What next skipper? (Thames version!)

[ADLS]

I spent a month on the Thames last year and found other boaters very helpfull, moving up their boats, taking our lines. We even had a very kind householder at Runnymead offer us the use of his watertap and then showed us around his garden.

Several years back we could'nt get into the last space left at Cookham common because of the bank shelving, a Tupperware cruiser invited to raft up. We then spent a very pleasent evening nattering and sharing a couple of bottles of wine, the couples grandchildren learnt a bit about the Dunkirk Evacuation from the LD library. The eldest wrote an essay about Lazy Days on her return to school and we later recieved a letter of thanks from her school.

When I started driving a car back in the 60s, if you saw someone broken down you would stop and offer help, sadly this is no more. When I took up boating in the 90s I found the same spirit, please let us hang onto it and not let it go the way of roads and have river rage.

I will always move LD up just give us a shout or a toot if we're below, If I'm leaving the boat for some time I will always pull the boat and enlarge the gap. Lastly if spaces are taken then your welcome to raft up, but you will have to listen to me recite the full history of my boat.

That should be enough to keep loads of you away.

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[Andrew_Fanner]

[ QUOTE ]
Lastly if spaces are taken then your welcome to raft up, but you will have to listen to me recite the full history of my boat.

That should be enough to keep loads of you away.

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[/ QUOTE ]

I shall look out for you specially then, a few drinks and the boat's history sounds like a superb evening to me

 

[ms1]

I asked the skipper of this big steel boat to shift up a bit, but he was having none of it.

 

[oldgit]

Did you "dip" your ensign ?

 

[ms1]

yes, but no reaction noted.

 

[ADLS]

Will be trolling around Holland June, July & Aug so if your over that side raft up. But you will have to be quick as rafting is the norm over there.

Palm, Amstel, Hieniken.
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[sailorman]

DUVAL /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[oceanfroggie]

Just raft alongside him. Rafting is normal at busy times when there are more boats than mooring spots. At high season we often have to raft four boats deep.

 

[boatone]

Unfortunately, this has never been the norm on the Thames. An Environment Agency initiative to encourage people to accept mooring alongside has met with little success although, I have to say, they have done a pretty useless job of advertising and promoting it.

Anyway, would you want to moor alongside a grumpy old git once they have shown their colours ! ???

I wouldn't normally even bother to ask but on this occasion swmbo and I quite fancied a curry at Maliks. The reaction to our request to move up was not just inconsiderate - it quite spoilt our evening. Unfortunately, being deeper draft than many we find it difficult to get alongside the field further up.

I would like to see a condition written into the EA documents that makes it clear that all EA registered craft are expected to close up gaps and allow mooring alongside in busy periods.

 

[ADLS]

"Unfortunately, being deeper draft than many we find it difficult to get alongside the field further up."

I remember you rubbing your bottom at Marlow last summer.

"I would like to see a condition written into the EA documents that makes it clear that all EA registered craft are expected to close up gaps and allow mooring alongside in busy periods."

This could also be part of the visitors licence, then it would include all boats.

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

[ QUOTE ]
"Unfortunately, being deeper draft than many we find it difficult to get alongside the field further up."

I remember you rubbing your bottom at Marlow last summer.

"I would like to see a condition written into the EA documents that makes it clear that all EA registered craft are expected to close up gaps and allow mooring alongside in busy periods."

This could also be part of the visitors licence, then it would include all boats.

[/ QUOTE ]

I heartily agree, perhaps it will appear along with the promise to ensure that all EA official moorings have an agreed minimum depth so that you are not asked to move up off the deep bit

 

[oceanfroggie]

We occaisionally get this sort of behaviour on the Shannon too, but folk ignore the prats and just politely moor alongside in a raft weither they like it or not. Think it's illegal over here for a vessel to deny rafting alongside, something to do with an old shipping act and the legal right to a port of refuge.

The classic here is folk pull in their outside fenders as a sort of signal, "don't moor alongside me". Well on one occaision I saw a 62ft 60ton Guinness barge enter a harbour in a blow, the shiney grp boats could easily have made room for him as it's blooming difficult to maneauver those M boats, and some folk were even shouting at him to leave and go back out into the stormy lough, but he said he was coming alongside anyway and if they knew a way to stop 60tons they were welcome to resist, well you never saw so many fenders appear so fast, he moored up without scratching the grp, and then invited the unfriendlies on board for draft Guinness. They looked sheepish.

 

[jaws]

The EA signs should have something that states allowing boats to raft up is a requirement if the moorings are full, and to move along when there is space. This would get people into the habbit at least and encourage them to do it on non EA moorings like Hampton Court for example.

 

[DogsBody]

Good idea and fine in theory but the signs at locks already say to move up when there is space and people dont.

These are people that are standing by their boat ready to go and still dont move, what chance have you got when the same person is sitting on a mooring having tea? Sod all!

 

[nickcred]

unfortunately this is a reflection of society today. It's ignorance from some, rudeness from others and i' am alright jack from a lot. And people moan about teenagers lol, most boaters are supposedly of a generation who are supposed to have manners

Maybe I am old fashioned or a rule obeyer (that would make anyone who knows me laugh) but I always move up at locks, even if we are the only boat in sight, Having been left trying to keep the old girl on a fidgety stern drive from drifting onto the bank and reeds in my first season because some selfish sod would not move up at a lock. Never had any one request to raft up but would welcome it and offer a glass of wine or a cuppa. The social part of boating was one of the attractions. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[ADLS]

The ADLS raft up every year at the Trad Boat Rally without any problem to passing craft, this is done with the Heley Regatta boom still in place.

 

[pheran]

[ QUOTE ]
Will be trolling around Holland June, July & Aug ........

[/ QUOTE ] As an aside, you haven't chosen the best time to visit Holland mainly because all the popular places will be extremely busy. School holidays here are staggered, meaning the locals are afloat, using their boats for the whole of the July-August period. And there are apparently more than 200,000 privately owned leisure craft. As usual, we plan to return to the UK at the end of June and leave the Dutch to it for the summer!!

ps And then there are the German visitors of course.