How not to use a narrowboat

[anonymous-user]

Simpo Two said:

mikeiow said:

No real words to say what a self-righteous little pr!ck he clearly shows himself to be.
@Cutdreamer on twitter....
The irony of his article, https://www.canalboat.co.uk/canal-boats/steve-hayw... is just breathtaking!

The comments underneath cut him to pieces

Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 15th October 11:12

Amazing that years ago this would be just an incident over in a few minutes and something they both might recount later but making themselves sound good.

Now it’s filmed and on YouTube with a car forum and a boating forum commenting on it and naming the bloke and people all telling stories about him, all preserved online for ever.

Presumably these people’s great great grandchildren will be able to watch the incident and read about what everyone though about it.

[CrutyRammers]

The fact that his boat's name is "Justice" makes it all even more hilarious

[wolfracesonic]

I’m not a boatist but a massive barge like that hitting a fibreglass cruiser could easily have holed and sunk it, no? Some of the forums I linked to wondered whether the guy would mention this in his next column

[Simpo Two]

wolfracesonic said:

I’m not a boatist but a massive barge like that hitting a fibreglass cruiser could easily have holed and sunk it, no? Some of the forums I linked to wondered whether the guy would mention this in his next column

That might be why he engaged a little reverse at the last moment. 'I want to damage his boat to teach him a lesson but not sink it' would be the mindset.

One can only imagine his response had the positions been reversed...

[h0b0]

Very simply, if he couldn’t stop before hitting the boat then there is no way he could stop in the mooring. That sort of deliberate behavior on the roads will see you locked up.

[RobbyJ]

A stretch of the river I know very well, just below Marsh Lock in Henley. The barge was 100% in the wrong, you just don’t moor facing down stream, especially not when being pushed by the current from the weir pool. What a total tool!

There’s a great WWII/Cold War massive bunker in the trees to the front left of shot, just fyi

[dhutch]

El stovey said:

Amazing that years ago this would be just an incident over in a few minutes and something they both might recount later but making themselves sound good.

Now it’s filmed and on YouTube with a car forum and a boating forum commenting on it and naming the bloke and people all telling stories about him, all preserved online for ever.

Presumably these people’s great great grandchildren will be able to watch the incident and read about what everyone though about it.

It is a bit mad that we have all this dash-cam, youtube, social media which is national and there almost forever. Not just a chat in a pub about one bloke being a fool, it could actually effect his career and reputation. IS that good or bad?

CrutyRammers said:

The fact that his boat's name is "Justice" makes it all even more hilarious

Yes, I did clock that!

[badgerade]

RobbyJ said:

Marsh Lock in Henley

Had a rather embarrassing moment there a few years ago. Peak summer season, we'd hired a day boat from Henley with some friends. One of them had been on a boat once, somewhere, so promoted himself to captain.

As we approached Marsh lock, there was a narrowboat already in there, but the lock keeper was gesturing that we could fit in behind.. as we're approaching at a fair speed, the Captain's genius way of slowing down was to turn off the ignition, followed by lots of shouting from the guy on the back of the narrowboat, a crunch, and lots of laughter from the people on the banks!

[Simpo Two]

badgerade said:

Had a rather embarrassing moment there a few years ago. Peak summer season, we'd hired a day boat from Henley with some friends. One of them had been on a boat once, somewhere, so promoted himself to captain.

As we approached Marsh lock, there was a narrowboat already in there, but the lock keeper was gesturing that we could fit in behind.. as we're approaching at a fair speed, the Captain's genius way of slowing down was to turn off the ignition, followed by lots of shouting from the guy on the back of the narrowboat, a crunch, and lots of laughter from the people on the banks!

Day boats have the highest percentage of tossers (badgerade excepted of course!). Saw one zooming about in circles and going up an down past moored boats at 3x the speed limit thinking it was jolly good fun. I saw the boatyard's name on the side and rang them. The first thing they said was 'Are you calling about the boat?' Seems they'd been lighting up every mobile for a while.

[stuartmmcfc]

PugwasHDJ80 said:

Wow boat rage at its best.....

can't beleive he thought ramming another boat was ever OK in any circumstance.

You never seen Ben Hur?

