Now it's the canoes and kayaks we have to dodge

SO NOW we boaters have to beware of canoes and kayaks, writes John Coxon.

The Canal & river Trust notice says—'We have recently experienced some near-miss situations involving boaters and Leicester Rowing Club.'We ask our users of the waterway to be mindful of Leicester Rowing Clubs canoes and kayaks, which use this section of the navigation.

'We advise boaters to use the right-hand arch of the bridges and please stay within the speed limit'.

Get out of the way

So not only are we expected to get out of the way of speeding cyclists on the towpath now it's get out of the way of speeding canoeists on the water.

Not only speeding canoeists, but some speeding rowers that are travelling backwards and so cannot see where they are going, what they are approaching or what is approaching them?  If you act in such a stupid way you should not be surprised to have a near miss or two?

They should be told to keep clear of us

They are much more manouverable than any narrowboat so they should be told keep clear of us as we are told to keep clear of large commercial boats etc. as we are more manouverable than they are.

Also they should be made to keep the speed limits as well.  It's not unusual to have them speed past at 10 plus knots with no thought of slowing down for moored boats.  Nor do they obey the rules for passing other boats by going either side without indicating what they are doing.

Always narrowboats at fault

It seems that whenever there is a problem it's always the narrowbooats that are at fault, but very often we have no choice other to stay in the channel because when five blind canoes come at you at full speed and taking up the full width of the waterway we have nowhere else to go and no time to manouvre out of the way safely!

Well, I for one will not leave the deep channel and risk going aground just to allow a canoe with a few inches of draught to keep on speeding down the middle of the waterway.  There's room for all of us if we are sensible about it and don't have four or five canoes abreast going flat out with no thought about leaving room for other users!

Same as cyclists

As far as I'm concerned canoeist are just wet bottomed cyclists with the same attiude towards others viz: get out of my way and get yourself and your horse/dog/pram/child off of our cycle track, now it's get your powered boat off of our canoe raceway.

Like cyclists, when they show some consideration and respect for us then they can expect us to do the same.