In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Captain Beeky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >"We've had an interesting weekend" he said . . . " hydraulic steering >failure off Penarth !!!"
Too complicated. Not much to go wrong with a stick attached to a rudder! > >An outing on the Severn is not a reckless jaunt and taken carefully >does not present a "huge" risk. But it is a "real" risk which I will >not take again as skipper on a narrowboat. Indeed. However, I would happily go again. I'd look for a lower tide - the one we crossed on was forecast as 8.5 m at Sharpness, which is at the upper end of the normal range. The wind was against the tide, and brisk. Provided that one is aware of the times, and has a reliable engine etc it is a straightforward trip. As was much discussed, the best approach seems to be to go straight across and then take advantage of the calmer water on either side. I was much encouraged on the return by arriving down river of Sharpness and finding I could easily hold position in the stream. I suspect that the boats that were farther upriver had a much lumpier wait than we did. Below Sharpness, the river forms a shallow bay, the river is wider and the current was gentle. I had feared that we would meet the conditions of flow that we had met on Saturday when we pulled out of the dock. We most certainly could not have stemmed the flow outside and up-river of the docks. > >SARA is not the topless model spotted at Sharpness, try instead Severn >Area Rescue Association, who had a couple of high speed craft in >attendance for the crossings on both Saturday and Sunday. It was most comforting to have them around. I did admire the cheek of the lady who had passed them a camera and asked them to take a photo. Cool! I think a contingency plan for problems is something we should have considered more carefully. The most likely problems are engine / prop fouling, or just mis-timing and being unable to recover to a port. I would not like to have tried anchoring in the full flow on the outward journey - the current must have been running at around 10 km / h. In the event of a bad mis-time, I would be tempted to head for Portishead, but would not want try this without more knowledge of the navigable channels. However, in the unlikely event of a problem, I think the SARA boat could be deployed before major problems were reached (assuming they were not providing backup). I would have been happier if I had programmed the GPS with waypoints downstream, and had a chart (rather than an OS map loaded onto the PDA). Wassail! -- Martin E Phillips http://www.g4cio.demon.co.uk Homebrewing, black pudding, boats, morris dancing, ham radio and more! The Gloucester-Sharpness canal web page http://www.glos-sharpness.org.uk ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> See what's inside the new Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/2pRQfA/bOaOAA/yQLSAA/ygtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
