On Monday, August 06, 2007 12:30 AM [GMT+1=CET],
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi everyone can you please sort out something that has been
> niggleing me for twelve months. Last summer we were on the
> Middlewich arm of the Shroppie. We were waiting to go up the
> I think it was the Venetian lock. There were a few waiting to go
> up, so we helped people through up and down. We had let a
> boat out of the lock that had gone up. There were no more
> boats to come down but about two hundred yards away there
> was a boat aproaching, so I said wait for the boat and it can go
> down with the water that was in the lock. a lady from another
> boat said no we can empty the lock and get another boat up
> before the boat arrives at the top of the lock. I said surely that's
> waisting water. The lady said the lock has to be emptied
> sometime. My point is they emptied a full lock of water
> instead of waiting. Should I have stood my ground or reported
> the lady.
With no water shortage and an inbalance in the number of boats going up and
down, there's no definitive answer to this. In general it's not good form
to turn a lock in front of an approaching boat but if it's going to speed up
the journey of several ascending boats whilst causing minimal delay to the
one descending boat, many people would find no harm in it.
The main problem that I see here is that the matter has been niggling at you
for a whole year. We all have our own priorities on the waterways, just as
we have in life. The Mrs-In-A-Hurry that you met on that day didn't share
you ideal view of the use of the waterways; perhaps she had somewhere else
she needed to be soon after your meeting. Should she have reported you for
wanting to delay her journey?
If you had "stood you ground", have you considered what might have happened
next? Might she have summonsed Mr-In-A-Hurry, seething at the intolerable
delay that he was suffering, from the back of their boat where he had been
harmlessly tying and retying a noose in the end of his mooring rope? Might
he have approached the lock with the sharp end of his windlass resolutely
pointing at your softer bits? You can console yourself to the fact that
your selflessness avoided what could have turned into a major incident
perhaps.
It seems to me that the best way to enjoy the waterways is to allow others
within reason to enjoy the waterways. This woman was not acting totally
without reason, so let it go. Even if you had been 100% correct, it's not
such an important matter that it need have bothered you for more than a
couple of minutes - why let a moment of apparent antagonism to your view
spoil a whole week of boating and leave you niggled for a year afterwards?
--
Bob
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