Seriously scary moment at Hillmorton - And another volunteer lock-keeper concern.

[RLWP]

By the way has anybody met a volky who knew what he was doing

 

Yes, we met two on the Lapworth flight. Both capable, at least one of them a boat owner.

 

They asked if we would like help (we did) and began setting ahead. It isn't their fault that by the time we got to Kingswood they were closing up behind, it's just that we are pretty nifty at locking

 

I sent a message back to CRT as I was impressed and grateful

 

Richard

[Starcoaster]

Jonathan Ludford (CRT press office) has been pointed to this thread, and in response to my questions, gave me the following info, which he is happy for me to share here:

 

The volunteer lock keepers have classroom training that’s delivered locally at the waterway and then spend time out on the canal training with the customer operations team.

The scope of the role is to assist and advise boaters as well as being a friendly face for other towpath visitors. VLKs have been a great addition to the waterways this past couple of years (I hope you agree).

Regarding who is in charge, as above, the role is advisory. So the boater is in charge of their lock and the VLK should check with them that are ready for paddles to be opened etc.

We always stress to our VLKs that they should offer their help but if a boater or crew don’t want it that’s absolutely fine.

[nicknorman]

Jonathan Ludford (CRT press office) has been pointed to this thread, and in response to my questions, gave me the following info, which he is happy for me to share here:

 

Response as expected of course. But a pity he avoids the point about volocky's reaction to an emergency situation/command, which is the key theme of this thread.

[PeteS]

In response

 

“Would you have done anything differently?”

 

Yes. I would have done what was asked by the boater. But as I said I have a reasonable level of experience.

 

“You make a presumption that he has learned from the experience. Let's hope so but the feeling from Alan at the time was that he hadn't as demonstrated by the repeated "it's never happened before" denial.”

 

I don’t construe from this that he hasn’t learnt, merely that he was surprised that it happened at all.

 

“Certainly plenty of volockies do know what they are doing, the problem for the boater is knowing whether the volocky newly encountered is one of the few who doesn't.”

 

This is always a problem. I once had paddles fully opened by a ‘fellow’ boater without asking if it was OK or him even looking at me. He then walked away from the gates back to his boat, hardly the actions of somebody concerned with safety. It doesn’t mean that I assume every boater who wants to help me locking is a complete idiot. If you don’t want any help decline it.

 

“Quite.

The fact that just one doesn't, means we can trust none.”

 

See above. Thank goodness we’re all different. I prefer to give somebody the benefit of the doubt until I have assessed their capabilities. Merely assuming that every volunteer lock keeper you encounter cannot be trusted seems a little narrow minded to me and seems at odds with your sig.

 

“A wise man knows his ignorance; a fool thinks he knows everything.”

 

“A bit of a sweeping statement. I rarely steer but I am by far the most experienced and the crew will always point you towards me for decisions. I prefer handling locks.”

 

Correct, I would not be aware of that but as I check before I start helping I hope I would be told by your crew to check with you

Edited August 28, 2015 by PeteS

[Starcoaster]

Response as expected of course. But a pity he avoids the point about volocky's reaction to an emergency situation/command, which is the key theme of this thread.

Yep I did ask that specific question too, but perhaps JL feels that it was covered in his response, or is just so blatantly obvious as to be not worth spelling out!

[Alan Saunders]

 

I know that you didn't mention "not upsetting people", but it IS a factor that does play in volunteer environments.

 

Yes, any response must be proportionate, but there are two phases of the response.

 

In the immediate aftermath of any incident, the immediate proportionate response must be to remove the employee or volunteer from duty.

 

Once appropriate investigation has taken place, and any necessary retraining or supervision is in place, then a return to duty is possible.

 

To allow an employee or volunteer who has been involved in an incident to continue without investigation and assessment in the name of "creating the right environment" would be grossly irresponsible.

 

Yes, it is for CRT to deal with this, but as an individual who is on the receiving end of the outcome, I have a vested interest.

That is the normal reaction of most employers attempting to blame the individual rather than their corporate lack of training or supervision. CRT should immediately ban all volockies from opening paddles until they are confident that all are competent, understand the risks and will obey instructions from a boat's crew and, exceptionally, any request to close the paddles from anyone.

 

Suspending all paddle operation by all Volockies would remove the implied blame of the individual concerned in this incident and place the emphasis on CRT to improve their training.

 

Catrin seems to be a polite lady. I hope there will not be a 'next time' but as a 'bloke' my second request would have been "Close your f***ing paddle you idiot b***ard" followed by further expletives and threats of violence if he did not comply. This Volocky needs to understand that Catrin was SWMBO!

