A couple of years ago we met a hotel pair at a lock on the S&W. We were going down. When we arrived, the hotel motor was in the lock coming up. We naturally assumed that we would go down and then the butty would come up, but they refused to let us go down in between them. They emptied the 'empty' lock and we had to wait until after they'd brought the butty up. When I tried to discuss it with them their basic argument was "We're professionals, we know what we're doing. You're just on holiday so your views dont count" !
Steve An observation, based on experience many years ago with President and Kildare. The captain at the time insisted on letting oncoming boats through between P and K. the result was that instead of Kildare being towed into the mouth of the lock, she had to be bowhauled in from about 100 feet away - this put about a 10 minute delay on every lock so the queue behind us built up. Oncoming boats only experienced a delay once, but following boats experienced a cumulatively increasing delay. While the captain's policy was intended to minimise delays to other users, I don't think it did so. Sean
