Moving on red flags

[stagedamager]

Just now, mrsmelly said:

Oy Dan. Please start bailing the Trent out I am trying to get to you 

Oh. Don't worry. We are sending plenty of water down the Erewash to flush the flood waters out of the Trent.......

[Naughty Cal]

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Oy Dan. Please start bailing the Trent out I am trying to get to you 

Oh. Did you not want more rain?

Sorry. Just getting the Trent topped right up for next weekend for us 

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, Naughty Cal said:

Oh. Did you not want more rain?

Sorry. Just getting the Trent topped right up for next weekend for us 

And still it rains 

[Naughty Cal]

2 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

And still it rains 

Only for a couple more days. Should be enough in the river by then 

[mrsmelly]

Just now, Naughty Cal said:

Only for a couple more days. Should be enough in the river by then 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, Naughty Cal said:

Only for a couple more days. Should be enough in the river by then 

And then it changes to easterly winds and more snow (but it is Summer time).

[Horace42]

A lot of the replies here relate to the 'legal' aspect of insurance - but in practice what is the risk of 'moving on red' ?

A 'red' flag or depth marker is a warning of flooding - deeper water than normal - and fast flowing currents.

From which there is a risk of being swept away - washed up against a weir - or slammed into structures - or stranded on dry land when water levels drop.

These look like property risks - and quite expensive if help is needed to recover. Within reason, these are 'foreseeable' risks.

But much less obvious is the real risk of injury or drowning in a panic situation - falling overboard - overturning - or sinking - that can happen suddenly (lack of experience of 'man or machine' to cope in the circumstances).

So the question I ask here - has anybody been in such a situation in real life - and is here to tell the tale?

[dccruiser]

On 3/11/2018 at 16:43, mrsmelly said:

Good post. Another problem of course is at such a location that I am at at present where there are red lights and red boards but this is a self operated lock so the decision each time is down to the boater him/herself. There are no lockies experienced or otherwise here and the locks are not padlocked and there is one pretty big weir with a considerable pull on the approach to Sawley cut. Ok so the weir is protected BUT you would still be in serious poo ending up on this weir at this location!!

Dont you remember a few years ago the numpty that took his widebeam fake dutch barge from Sawley marina to Shardlow when the river was in flood? he got caught on the weir , had to be airlifted off and then his boat was recovered ... he ended up with a bill somewhere over 100k and apparently was going to have to sell his boat to settle the bill

Rick

[Bee]

11 minutes ago, Horace42 said:

A lot of the replies here relate to the 'legal' aspect of insurance - but in practice what is the risk of 'moving on red' ?

A 'red' flag or depth marker is a warning of flooding - deeper water than normal - and fast flowing currents.

From which there is a risk of being swept away - washed up against a weir - or slammed into structures - or stranded on dry land when water levels drop.

These look like property risks - and quite expensive if help is needed to recover. Within reason, these are 'foreseeable' risks.

But much less obvious is the real risk of injury or drowning in a panic situation - falling overboard - overturning - or sinking - that can happen suddenly (lack of experience of 'man or machine' to cope in the circumstances).

So the question I ask here - has anybody been in such a situation in real life - and is here to tell the tale?

No, but there are plenty of pics on You Tube etc of boats in trouble, Osney bridge on the Thames and others. Making a boat go exactly where you want it to go and stopping it exactly where you want it to stop is 90% skill and 10% luck when there is a bit of wind and current, when there is a lot of wind and current it gets more like 50 / 50, when the boards are red and you are belting downstream running out of ideas its more like 90% luck and 10% skill. I have a dent in the side of the boat where I clouted that horrible swing bridge on the K&A (Wool something or other) It made no difference what my skilful use of wheel and throttle did, I might as well have been sat in a dinghy with no oars.

[dccruiser]

On 3/13/2018 at 17:31, Naughty Cal said:

Yet we had CRT staff let us out onto a flooded Trent with some 13ft of fresh on the river. 

That said I doubt they would have let a narrowboat out in those conditions.

A few years ago i was let out of Keadby at 5.30 in the morning with 13ft of fresh on, didnt realise just how bad it was until i was on it ... took until 8.30 to get to Cromwell and to say the least it wasnt a journey i would like to repeat!

Rick

[dccruiser]

On 3/12/2018 at 18:38, blackrose said:

Yes, I was aware of what you were trying to relate it to, but I was relating it to your comments above about those having accidents proving themselves to be incompetent. Anyway, if one's insurance policy doesn't have exclusions for taking boats out on red boards then the point is moot.

Surely it doesnt have to state red boards as recklessness covers any action that is considered to increase any potential risk, just as car insurance policies dont say specifically you must have a valid M.O.T. and Tax, or list drink driving , speeding etc. but its the first thing they check if you have an accident.

Rick

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

A few years ago i was let out of Keadby at 5.30 in the morning with 13ft of fresh on, didnt realise just how bad it was until i was on it ... took until 8.30 to get to Cromwell and to say the least it wasnt a journey i would like to repeat!

