Night travel

LAST Sunday night as the last of the light was fading a hire boat came past. My thoughts were ‘too fast', but that is bye the bye, he should never have been travelling in the dark, writes Maffi.

I drew his attention and pointed out that as a hire boat he should not be travelling in the dark.

Need to moor up

He went straight on the offensive saying, "I know the rules!"
"Then you need to moor up sir!"
"I know that, but everywhere is private."

Well everywhere for the last 300 yards might be private, but before that were several spaces.

Rather than get into an argument about the dozen or so places he could have moored up since the last lock a mile away, I said he should moor up in front of me. The day boats were away until Monday afternoon and the space was going begging. I didn't see the point of letting them continue on breaking the terms of their hire agreement and risking accident or injury.

Grateful

"But its private."
"Trust me it will be okay."

They were very grateful, their wives more so. While they were mooring we spoke about the local pubs and I said that I prefer the food at the Jolly Boatman.

"Oh," said they, "That's where we're heading."

Ah! so they were not looking for just any mooring, only if it was outside their chosen pub.

Not allowed

I am sure that hire boat managers tell their customers that it is not allowed for them to travel in the dark on a hire boat, but so many do. They often seem to travel the last mile or two in the dark, to get to the pub, then complain there is no where to moor up. Quite often they are already drunk. I bet managers don't tell them that to get mooring at a honey-pot site they need to be there early. This particular company is new and only has one boat, so maybe he is not fully aware of the way things work on the water.

Actually it would be an easy thing to determine when a hire boat should moor up to conform to the conditions set out by insurance companies.

Moor up!

It is easy to look up on the internet the sunset time on a given day. Add a time relative to the time of year to that sunset time (in winter a short period, in summer a long period depending how much useable daylight there is after sunset) then tell the hirer they will be moored up by that time. Forget the pub, forget the restaurant, forget the shop. Moor up!

The only problem with that is who has the authority to pressure the hire companies into doing that?