyone's imagination.

 

Now it may be that the canal network is immune to such occurences. And that it is as safe to moor in one location as another. But I struggle to believe it because it runs contrary to the experience of my 50+ years of life. So I don't see why someone coming on here and asking for advice on the risks of particular mooring sites is so outrageous.

 

I mean, I'm not saying that if you park your car in my street on a Saturday night, you will DEFINITELY have your wing mirror broken or find a dent & a flower pot on the roof. But it is a more likely outcome than if you parked in a different street that I could suggest. It may or may not happen in either. But the risk is definitely greater in mine. And I can't help feeling the same logically MUST be true of mooring sites.