Stand by........

[ QUOTE ]
Without being too cynical ....
How will we deduce who is actually going to the festival ? will people have to have a letter confirming a mooring ?


[/ QUOTE ]

Usually you have to book your licence at the same time as your festival booking so you cant get one without the other.

Personally I would love to see many more Thames craft at the national, there is a feeling that you guys all ignore it because you feel that the IWA doesn't represent you, having a barge I sometimes feel the same however the IWA does claim to look after the interest of all waterways users not just narrow boats on narrow canals.
It is a good event and as said before the evenings can be very good, when we were there last as a club we were right at the end and it was just to far to walk so we made our own entertainment.................
 
Ah ! I see ...

So the 33% will be only for prebooked and preissued SPR's from Reading ?

Not for lock issued ones ?

The IWA does a very good tideway guide that we have at the lock.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Ah ! I see ...

So the 33% will be only for prebooked and preissued SPR's from Reading ?

Not for lock issued ones ?

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely you don't expect Head Office to tell you anything (unkind??)

[ QUOTE ]
The IWA does a very good tideway guide that we have at the lock.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not wishing to decry IWA's booklet, which I must confess I haven't looked at for many years,

but BW do an excellent full colour series of three guides in PDF format; Up, down, and "Estuary" as well as tide tables and lock opening guide.

All to be found here

Just scroll to the bottom of the page. Not a lot of people know of them 'cos they're hidden away.
 
Not all I'm afraid, not strictly owned by me, but we have the 'family sewer tube' based not far from you /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Nene through the big onion and eventually we hit the Thames, just prefer not to mention it in case people start to think I've got money /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
The IWA does a very good tideway guide that we have at the lock.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not wishing to decry IWA's booklet, which I must confess I haven't looked at for many years,

but BW do an excellent full colour series of three guides in PDF format; Up, down, and "Estuary" as well as tide tables and lock opening guide.

All to be found here

Just scroll to the bottom of the page. Not a lot of people know of them 'cos they're hidden away.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes , we are well aware of the BW tideway guides , having contributed to them ( there is a thank you in the booklets to the Teddington Lock Staff. )

They are also available at the lock , BW supply us and we pass them on.

I only mentioned the IWA one as the discussion was centring around IWA and not BW.
 
Oops -

Sorry Howard,
'twas not intended to be information for you (not for me, a mere boater, to assume better knowledge than the River's Premier Lock), but we see lots of requests about the Tideway from forum members and I thought BW's booklets deserved a wider audience.

After all if you were a cruiser owner, would you look on BW's site for information - seeing that for most folks "BW" is synonymous for "nasty long thin tin things"...
 
Re: Oops -

"nasty long thin tin things"...

Ah! That must be another of the Thames forums "only joking" anti narrowboat comments that you lot keep telling me about?

I suppose if you keep at it, you will make sure that narrowboaters don't use your forum, and then you wont get an earful for spouting forth your unpleasant prejudices?
 
Re: Oops -

Ooooops! Have I made a boo-boo? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Still, the question still remains, as I have seen the comments so often, what gives? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: Oops -

I started boating as a kid on the canals so dont really have an opinion either way.

There are p.i.t.a's from all camps.

I do read canal clubs websites and regularly check on
http://www.narrowboatworld.com/ as they seem to get the word on whats going on before anyone else does.

I personally think the BW /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif are doing a better job at the moment than the EA /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif and I wish we had all voted to have the Thames run by them when we had the chance....
 
Re: Oops -

There are some narrowboaters who are very good at what they do.

However, especially in summer, you get people on the wrong side of the river, or getting blown all over the shop because they have no keel and are unused to the river conditions. 60ft of steel narrowboat incompetently driven into a lock full of grp boats is a very scary thing.

Then there are the water pikies who will use a 24 hour mooring for months. And the ones who pinch garden furniture (ask Byron).

Now, as you say, there are some a**holes in grp cruisers too. We avoid people flying a certain club burgee as they are famous for their lack of boat handling skills!

/forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
Re: Oops -

[ QUOTE ]
... not for me, a mere boater, to assume better knowledge than the River's Premier Lock ....

[/ QUOTE ]

I like you /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: Oops -

[ QUOTE ]

Now, as you say, there are some a**holes in grp cruisers too. We avoid people flying a certain club burgee as they are famous for their lack of boat handling skills!

/forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Oooh now I wonder which club that is then! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: Oops -

[ QUOTE ]
Ooooops! Have I made a boo-boo? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Still, the question still remains, as I have seen the comments so often, what gives? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Chrusty, you are quite right that there have been adverse comments on here in the past regarding narrow boats but I think its unfair to say there is a prevalent attitude against them and I would hope the majority support this view.

