Mr King Coal - who had his boat near Harecastle - suggested that it might be a good idea there to ask queuing boaters if they had been before, then rearrange the lot to be sent through to have the experienced ones at the front. He (Mr Coal) was very fast but he knew where all the tricky bits were. I remember on one trip through having a very smart boat with cans and painted exhaust and chimney in front. The keeper suggested he put these inside but he knew better and swept into the south end at speed. We followed at some distance but, when the roof started to drop noticed we were catching chummy. We slowed but by this time he was in a panic - barely moving with wife steering while he clambered around removing chimneys and other stuff. (We actually were so close by this time that our light illuminated his boat.) Being the only other boat in the tunnel we floated for a bit to let him get away - which he did very slowly, then, as the roof raised, faster. Then, 300 yards from the end, he slowed again and clambered about sticking all the clobber back on top! Having done that he raced off - sweeping out of the tunnel with a confident wave to the puzzled keeper. We followed him out and told on him - the keeper thought it funny but said it often happened. Mind you, our worst experience was the last time through Braunston. After following a boat up the flight - it always moving off just before we arrived and not waiting in the next, we were amazed to find it just entering the tunnel in front of us. With no boats coming the other way this private boat preceded, once inside to crawl along going in and out of tick over. We caught up and the wife asked what was wrong as, by this time we were mostly out of gear to not hit them. She was told that this was the correct way to do tunnels and we certainly could not be allowed to pass. (We asked as we got more and more desperate.) Finally - well over an hour after entering we came out to find them now creeping down the middle of the cut. This time we moved up quick and said we were going round - they did finally move over as our front passed their back. Then once we were passed they moored up to recover from the horror of us and the tunnel. It is said there is more idiots per hundred boaters round Braunston... ed, 8/13/08, David Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: David Sullivan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [canals-list] Fast Tickover on trad engined boats - was Martin's red 'kerchief To: "canals list" <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 9:51 AM My problem with turning the tickover down on my Petter PH2 is that I suspect the engine would "go out". It will in fact do this if I turn the speedwheel right down on a very hot day, which can be embarrassing if it happens as I'm entering a lock, as I have to dash through the boatman's cabin into the engine 'ole to restart the engine. (A boatyard engineer has recently mentioned to me that it would be very easy to have an additional starter button at the steerer's position, but I haven't got round to doing anything about it yet.) BTW my tickover is really quite slow but it seems that some hire boats are able to go even slower, which is my pet hate in tunnels. Dave Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger .yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
