Thank you for not putting out rude signs

A boat called Kilsby bawled me out a few days ago at Brinklow, just around the corner from Rose Narrowboats.

I was pootling past at tickover speed (yes, really), and a female head popped out of the rear hatch and called out, in the tone of a drunken fishwife:

Oi! This is a canal, not a motorway!

At least, it sounded to me like that.   I know it's hard to get the tone right when you admonish people.  I'm assuming she thought I was going too fast, although it might be because it was dusk (about 9.30pm) and she thought that unlike motorways, canals should shut down earlier.  Or perhaps she thought I'd come too close, and in a shallow canal there can be suction between boats, even at low speed. 

Or perhaps because when Granny Buttons goes on tickover or neutral, it actually sounds louder, because the rear hatch vibrates against the loose brass runners. 

I still am adamant that I wasn't going even slightly fast - although heaven knows, if commercial carrying every picks up again on the Oxford Canal, NB Kilsby is itself going to be in for many rude awakenings.

(At Streethay Wharf one of the official conditions of mooring is that you DON'T shout out at speeding boats.  "Unless, of course, they collide with you", is the amusing corollary.)

But it led me to thinking about the rash of 'SLOW DOWN' signs that seem to be everywhere these days.  

Put simply, I don't like them.  Not least, because they automatically make the oncoming boater fear that - even if he isn't speeding - the group of boats he's approaching think he is, and thus they put him on the defensive.

On Monday at Nether Heyford (location on Google Maps here) I came across a message I'd not noticed before:

Slower than that !!   

Sorry, but this is just plain, damned, non habeas corpus rude.  It assumes that the passing boater is going to shout out to them "Yes, I have slowed down!", and that they are simply not going to accept your point. 

'I'm spoiling for a fight', is the message it conveys.  

At the other end of this stream of online-moored boats is a supposedly politer sign:

Thank you for slowing down.  Have a nice trip.

But that's yet more insinuation.  'Well, thank you for trying to slow down' is the nicest thing it seems to say.  (The boat alongside is - somewhat appropriately - called Doubting Thomas.)

I thought about this when I moored up outside Blisworth Marina on Monday afternoon.  For the next 18 hours, boats certainly did seem to roar past me; particularly hire boats. 

But Tuesday morning it rained and blew like buggery, and my boat was battering against the side of the canal even when boats weren't going past, and I'd learned my lesson.  When the rain and wind died down I got out and tied Granny tightly, something I'd clearly not done properly the night before.  And do you know - as if by magic - all subsequent boats seemed to have slowed down!

Thank you for driving carefully enough not to bump into me, that's all I had to think to be happy.

Comments

[Adrian]

Well, here's the other side of the story! We are moored on the Macclesfield at the side of our house & am fed with watching boats screaming past with absolutely no sign of slowing down at all. They only slow down when we bang on the window or shout. We don't have any signs up, but it won't be long! I am fed up with it taking anything up to an hour to get our damn ropes undone everytime we want to use our boat (which we do fairly regularly)because they are virtually friction welded together all as a result of speeding boaters. Thanks.

[John Sloan]

I must say I agree with your comments on these SLOW DOWN signs. While on the Shroppie not so long ago I was passed by a boat while moored up going very fast a few days later I spotted the same boat (could not forget the boat as it was going so fast) moored on line with big sign that said "Slow Down Past Moored Boats" seems like this rule only applies to these boats when moored up but not when they are cruising!!

[Capt Ahab]

Andrew
These sanctimonious signs should be gathered up along with every Rosie and Jim and used as fuel on Nov 5th. Belle wrote about this very issue in ine of her bletherings:
http://captainahabswaterytales.blogspot.com/2009/03/bonnie-clyde.html

[Heather]

Please excuse (not well at mo, brain on strike) that article in the link is about the Regent canal, not the Oxford, but the principle's the same ain't it?

H

[Heather]

Oh and don't forget the intro of the ground breaking (lierally) "Two Tings" promo on the Oxford Canal, "Boaters slow down" they say, but it appears that the speeding cyclist can just fly on by...
http://takeytezey.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-tings-twaddle.html

[Paul]

The thing I've noticed more about boating now is that the know-it-all telling you to slow down is always right and everyone else is wrong. I got told to slow down having just come out of a lock at Middlewich not long ago. When I say coming out I mean I was literally 2 foot out of the lock!

Can someone please drive up to that sign that says 'slower than that' at 1mph and then stop there. When the person comes out to wonder why you are floating in the middle of the canal stationary say you were only obeying the sign.

[Andrew Denny]

Andy, I didn't see your post but I'm a few days behind in reading you, sorry. But I caught up with you just now, and agree.

It's not that I think we shouldn't slow down, but I do object to signs assuming all boaters are unthinking, and it does annoy me that they don't mention their own obligation to tie up tightly.

[mike moorse]

The main problem I have noticed with the 'SLOW DOWN' brigade is that most of them do not know how to moor a boat properly!!!!! I moor at Hopwas, the boat is tied at each end with the ropes set at the right angle, plus an extra spring, and guess what, no matter how fast boats go by my boat does not move!!!!

[JDWitts]

I think the solution to this and many other rude-ness related problems on the rivers and canals of England is a brace of 6 pounder cannon:

Solid shot for the signs (Great target practice),

Grapeshot for delinquents, ne'er do wells,hoodies and chavs,

Shells for plastic fantastics whose "crew" yell at you for getting within a quarter of a mile of their paintwork.

Must go and lie down, it's time for my medication.....

[Andy Edwards]

AH - great minds think alike! You must have noticed my post yesterday about the slow down sign I encountered and my scathing comments about them! George from the previous comment would have loved it!

[George]

I take great exception to signs imperiously telling me to slow to TWO mph when passing them. If I had ever SPEEDED up to two mph when passing them they would have known about it.

George ex nb Alton retired