--- In [email protected], Terry Streeter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > No sign of an obstruction at all - very peculiar. Through Worksop Town > lock by 10.45am. Caught up with a day boat at the second of the Forest > locks, and followed him all the way back into Retford. The crew on this > boat were setting all the paddle locks when they left each lock even > though they could see Chris walking down to fill the lock for Arun. > Totally pointless and thoughtless in my opinion. If we'd been in front > of them, not only would we have left the locks off for them, we'd even > have pulled one of the top paddles to start it filling for them.
Actually, it wasn't a day boat, it was the Chesterfield Canal Trust's trip boat complete with yours truly. We were out with a private charter. You came up behind us just as we had winded above Charlie's (Forest Top) from memory. Being a 'working boat' and the fact that we're emblazoned with Canal Trust logos etc, we take a view that we're damned if we do and damned if we don't, so we tend to go by the book on the grounds that if we left a paddle open, a gate open or a lock unlocked, someone would complain that we didn't know what we were doing and how did we know that the boat behind wasn't going to moor up somewhere. If we close everything, we get pinned with 'it would have been polite if...', so we generally take the path of least resistance. Also, you've got to remember that many days, we are quite possibly the only boat moving on that stretch of the canal, and tidying up after ourselves becomes second nature. It's usually a cause for celebration when we see other boats moving on the canal, even more so when they've come from further afield.