Rick

44 miles in 3 hours, against the stream that's some going for a NB

[dccruiser]

6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

44 miles in 3 hours, against the stream that's some going for a NB

On other occassions i have made cromwell in between 9 and 10 hours ... the first half doing 6mph +on the tide, 4 as the ebb starts and 3 on the ebb  

Rick

Doh! just realised ... ok 20.30 ! 

 

Edited March 15, 2018 by dccruiser

[WotEver]

10 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

On other occassions i have made cromwell in between 9 and 10 hours ... the first half doing 6mph +on the tide, 4 as the ebb starts and 3 on the ebb  

Rick

Doh! just realised ... ok 20.30 ! 

 

This just made me wonder...

Why DO we have a day split into two lots of 12? I can’t think of any advantage or historical reason off-hand. 

[TheBiscuits]

7 minutes ago, WotEver said:

This just made me wonder...

Why DO we have a day split into two lots of 12? I can’t think of any advantage or historical reason off-hand. 

Makes making a clock simpler.

Sundials are not usually split that way.

[Alan de Enfield]

14 minutes ago, WotEver said:

This just made me wonder...

Why DO we have a day split into two lots of 12? I can’t think of any advantage or historical reason off-hand. 

So the fen-folk in Lincolnshire & Norfolk can use their fingers to count.

Edited March 15, 2018 by Alan de Enfield

[dccruiser]

It definitely makes it simpler to give each of the 24 hours their respective number ... i have used the 24 hour clock all my adult life as it was spent in the forces, daft thing is they dont recognise midnight so we always had to close logs at 23.59 and re open at 00.01 ! 

Rick

[Alan de Enfield]

6 minutes ago, dccruiser said:

It definitely makes it simpler to give each of the 24 hours their respective number ... i have used the 24 hour clock all my adult life as it was spent in the forces, daft thing is they dont recognise midnight so we always had to close logs at 23.59 and re open at 00.01 ! 

Rick

So today you have regressed back to child-hood.

[dccruiser]

7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So today you have regressed back to child-hood.

Nah .... just being kind to them that only have 12 fingers and webbed toes  

Rick

[mrsmelly]

1 hour ago, dccruiser said:

Dont you remember a few years ago the numpty that took his widebeam fake dutch barge from Sawley marina to Shardlow when the river was in flood? he got caught on the weir , had to be airlifted off and then his boat was recovered ... he ended up with a bill somewhere over 100k and apparently was going to have to sell his boat to settle the bill

Rick

Hadnt heard of that one but it doesnt suprise me. On our first boat going back a few years we came out of Sawley cut and started off to shardlow. All going well until we cleared the cutting and then the old two pot lister started runing rough as hell ( well rougher than normal ) and we nearly lost what little power there was!!  It was a fine summers day thankfuly with little pull but I remember having kittens in those days. Got to Dobsons and they sorted fuel blockage out for me and it never occured again, talk about sods law you just never know when sometts going to go wrong.

[Momac]

53 minutes ago, WotEver said:

This just made me wonder...

Why DO we have a day split into two lots of 12? I can’t think of any advantage or historical reason off-hand. 

The new metric time system to be introduced on 1st April  will avoid all of this 24 hour clock confusion. 

[dccruiser]

7 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Hadnt heard of that one but it doesnt suprise me. On our first boat going back a few years we came out of Sawley cut and started off to shardlow. All going well until we cleared the cutting and then the old two pot lister started runing rough as hell ( well rougher than normal ) and we nearly lost what little power there was!!  It was a fine summers day thankfuly with little pull but I remember having kittens in those days. Got to Dobsons and they sorted fuel blockage out for me and it never occured again, talk about sods law you just never know when sometts going to go wrong.

Doesnt surprise me at all, i moored at both shardlow and Sawley marinas for many years and if anything ever threw a wobbly it was almost always as i was passing the weir, so will definitely make a refreshing change to be in convoy this summer  

Rick

9 minutes ago, MartynG said:

The new metric time system to be introduced on 1st April  will avoid all of this 24 hour clock confusion. 

Your a bit premature Martyn ... but i am not one to gossip  

Rick

 

[BruceinSanity]

51 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

So the fen-folk in Lincolnshire & Norfolk can use their fingers to count.

Not so far out. The Egyptians divided the day into twelve hours of daylight and twelve of night, so that the length of an hour depended on the time of year. Twelve because your four fingers on one hand have three joints each, so counting to twelve on your fingers is easy. Do it repeatedly, raising one digit on the other hand for each repetition and you're counting to 60, the number of minutes in an hour. 

The Babylonian's counting system was to base 60 and they had a set of cuneiform symbols for the purpose.

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, dccruiser said:

Doesnt surprise me at all, i moored at both shardlow and Sawley marinas for many years and if anything ever threw a wobbly it was almost always as i was passing the weir, so will definitely make a refreshing change to be in convoy this summer  

Rick

Are you nipping up the Trent with us?

[dccruiser]

Thats the plan providing i have the boat finished in time I would love a trip up to york ... then perhaps peel off on the way back and do the L&L, Then return via the Llangollen and the shroppie  

Rick