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Am I a coward?


doratheexplorer

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You did the right thing, let's face it, not being stressed is the very reason we're all on the canal to start with.  Get fed up with something/ someone, move on.  How many land based folk wish they could do that?

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6 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

But now I have a different problem which always happens when I'm moored on my own.  Boats go by far too fast.  I think it's because they knock their revs down slightly when their bow comes alongside my boat and there's no time for the boat to slow at all.

Dora, I don't know how experienced you are so forgive me if I'm teaching you to such eggs, but are you confident you're mooring well?  If not, consider this:

 

Your bow and stern lines should be at 45 degrees to the boat and run to rings (or bollards, goat chains, pins or whatever) beyond it, not back toward your centre.  If ring spacings don't allow this, pick up a ring one end and use a pin or goat chain at the other to adjust the spacing in your favour.  Don't be tempted to use your centre line from the roof, as any movement of the boat will cause it to tighten and the pull from high up will force your boat to roll towards the bank making the problem worse.

 

All this doesn't mean some folk won't go by without slowing, but it does mean that you're doing what you can to minimise the effect that they have on your boat.  When you pass other boats, watch how differently they react to your passing depending on how they're moored.

 

Hope that helps. :)

6 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

 

 

Edited by Sea Dog
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11 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Your bow and stern lines should be at 45 degrees to the boat and run to rings (or bollards, goat chains, pins or whatever) beyond it, not back toward your centre. 

I found, on one occasion, that running the lines back at 45 degrees to rings helped reduce the effect of the passing boats' wash quite considerably. Instead of each end of the boat being pulled into the channel in turn (causing the other end to collide with the bank) the boat barely moved and never made contact with the bank at all.

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1 hour ago, George and Dragon said:

I found, on one occasion, that running the lines back at 45 degrees to rings helped reduce the effect of the passing boats' wash quite considerably. Instead of each end of the boat being pulled into the channel in turn (causing the other end to collide with the bank) the boat barely moved and never made contact with the bank at all.

If you run a third line at 90 degrees to the bow or stern - or even both - back to the shore it'll be even better.

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1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

Dora, I don't know how experienced you are so forgive me if I'm teaching you to such eggs, but are you confident you're mooring well?  If not, consider this:

 

Your bow and stern lines should be at 45 degrees to the boat and run to rings (or bollards, goat chains, pins or whatever) beyond it, not back toward your centre.  If ring spacings don't allow this, pick up a ring one end and use a pin or goat chain at the other to adjust the spacing in your favour.  Don't be tempted to use your centre line from the roof, as any movement of the boat will cause it to tighten and the pull from high up will force your boat to roll towards the bank making the problem worse.

 

All this doesn't mean some folk won't go by without slowing, but it does mean that you're doing what you can to minimise the effect that they have on your boat.  When you pass other boats, watch how differently they react to your passing depending on how they're moored.

 

Hope that helps. :)

 

And whenever possible, add at least one spring, a line from (say) the stern forward at an angle of 45° to a pin/ring/chain, thus making an angle of 90° with the the first line. It makes an enormous difference to how much the boat moves.

 

ETA Old Goat beat me to it!

Edited by BruceinSanity
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11 minutes ago, BruceinSanity said:

And whenever possible, add at least one spring, a line from (say) the stern forward at an angle of 45° to a pin/ring/chain, thus making an angle of 90° with the the first line. It makes an enormous difference to how much the boat moves.

 

ETA Old Goat beat me to it!

It does - gets in the way of the KISS principle though, doesn't it.   One in three are mooring with centre lines, maybe one in 5 of the rest get the 45 degrees bit right; using springs is A level stuff.

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I knocked on a boat a month or two back when he started his engine at 6.30 in the morning - he'd moored up next to me some time during the night.  To my surprise (I was expecting a mouthful) he apologised, waved his arm about to show he didn't wear a watch and switched it off... not like the pratt at Stone a few years ago who started HIS engine at midnight, swore mightily at me for suggesting it was a bit late, said he needed hot water, and ran it till about 5a.m., presumably because I'd grumbled.  Normally, I'd just up sticks and shift, but at those particular times and places, it just wasn't possible.

I do try to moor as far away from anyone else as I can, partly because I am aware that not everyone wants to listen to my trombone practise...

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4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

 

I do try to moor as far away from anyone else as I can, partly because I am aware that not everyone wants to listen to my trombone practise...

Of course it’s not your fault if you start practicing at 6am cause you wide awake due been disturbed during the night. :)

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Does anyone remember the bagpipe man, he was considerate and ensured he was a good distance away from everyone. Only thing was that he was so good you wanted to get nearer. 

Last I heard of him was that he was boating in France. 

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1 hour ago, reg said:

Does anyone remember the bagpipe man, he was considerate and ensured he was a good distance away from everyone. Only thing was that he was so good you wanted to get nearer. 

 

I use to come across a bagpiper on Midsummer Common in Cambridge playing his loudest at 6.30 am. A bit spooky on misty mornings when you could hear him before you could see him.

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I came back from work at about midnight once to find the boat in front running their silenced - but not exactly silent - generator in front of me. My bedroom was exactly six foot away form the thing so i knocked on the door and said politely "would you mind not running your gennie now as I want to sleep"... he turned it off but not without giving me that withering look.

 

Some people are See you next Tuesdays...at least on a boat you can move.