 

Alan

[PeteS]

"CRT should immediately ban all volockies from opening paddles until they are confident that all are competent, understand the risks and will obey instructions from a boat's crew and, exceptionally, any request to close the paddles from anyone."

 

Seems a little extreme. Would be OK to apply the same logic to a boater who puts another boater at risk?

[junior]

If anyone is reading this and hasn't got a clue what this is all about, i just grabbed the opportunity to take this photo. It is not at Hillmorton though it was taken at Filance lock on the Staffs & Worcs about 20 mins ago.

 

The boat is a Large Northwich, the same type as Alan's boat Flamingo, also without a bow fender.

 

The stem ppost is not caught between the gates as in what happened in the Hillmorton incident, but as you can see it is a fine line that is trodden with these boats. I'm watching it all the time whilst going down and shoukd i see it stop moving i have seconds to get the paddles down.

 

[cherswud]

I gave him a direct instruction - with a reason - I repeated it.

 

Anyone can make a mistake, but this was a very scary incident, I was very shaken afterwards. I do genuinely think that the volocky thought that he knew best, but I now think that my instructions should have been obeyed immediately.

Catrin, The first thing that occurred to me apart from the danger you and your boat were in, was that the volocky ignored you (woman) and reacted to David (man). I know my feminist hat is firmly on my head here, but this kind of attitude (and its associated behaviour) is all too common. If David hadn't been on board, what would have occurred? How long would it have taken the volocky to respond to what you had already seen and notified him of?

My dad was a boatie (sea and river in NZ) for many years, and his mantra was 'when I say jump, just do it'. As the person who is always steering our nb I expect the same, but it's amazing how often I am looked at blankly and ignored until I get my husband David to repeat my words. An instance a few years ago in one of the locks at Devizes where a 10 year old boy (yes, 10 years old) was steering his dad's boat into the lock before I had exited and we got stuck. Could I get anyone to listen? Not on your nelly! I had to get David to use his best schoolteacher voice to tell all 'helpers' to shut up and do as he said and flush the boats out. Admittedly I was down in the lock and not necessarily easily heard. If I was on our boat I would now sound our extremely loud airhorn to get attention and then put my best schoolteacher voice on to get the desired response.

Cheers, Marilyn

[bottle]

I think that there maybe little difference between your voice and the horn, having heard both.

 

And as for David shouting...

 

 

 

 

 

Hope all is going well with you and yours.

[Tony Dunkley]

If anyone is reading this and hasn't got a clue what this is all about, i just grabbed the opportunity to take this photo. It is not at Hillmorton though it was taken at Filance lock on the Staffs & Worcs about 20 mins ago.

 

The boat is a Large Northwich, the same type as Alan's boat Flamingo, also without a bow fender.

 

The stem ppost is not caught between the gates as in what happened in the Hillmorton incident, but as you can see it is a fine line that is trodden with these boats. I'm watching it all the time whilst going down and shoukd i see it stop moving i have seconds to get the paddles down.

 

 

No boat is ever going to get hung up with the stem between the gates like that.

Hilmorton are wide single locks and if the stem doesn't happen to go between the gates , but goes to one side instead then the bolt heads or nuts holding the guard plates onto the gates can keep the boat wedged over to the wall.

You can reduce the chances of anything like that happening in any lock, single or double, by drawing up at least half a paddle before the top gate is shut. When it slams shut it sets up little flush that runs up and down the lock chamber and keeps the boat moving back and ahead a few inches every few seconds for the first foot or two down.

There's no good reason not to have a stem fender, and they're best held on with a short length of line between the chain ends with two or three turns round the T-stud. Once they been knocked into shape with a good ridge from the stem in the back of them you've got the choice of leaving them to ride up and sit on top of the stem bar or taking them off and out of the way if you need to.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Tony Dunkley

[Bod]

Jonathan Ludford (CRT press office) has been pointed to this thread, and in response to my questions, gave me the following info, which he is happy for me to share here:

 

Quote

The volunteer lock keepers have classroom training that’s delivered locally at the waterway and then spend time out on the canal training with the customer operations team.

The scope of the role is to assist and advise boaters as well as being a friendly face for other towpath visitors. VLKs have been a great addition to the waterways this past couple of years (I hope you agree).

Regarding who is in charge, as above, the role is advisory. So the boater is in charge of their lock and the VLK should check with them that are ready for paddles to be opened etc.

We always stress to our VLKs that they should offer their help but if a boater or crew don’t want it that’s absolutely fine.

 

My question raised from the above E-mail reply, would be. How many of the Customer Operations team, are actually experienced boaters?

 

Bod

[cherswud]

I think that there maybe little difference between your voice and the horn, having heard both.

 

And as for David shouting...

 

 

 

 

 

Hope all is going well with you and yours.

Mmmm, you will keep, mate, but not for long!

