Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2020 19:40:13 GMT
Well ok, not death exactly. Not quite death.
But serious injuries? Definitely, if I am not more careful in future.
Any local meteorologists will recall that the ground was thoroughly wet this morning in the Northampton region, and I had by no means taken on board the full extent of the special hazards that wet weather can present to boaters.
I made a reasonably perky start from White Mills at about 8.30am. I was disappointed to see that one of my screw-in improvised mooring pins (that are actually meant to secure dog leads) had actually bent during the night (but still not come loose), so it's back to the drawing board for a windy weather mooring pin solution. But that, as they say, is another story.
I got to the first lock to find it set against me, which on the Nene carries a capital punishment. Well it should, anyway.
Having to do the work of the previous boaters added ten minutes to my time getting through it. Then the next lock was also set against me, and my normally equitable temper began to darken. I knew that the last crew through here was my boating buddy Alex with his GRP cavalcade in tow, and I know he has done the Nene at least half a dozen times and knows the rules- you always leave the bottom guillotine gate raised.
Somehow the pain of the betrayal was worse coming from my very own boating buddy, and I texted him a terse rebuke for his selfishness.
Boating buddies, I thought- you just can't trust any of them.
But in his defence, he did say that there were only two locks left that way, and it was because his GRP captain-in-tow was by this time so thoroughly inebriated and mutinous that it wasnt safe to allow him to help at locks, and he had a major struggle trying to coax his plastic wagon train onto the lock landing to go back to raise the gates.
As all boating buddies should, I forgave his awful lock gate betrayal, and our relationship was able to move on. I remembered he had texted me something at 2am, so they probably carried on up towards Northampton for another 5 or 6 hours after they passed me at about 8pm- and he was tired even then. They may even had made Gayton before they all collapsed or ran out of booze.
How and why young people do these marathons is a mystery to me- and its probably best kept that way.
But to the point. To the point...
So at the second lock, I got to the point of opening the upper V gates, but they were reluctant. I was their first customer of the day, and they were in no mood for shifting.
Rather than push forwards on the gate arm thing, I put my back to it instead, and tried to push that way.
I wasn't paying enough attention and positioning my feet against the raised paving bits for extra grip, and on my second step my heel slipped on the wet paving and I almost went down onto my coccyx.
The cheap thing to do at this point would be to explore the numerous puns that spring to mind when you write the phrase 'went down on my coccyx'.
I shall leave that to less noble minded folk.
What I realised was that, if I had fallen with my full (and not inconsiderable) weight onto the hard paving stone, and landed on my lower back with my spine bent forwards, it would probably have resulted in a ruptured disc.
Just like that- pushing a beam on wet paving.
This near-miss woke me up a bit, and I resolved to be much more careful in wet weather or damp ground in future.
At the very next lock the boat started moving forwards a bit too fast as the paddles opened and water rushed in, and I decided to let it go forwards a bit, and then stop it by throwing a couple of loops around the next bollard. I'm still not sure exactly what happened- I was hamfistedly fiddling with the loop as I missed first time, and then wound it round the bollard, but I thought there was a large loop of rope to close down around the bollard, and that I had plenty of time to get my hand out of the way of it.
For some reason the loop of rope closed much faster than I expected, and I barely managed to get my hand and fingers out of the loop as it closed and tightened on the bollard with massive force- the rope was creaking and straining audibly around the bollard with the powerful force dragging the boat forward, and it would have easily broken any fingers that had been trapped in the loops, if not all but cut them off.
I had not realised the enormous forces that surge a boat forwards or sideways in some locks when you open the paddles too fast, and one occasion watched horrified as the boat swung across the lock and hit the opposite wall really hard. After that I was a lot more judicious in opening paddles.
There are a number of these risk-intense areas I've noticed, most of the risks seem to occur around locks, but I can't help but wonder- how is it that so many boaters are still alive, and still with all of their limbs and digits? Part of the answer is me being a blithering idiot and way too casual, but given how easy it seems to be to injure oneself in any one of a score of different ways, I'm surprised we don't hear more about gruesome boater injuries.
