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Post by JohnV on Jul 11, 2018 8:50:48 GMT
I saw nothing there to be ashamed of mate ....... you regularly see and hear bigger thumps than that on the canals in wide locks when there is no tide to worry about ......my opinion that was a decent docking the only damage being your underwear
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Post by thebfg on Jul 11, 2018 9:40:55 GMT
a mere tap.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2018 10:45:24 GMT
I love muddy ditches Well done. Rog
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Post by patty on Jul 11, 2018 16:44:29 GMT
When I get proper internet I'll post my opinion..know you will be waiting.....ATM internet speed is stupidly slow and keeps cutting out and cannot see downloads or pics posted..gonna invite myself to daughters
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Post by duncan on Jul 11, 2018 17:54:25 GMT
The initial problem today was that Eddie (who raced off out of Naburn) gathered a whole tree on his bows, slowing the whole cavalcade down to a megre 2mph punching the still incoming tide... Once we took control and came along side (thereby moving the tree off his bows) and then subsequently over took him and got some decent speed up to create a bow wave to push away the debris, things improved... we still took 3 hours to get to Selby (after the fecked up start) and although I was by now at the front of the queue, having 2 other narrowboats behind - not leaving enough of a gap did put the pressure on to make a swift turn and entry to the lock. I'm sorry that your return journey was turned into the miserable experience you describe, . . it seems that any future advice on planning and making the passage from Naburn to Selby must include a warning to ensure that if you set out in company with other boats then by the time you get to Selby there must be several minutes separating you and the boats ahead and/or astern of you. This could probably be best achieved via a few pre-arranged phone calls starting from when all the boats are somewhere in the last 2 - 3 miles from Turnhead Bight to Selby. I would guess that, given the bad name and reputation the tidal Yorkshire Ouse seems to have for a great many pleasure boaters, the 'safety in numbers' instinct is likely to result in groups of boats penning at Naburn all sticking together and arriving at Selby too close together, . . . which in fact is the last thing you want happening because all it's going achieve is to make rounding-up and entering the lock into the sort of stressful shambles that pressurizes every boat bar the last one in the line into rushing a manoeuvre that's best done carrying the least possible way and, most importantly of all, in the skipper's own good time. Depending on the number and size of boats it is probably worth separating by 10-15 minutes. It gives time for the 1st boats to lock through and the lock to be turning round ready for the next ones. And if locking out of Naburn with boats going past Selby it is best to let them go first. The last thing you want when trying to turn is boats going straight on.
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Post by duncan on Jul 11, 2018 18:13:51 GMT
Having done that trip more times than I can remember, I think I would have kept to the port bank after the bridge and turned to starboard - maybe Ellis turns better the other way. Then after turning I would have crabbed across the tide nearer to the bank where the lock is instead of staying in the middle of the river. I think that was absolutely fine for a first attempt. You can see what Tony warned of, you were steering allowing for the current, as soon as you get out of it the boat goes straight on. You need to be ready to turn as soon as you get out of the current. Better to hit the upstream side rather the downstream one. Mind you, I have only ever driven fibreglass cruisers so it might be different on a narrowboat.