[RobbyJ]

Simpo Two said:

Day boats have the highest percentage of tossers (badgerade excepted of course!). Saw one zooming about in circles and going up an down past moored boats at 3x the speed limit thinking it was jolly good fun. I saw the boatyard's name on the side and rang them. The first thing they said was 'Are you calling about the boat?' Seems they'd been lighting up every mobile for a while.

Yeah one crashed into the back of me last summer in a lock damaging my boat when they had been told they weren’t allowed to go through locks at all and had signed a disclaimer to that effect. Mind you I’ve signed disclaimers saying I wouldn’t take my hire car off road (didn’t crash into the back of anyone though).

[badgerade]

Simpo Two said:

Day boats have the highest percentage of tossers (badgerade excepted of course!). Saw one zooming about in circles and going up an down past moored boats at 3x the speed limit thinking it was jolly good fun. I saw the boatyard's name on the side and rang them. The first thing they said was 'Are you calling about the boat?' Seems they'd been lighting up every mobile for a while.

Doesn't surprise me, the handover we got from the 14 year old saturday kid was along the lines of "there is the ignition, that lever makes it go forward backwards". Then we were let loose on the Thames to do whatever.

Been on a few narrowboat holidays since then, the best one was on a boat the boatyard had just taken ownership of and hadn't had a chance to put their logos all over it. Having other boaters assume you're not a hire boat was quite nice.

[eldar]

Simpo Two said:

That might be why he engaged a little reverse at the last moment. 'I want to damage his boat to teach him a lesson but not sink it' would be the mindset.

One can only imagine his response had the positions been reversed...

If he were a novice, his antics could be understandable, a Narrowboat handles very differently on the shallow water in a canal to the deep water of a river. You can go much faster in a river and turn more consistently.

No excuse for this charming gent...

[037]

He is getting some stick on Twitter right now;)

[Grubbster]

Gargamel said:

CanAm said:

The camera boat appears to be facing downstream; he should be facing upstream when mooring!! (Hard to tell on my small phone screen, but the cruiser already moored is facing the opposite way)

The camera boat is correctly heading upstream into the mooring.

You can see the water running into the weir posts further up the river.

Indeed, the cruiser is mooring at Henley, on the park, correctly facing upstream towards Marsh Lock in the distance. The narrowboat tries to make a bee-line from the lock (causing someone else to divert their course) and would have been facing the wrong way (downstream) to correctly moor. He's an arse. The cruiser already had the spot and was mooring correctly.

We use this stretch of river a lot in our 'plastic' cruiser but thankfully have never encountered anyone like this, Most boaters get along fine, sometimes a little friendly banter between yogurt pots and tin slugs and occasionally we find a narrow boater who chooses to ignore us rather than the usual friendly wave or nod of acknowledgement - but no one has ever deliberately driven into us!

This may have been more a hatred of hire-boaters (we used to sense a lot of that in the 30 years we hired boats) - sometimes the dislike can be well-founded as there are plenty who either haven't had sufficient training to handle the boat or (worse) couldn't give a toss about anyone else.

[Simpo Two]

Grubbster said:

tin slugs

Ahem, 'metal tube boats'

Some on my river have a fanciful idea that narrowboats belong on the river more than cruisers do. I'm looking forward to being challenged on this as I will ask him where the narrow locks are!!

[Pat H]

Grubbster said:

Most boaters get along fine, sometimes a little friendly banter between yogurt pots and tin slugs and occasionally we find a narrow boater who chooses to ignore us rather than the usual friendly wave or nod of acknowledgement - but no one has ever deliberately driven into us!

I don't own a boat, but have hired a few. Also spend a lot of time walking along the Leeds Liverpool Canal.

Never seen the like of this video.

The NB owners I speak to are amongst the most placid and easy going people I've ever met.

They very much remind me of the biker community, except without as much leather.

[Pothole]

Simpo Two said:

Apparently he has a column in some boating magazine, maybe that gives him special rights.

Narrow boater's dashcam?

[RizzoTheRat]

Simpo Two said:

The comments underneath cut him to pieces

Edited by Simpo Two on Tuesday 15th October 11:12

I assume Captain Obvious is someone on here?

[Simpo Two]

RizzoTheRat said:

I assume Captain Obvious is someone on here?

Not me!