Or maybe we do?
But serious injuries? Definitely, if I am not more careful in future.
Any local meteorologists will recall that the ground was thoroughly wet this morning in the Northampton region, and I had by no means taken on board the full extent of the special hazards that wet weather can present to boaters.
I made a reasonably perky start from White Mills at about 8.30am. I was disappointed to see that one of my screw-in improvised mooring pins (that are actually meant to secure dog leads) had actually bent during the night (but still not come loose), so it's back to the drawing board for a windy weather mooring pin solution. But that, as they say, is another story.
I got to the first lock to find it set against me, which on the Nene carries a capital punishment. Well it should, anyway.
Having to do the work of the previous boaters added ten minutes to my time getting through it. Then the next lock was also set against me, and my normally equitable temper began to darken. I knew that the last crew through here was my boating buddy Alex with his GRP cavalcade in tow, and I know he has done the Nene at least half a dozen times and knows the rules- you always leave the bottom guillotine gate raised.
Somehow the pain of the betrayal was worse coming from my very own boating buddy, and I texted him a terse rebuke for his selfishness.
Boating buddies, I thought- you just can't trust any of them.
But in his defence, he did say that there were only two locks left that way, and it was because his GRP captain-in-tow was by this time so thoroughly inebriated and mutinous that it wasnt safe to allow him to help at locks, and he had a major struggle trying to coax his plastic wagon train onto the lock landing to go back to raise the gates.
As all boating buddies should, I forgave his awful lock gate betrayal, and our relationship was able to move on. I remembered he had texted me something at 2am, so they probably carried on up towards Northampton for another 5 or 6 hours after they passed me at about 8pm- and he was tired even then. They may even had made Gayton before they all collapsed or ran out of booze.
How and why young people do these marathons is a mystery to me- and its probably best kept that way.
But to the point. To the point...
So at the second lock, I got to the point of opening the upper V gates, but they were reluctant. I was their first customer of the day, and they were in no mood for shifting.
Rather than push forwards on the gate arm thing, I put my back to it instead, and tried to push that way.
I wasn't paying enough attention and positioning my feet against the raised paving bits for extra grip, and on my second step my heel slipped on the wet paving and I almost went down onto my coccyx.
The cheap thing to do at this point would be to explore the numerous puns that spring to mind when you write the phrase 'went down on my coccyx'.
I shall leave that to less noble minded folk.
What I realised was that, if I had fallen with my full (and not inconsiderable) weight onto the hard paving stone, and landed on my lower back with my spine bent forwards, it would probably have resulted in a ruptured disc.
Just like that- pushing a beam on wet paving.
This near-miss woke me up a bit, and I resolved to be much more careful in wet weather or damp ground in future.
At the very next lock the boat started moving forwards a bit too fast as the paddles opened and water rushed in, and I decided to let it go forwards a bit, and then stop it by throwing a couple of loops around the next bollard. I'm still not sure exactly what happened- I was hamfistedly fiddling with the loop as I missed first time, and then wound it round the bollard, but I thought there was a large loop of rope to close down around the bollard, and that I had plenty of time to get my hand out of the way of it.
For some reason the loop of rope closed much faster than I expected, and I barely managed to get my hand and fingers out of the loop as it closed and tightened on the bollard with massive force- the rope was creaking and straining audibly around the bollard with the powerful force dragging the boat forward, and it would have easily broken any fingers that had been trapped in the loops, if not all but cut them off.
I had not realised the enormous forces that surge a boat forwards or sideways in some locks when you open the paddles too fast, and one occasion watched horrified as the boat swung across the lock and hit the opposite wall really hard. After that I was a lot more judicious in opening paddles.
There are a number of these risk-intense areas I've noticed, most of the risks seem to occur around locks, but I can't help but wonder- how is it that so many boaters are still alive, and still with all of their limbs and digits? Part of the answer is me being a blithering idiot and way too casual, but given how easy it seems to be to injure oneself in any one of a score of different ways, I'm surprised we don't hear more about gruesome boater injuries.
Or maybe we do?