 

Partial quote from Alan Saunders (I don't know how to do them) "Catrin seems to be a polite lady. I hope there will not be a 'next time' but as a 'bloke' my second request would have been "Close your f***ing paddle you idiot b***ard" followed by further expletives and threats of violence if he did not comply. This Volocky needs to understand that Catrin was SWMBO!

 

Alan"

 

I guess Bottle's reference to my voice and the airhorn give the truth to that my language, after being polite at first, would be much more like Alan's suggestion, even tho I am not a bloke - of course, I would leave out the asterisks etc as being too hard to understand ...

 

Seriously though, I think I would also tell him afterwards that he needs to sort out his attitude of not acting on the instructions of a woman. If you think this is an isolated case and that I am imagining this attitude, ask Jaq Biggs who was instructed by one volocky to move the boat in a particular direction and on informing him they were going for water, just kept telling her to do what he said. It wasn't till Les told him they were going for water that he stopped ignoring ...

 

Last year we did the Hillmorton locks and I wasn't impressed with the male volocky - I thought he was arrogant and officious. The woman there with him was pleasant and helpful. If the guy was the same one as Alan, Cath and David have posted about in this thread, I am not at all surprised that he ignored Cath's instructions.

 

I used to have a cartoon on my office wall of a meeting table surrounded by chaps and one woman, with the chairman saying 'that's an excellent idea, Miss Jones. Let's wait for a man to suggest it.' The situation that Alan described fits that scenario for me, but with much more potentially life threatening consequences.

[nicknorman]

"CRT should immediately ban all volockies from opening paddles until they are confident that all are competent, understand the risks and will obey instructions from a boat's crew and, exceptionally, any request to close the paddles from anyone."

 

Seems a little extreme. Would be OK to apply the same logic to a boater who puts another boater at risk?

The crucial difference is that the volocky is in uniform and thus carries some air of authority, whereas a random helping boater doesn't.

[MtB]

The crucial difference is that the volocky is in uniform and thus carries some air of authority, whereas a random helping boater doesn't.

 

 

Yes exactly. An air of authority which people wearing the uniform are inclined to fall prey to themselves.

[Ray T]

Catrin seems to be a polite lady. I hope there will not be a 'next time' but as a 'bloke' my second request would have been "Close your f***ing paddle you idiot b***ard" followed by further expletives and threats of violence if he did not comply. This Volocky needs to understand that Catrin was SWMBO!

 

Good grief, when are we going to get the lynch party organised and head for Hillmorton? According to this thread we may have two candidates here. He who never made a mistake never made anything. Humans tend to make errors and hopefully learn from them.

 

It is all very well hypothesising what one would do at a particular incident from the side lines but in my experience events can take over and one may react by gut instinct. It takes a very level head to say "OK I've been trained for this, what should I do here?" whilst the incident rapidly unfolds around you. This is a general comment to some of the remarks on this thread not specifically Hillmorton.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Ray T

[PeteS]

My sentiments exactly.

 

As for asking "How many of the Customer Service Teams are experience boaters". I don't think experience has any relevance when it come to doing things correctly. One can have all the experience in the world but still be doing something wrong, you just haven't found out yet.

[Emerald Fox]

If anyone is reading this and hasn't got a clue what this is all about, i just grabbed the opportunity to take this photo. It is not at Hillmorton though it was taken at Filance lock on the Staffs & Worcs about 20 mins ago.

 

The boat is a Large Northwich, the same type as Alan's boat Flamingo, also without a bow fender.

 

The stem ppost is not caught between the gates as in what happened in the Hillmorton incident, but as you can see it is a fine line that is trodden with these boats. I'm watching it all the time whilst going down and shoukd i see it stop moving i have seconds to get the paddles down.

 

 

I cannot help but think are boats like this not too long to fit into locks, if you have to play with millimetres / fractions of an inch?

Why is this kind of boat in a lock like this? Is the boat "out of its territory" (wrong type of canal), or have the locks shrunk and warped?

'You can't get a quart into a pint pot' comes to mind.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Emerald Fox

[Sea Dog]

As quoted above in various places:

 

Jonathan Ludford (CRT press office) "............ Regarding who is in charge, as above, the (VLK) role is advisory. So the boater is in charge of their lock and the VLK should check with them that are ready for paddles to be opened etc."

 

I would have thought that pretty much resolves any confusion.

[churchward]

 

I cannot help but think are boats like this not too long to fit into locks, if you have to play with millimetres / fractions of an inch?

Why is this kind of boat in a lock like this? Is the boat "out of its territory" (wrong type of canal), or have the locks shrunk and warped?

'You can't get a quart into a pint pot' comes to mind.