 

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We once moored alone in the sticks, about 11.30pm I started the engine to put a bit of juice in our knackered batteries to see us through the night but didn't see the boat that had quietly moored immediately behind us, (prob trying not to disturb us!) After a few mins we heard shouting outside so I went on deck to be met by a boater screaming at me to turn our engine off, I immediately reacted to his angry rant by refusing. A few mins later I calmed down and switched it off. Next morning I went and apologised explaining I was unaware he was there, in return he apologised for ranting and explained he was fast asleep when the engine fired up, but he thanked me for approaching him to offer an apology. 

 

All a big misunderstanding but we parted amicably. 

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2 minutes ago, nb Innisfree said:

We once moored alone in the sticks, about 11.30pm I started the engine to put a bit of juice in our knackered batteries to see us through the night but didn't see the boat that had quietly moored immediately behind us, (prob trying not to disturb us!)

Why is it that you choose a nice quiet place out in the sticks and suddenly others decide to moor close to you?  It always seems to happen.

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I'm quite intolerant of noise and tend to moor in the sticks most of the time. Having said that, as long as any engine nearby is switched off by around 11 pm I turn a blind eye to it. Or is that a deaf ear? The constant drone isn't great but at least the silence isn't ruined by cars and trucks hurtling past every few seconds, which some people suffer every day. I'm less tolerant of music being played loudly. I love music but never impose it on others and hate having it imposed on me. Any boater who moors near me and starts blaring music out, even during the day, will immediately get a knock from me asking to turn it down. I'm often met by a bewildered looking 'stoner', they have always been apologetic, and complied.

 

I'm not keen on these boaters that cruise with music blaring out, so you can hear than approaching from a quarter of a mile away. I sometimes feel like waving at them holding a pair of earphones, but I resist the temptation, it's not great to make instant enemies.  

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8 hours ago, Jerra said:

Why is it that you choose a nice quiet place out in the sticks and suddenly others decide to moor close to you?  It always seems to happen.

Though it was out in the sticks It was a proper mooring with rings, so it was quite reasonable for someone to moor there. Because we hadn't heard anything I assumed we were still on our own, he assumed we knew he was there so were being unreasonable. Assumptions are fraught with risks ?

Edited by nb Innisfree
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8 hours ago, Jerra said:

Why is it that you choose a nice quiet place out in the sticks and suddenly others decide to moor close to you?  It always seems to happen.

It's because they've tried to get into the side fifteen times already, and because there's a boat there they at least know they can get in to moor up. Another consequence of crap maintenance. It's a lot harder to find anywhere to moor in the sticks than it used to be - most of the towpath is too unstable now for pins so every bit of piling that's been dredged in the last fifteen years gets grabbed. 

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21 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

A few days ago I moored up next to a boat with a lovely couple and a slightly scary looking Staffy dog.  There was another boat moored on the other side of them but with nobody on it that I saw.  We had some nice chats and I was introduced to the dog which then stopped barking and growling at me and became a little less scary.  They were a fairly 'rough edged' pair though, if you know what I mean?

 

All was fine for the first day or so.

 

Then they started regularly running their engine for about half an hour at a time.  Then turning it off for an hour or so before running it again.  I'm no technicalator but even I know thats not a very good way to charge batteries.  So the problem came when one night they didn't turn their engine off until about 8.30.  I didn't worry about it too much because their engine isn't mega loud but I was a little annoyed because I'm super good at that and always turn off before 8.  After that, it got worse, running engine after 8 every night.  Then on Sunday, the worst yet - engine went on at 9.10 and off at 9.40. 

 

Yesterday I moved on to get some peace.

 

I feel cross with myself for not saying anything to them.  But in my defence - they were really nice and friendly to me and i don't like making enemies.  If I had said something and they turned on me, there were two of them and a dog but theres only me (and I'm quite ickle)  and I might have felt quite vulnerable.  I thought about phoning CRT about it, but didn't becase they would have known it was me, which would have properly narked them off.

 

Am I a coward?  What could I have done different?

You have the ideal cure for this problem, Start your engine, cast off & motor off to moorings new If you don't like the boat & folk on it moored next to you up sticks & find a new spot

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Nearly twenty years ago a neighbour on our old mooring had become fed up with a cruiser opposite running his engine (he had done this before), so at three in the morning after having shouted to no avail, he got in a canoe and paddled over to remove the h/t lead from the outboard. With the engine now silenced he returned to his boat to sleep.

   Fast forward a few months and BW moved the boat off of the mooring, I assume because no payment had been received and left it near the Lord hill bridge. After a couple of weeks a perspective 'buyer' opened the back only to be met by a swarm of flies and a skeleton!

 A sad and lonely end to a man nobody missed. 

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5 minutes ago, BWM said:

Nearly twenty years ago a neighbour on our old mooring had become fed up with a cruiser opposite running his engine (he had done this before), so at three in the morning after having shouted to no avail, he got in a canoe and paddled over to remove the h/t lead from the outboard. With the engine now silenced he returned to his boat to sleep.

   Fast forward a few months and BW moved the boat off of the mooring, I assume because no payment had been received and left it near the Lord hill bridge. After a couple of weeks a perspective 'buyer' opened the back only to be met by a swarm of flies and a skeleton!

 A sad and lonely end to a man nobody missed. 

So removing the h/t lead stopped the man's life support system from working.

:)

 

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