I think its important to understand the background to the ill feeling that has arisen and which, in general, is not intended to tar all with the same brush.

A few years ago, in an effort to increase the use of the river, the Environment Agency started a positive encouragement programme designed to bring NB's onto the Thames as visitors and also co-operated with BW in introducing the Gold Licence. The IWA festival at Beale Park in 2003 (I think the first there?) encouraged many of them to visit the Thames for the first time and in their hundreds.

This 'invasion' had a significant impact on the traditional Thames users. Already suffering from a shortage of mooring space, suddenly 60 and 70 feet long NB's were taking up what few there were with a vengeance ie 1 NB space = 2 Cruiser spaces!

That year and for several since, we have certainly been unable to ignore this problem. The IWA was at Beal Park again in 2006 and now we hear will be again in 2010.

What would have a massive impact on dealing with this problem would be the NB's being prepared to raft up alongside each other instead of, as seems to be mainly the case, end to end (and often with a good few feet in between).

There are other issues - familiarity with a wider waterway with currents, behaviour in locks, some rogue liveaboards etc but I think the impact on mooring space is the most annoying one for those of us that pay a full annual licence fee to use the Thames.
 
Re: Oops -

Thanks for that..... Tony?

I will sit back a little while in the hope that others will have a say as well before I reply with my take on things. Apologies to the OP, if you feel I am hi-jacking your thread, but I feel that it might be a the time to see if some middle ground can't be found?? We can all mutter and moan about NBs or cruisers or whoever on this forum, but it doesn't make for very pleasant reading does it? I do have an idea or two that I would like to put forward, but before I do I will stand back a while. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: Oops -

I think you'll find the issue of rafting up comes down to habit forced on us by the fact that a lot of the rivers we cruise on are too narrow to raft up any more than two boats at any point, without blocking the river for others. So maybe a letter to the organisers would deal with this without causing any resentment ?. Repeated unpleasant remarks on here do nothing but agravate things, so no help to anyone.
We have thought about bringing the NB to the Thames in the past, but it's a long journey and to be honest, the attitude towards 'sewer tube' owners is well known at our club, and does tend to put a lot of people off, so maybe the attitude is having the right affect after all ?.
Oh, and ours is only 50ft, but we do know how to handle her, thanks, as does everyone at the club. These things are far from cheap to buy, so if someone arrives that seems to be unable to do anything without damaging something, they get some very polite and helpful words first. Followed by some less than polite if they don't listen. The club has plastic and steel boats of all shape and size, may even have a wooden one for all I know, but everyone just gets on with it in a relaxed way, and enjoys the river together. Seems such a shame other parts of the river system can't be the same, IMHO of course
Yours
Closet narrow boater
 
Re: Oops -

Forgot to add the smiley to my last post to indicate I wasn't being unpleasant /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
But just to add, this is where we're moored, but at the wider point, not our actual mooring. It gets a lot narrower in places /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

NB1.jpg
 
Re: Oops -

"There are some narrowboaters who are very good at what
they do.
However, especially in summer, you get people on the wrong side of the river, or getting blown all over the shop because they have no keel and are unused to the river conditions. 60ft of steel narrowboat incompetently driven into a lock full of grp boats is a very scary thing."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

I would say that it has nothing to do with not having a keel as such, as the whole of the narrowboats hull is in effect a keel because of it's underwater shape, it is more probably due to having a fair amount of top hamper over maybe 60 or 70foot length that causes it. I do take your other points on board though.
------------------------------------------------------------------

"Then there are the water pikies who will use a 24 hour mooring for months. And the ones who pinch garden furniture (ask Byron)."

-----------------------------------------------------------------
I am afraid the there are "water pikies" as you call them all over the place, they are on the narrow canals in great profusion, and are a constant headache for BW, who incidentally are, or have been trying to do something about them, particularly the unlicenced ones. Yes, some of them are an eyesore, but you know, not all live aboards fall into that category, some are on recognised residential moorings, some are continuous cruisers, and behave in a responsible and respectable manner. By the way, refering to people as pikies does you no favours really. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
---------------------------------------------------------------

"Now, as you say, there are some a**holes in grp cruisers too. We avoid people flying a certain club burgee as they are famous for their lack of boat handling skills!/forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Nope I didn't say that there are some a**holes in GRP cruisers, and I know nothing of Thames clubs or their politics /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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