When it was about commercial carrying the boats were built pretty much to the extremes of the gauge of the locks (or whatever else governed width and length) to maximise the amount of cargo weight for each trip thus making more profit. This is how it was it takes care and some skill with a boat built to the extremes of the gauge but its fine in the right hands.

 

It will be a sad day if such boats could not be used and I would stand against such a daft decision.

By the way has anybody met a volky who knew what he was doing or are they all rubbish.

Yes we have met many volkys as you put it around and about in many parts of the system who know what they are doing and been glad of the help when it has been just me or the two of us.

 

I have found people to be polite and have taken care in the main to do what we want and how we want it done.

[cherswud]

When it was about commercial carrying the boats were built pretty much to the extremes of the gauge of the locks (or whatever else governed width and length) to maximise the amount of cargo weight for each trip thus making more profit. This is how it was it takes care and some skill with a boat built to the extremes of the gauge but its fine in the right hands.

 

It will be a sad day if such boats could not be used and I would stand against such a daft decision.

Yes we have met many volkys as you put it around and about in many parts of the system who know what they are doing and been glad of the help when it has been just me or the two of us.

 

I have found people to be polite and have taken care in the main to do what we want and how we want it done.

This year, we have found many helpful, knowledgeable VLKs and a couple that are a bit officious and arrogant. So in the main, they are a helpful bunch, in our experience.

 

In particular we have been very impressed with the guys on the Napton flight.

 

Doesn't mean that the few who are not helpful or are officious and arrogant couldn't do with some feedback and retraining though. Neither of those things constitute a lynch mob, by the way.

[David Schweizer]

Whilst we have met a couple of Voluntary Lock keepers who thought they could boss boaters around, the majority have proved both pleasnt and helpful. However, I sometimes wonder whether CaRT got it wrong in the first place by defining these people as "Voluntary Lock Keepers" when their role would appear to be nothing like that of the former full time paid Lockkeepers, who had a wide range of duties and resposibilities, along with considerable authority.

 

If it is not too late, I would suggest that they should be re-named "Voluntary Lock Assistants", and their role, responsibilities and range of authority made publicly available, so that boaters have no doubt as to what they can and cannot do.

Edited August 29, 2015 by David Schweizer

[MtB]

Whilst we have met a couple of Voluntary Lock keepers who thought they could boss boaters around, the majority have proved both pleasnt and helpful. However, I sometimes wonder whether CaRT got it wrong in the first place by defining these people as "Voluntary Lock Keepers" when their role would appear to be nothing like that of the former full time paid Lockkeepers, who had a wide range of duties and resposibilities, along with considerable authority.

 

If it is not too late, I would suggest that they should be re-named "Voluntary Lock Assistants", and their role, responsibilities and range of authority made publicly available, so that boaters have no doubt as to what they can and cannot do.

 

 

Excellent suggestion. Exactly what is needed.

And not just the boaters, so the vollies also have no doubt as to what they can and cannot do.

[alan_fincher]

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.

 

I confirm that an incident report has been submitted, but we did deliberately take some time to consider how we worded it, and to make sure it stuck solely to facts, and to take any emotion out of the topic.

 

When I hear anything from CRT, I will, of course, let you know their reaction.

 

One thing that is already clear from existing materials is that "the boater and their crew is in charge", so I have no doubt at all that if a volunteer lock keeper winds a paddle, and the crew then instruct them to drop it, they should do so without hesitation, irrespective of whether the perceived danger is minor or potentially very great.

 

(Unless there are blindingly obvious reasons why it would make things worse - e.g. a person actually stuck in the paddle opening, who would be trapped in if the paddle were dropped).

[churchward]

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.

 

I confirm that an incident report has been submitted, but we did deliberately take some time to consider how we worded it, and to make sure it stuck solely to facts, and to take any emotion out of the topic.

 

When I hear anything from CRT, I will, of course, let you know their reaction.

 

One thing that is already clear from existing materials is that "the boater and their crew is in charge", so I have no doubt at all that if a volunteer lock keeper winds a paddle, and the crew then instruct them to drop it, they should do so without hesitation, irrespective of whether the perceived danger is minor or potentially very great.

 

(Unless there are blindingly obvious reasons why it would make things worse - e.g. a person actually stuck in the paddle opening, who would be trapped in if the paddle were dropped).

I am glad you have reported it as it is the only way to hopefully get some clarity and CRT to be aware that is kind of thing can happen so they can do something about it.

 

I think it is likely to be the one things we can all agree on if someone calls for the paddles to be dropped they need to be straight away then work out what happens next. Actually I think this applies if it was the volunteer that called for the paddles to be dropped whoever has noticed the potential danger should be listened to and the call acted upon. 99.99% of cases the worst that can happen is that there is a small delay in the lock operation.