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Post by TonyDunkley on Jul 12, 2018 7:17:54 GMT
There's no cause for any mocking you over that. As a first attempt it was an exceptionally good effort, . . way and above better than the many who manage to keep getting that sort of thing wrong every time they try but don't seem to learn anything from it for the next time. The video clip shows you turning in from somewhere near the middle of the river instead of from where you should have been at around no more than 30' - 40' out from the lock tail walls with the boat moving slowly sideways to port (bow canted slightly over to port out of parallel with the line of the banks) and it's stem roughly level with the rounded part of the up-tide wall of the lock tail. This was in fact the one and only thing you really got wrong, and it was that distance of around half the river's width that you had to cover that allowed the boat to gather far too much way (speed) by the time the bows were passing into the slack in the locktail and between the lock walls. There's nothing in that video clip that deserves anything worse than a bit of good-natured ribbing about slowing your rate of turn down to almost nothing, and bumping the wall, by easing off and going astern when another few seconds of full ahead and full port rudder would have seen you nicely into the lock without clouting either of the chamber walls. You have to look back on this as a positive confidence booster for next time you want to get off the river into Selby Lock, or for that matter, into the two Trent side-locks, at Keadby and Stockwith. You came mighty close to making a perfect, if injudiciously rapid, entry into the lock chamber despite starting the turn-in much too far away from it, . . . and that says a whole lot about your God given aptitude for handling boats. The instinctive ability to make the right snap decisions on how best to get out of a situation that's beginning to look as if it might go horribly wrong is something that only comes from many years of making the wrong decisions and, more often than not, getting away with it. Watch the video clip a few times yourself, looking closely the rate of turn immediately before you eased down and went hard astern in comparison with the almost zero rate of turn immediately afterwards, . . . if you'd kept going as you were you would have made it without contact with either side wall.
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Post by Jim on Jul 12, 2018 8:38:19 GMT
We are booked to leave NAburn at 6.30 tomorrow morning before the big tides begin. NOT looking forward to the turn into Selby lock... will follow the lockies instructions to the letter.You're a good many years too late for that to be a good idea, . . . the last ex-boatman lock keeper at Selby, Lewis Carter, finished there in the late 1980's. Lew learned his trade working with his uncle on Hull trade dumb barges towed in strings behind steam tugs to destinations on the Trent and the Ouse, including Selby, but the the lock keepers at Naburn and Selby nowadays are a different breed who confine themselves to dishing out the sort of standard advice that's approved of by the office chair polishers they work under simply because it's perceived to be sound by the majority of the intended recipients, . . . a textbook example of the blind leading the blind. Today's perceived 'best plan' seems to be rounding-up (turning) as you pass the lock and then approaching from down river/current. This NOT the best way to tackle it , . . the rate the ebb runs out at, being carried side-on past the lock whilst turning and then having to use a lot of power/revs to get back to the lock only serves to turn the slightly apprehensive frame of mind of someone doing this for the first time into something close to blind panic panic and results in them passing between the walls of the locktail with far too much way on, in what usually then ends up as an 'all or nothing, aim and hope' manoeuvre. The most important thing to remember is that throughout the whole process you must keep the boat's speed (over the ground) down to the absolute minimum, which helps you out in two respects. Firstly, carrying little or no way increases the boat's rate of turn significantly, and secondly, the speed the boat will need to make through the water to remain stationary (in relation to the lock entrance and river banks) will turn out in reality to be much less than you will have convinced yourself that it will need to be. The net result of this is that you'll suddenly gain a lot more confidence in what you're doing, and your ability to get it right. Round-up as soon as you're clear of the railway swingbridge and then using just enough (ahead) power to almost hold the boat stationary against the ebb, drop back, and over towards the lock tail, until the boat's head is level with the up-tide lock tail wall and then, with very gentle and small port rudder movements, continue moving the boat sideways into the 'slack' in the lock tail until the boat just begins to move slowly ahead in relation to the locktail walls. As soon as this slow movement starts, put the rudder hard over and, assisted by the slack and the back eddy in the lock tail, the boat will surprise you by turning into the lock much tighter than you were thinking it possible. You might need to either increase or decrease engine revs as you're entering the lock, but whatever you need or have to do, always remember not to let the boat gather any significant way at any time throughout the whole manoeuvre. Above all, take your time, ignore any advice being shouted by well meaning onlookers, including the lock keeper, and if YOU think it's all going wrong, then move away from the lock tail, get the boat under full control again - holding it stationary against the tide - and then give it another go - IN YOUR OWN TIME and only when you're good and ready to. Last time I did it I used the "turn after lock" method, there was a moment I thought I was going backwards to goole. Turning before the lock will be how I do it next time. And perhaps, if with other boats, it would be best to come last out of Naburn.
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