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Selfish boaters. Grrrrrrrr

A

Adrian Williams

No Longer a Member
As an ex boater myself I don't normally complain about them however, during my last two visits to Upton on the lower Severn I have been plagued by idiots in small boats speeding and showing off with no regard for other river users, the safety of their children, the rules of navigation (keep right) and the river speed limits (6mph up, 8mph down).

A couple of weeks ago one irresponsible idiot, with two kids in his boat and not a life jacket between them, was weaving in and out of other river traffic and doing the equivalent of donuts in his inflatable at speeds I would estimate around 20 to 30 mph.
The river was rising at the time and carrying allot of floating debris, it would only have taken one tree trunk to have turfed him and his kids into the path of one of the floating 1990s gin palaces which were all over the place that weekend, if that had happened they wouldn't have stood a chance.:mad:
I have heard the same sort of behaviour was going on this weekend, I think a strongly worded letter to the marina manager at Upton might be in order.
 
Similar situation on the Thames. I've fished / lived by the river for most of my life and definitely noticed a huge increase in recent years of all sorts of river craft. From woefully incompetant canoeists to petrol heads in powerful ribs and rich idiots in huge cruisers. A lot of these boats are being piloted by people who would be well over the drink/ drive limit.

Drunk, lack of licences and insurance and scant regard for speed limits and general river etiquette. If our rivers were policed like our roads the cops would have a field day, but I know it's not their remit.

So many small craft trying to be launched / recovered at the same time at a free slipway in Windsor this summer that even fights have broken out.

Madness !

Duncan.
 
The rowers on the Thames I find to be a bunch of ignorant and very selfish people. I am going to start firing boilies at them if they continue to row so close to the bank while I am fishing.
 
That's life im afraid,the world is full of ignorant gits,be it driving on the roads
parking in a supermarket,or just waiting to be served in the local pub
or papershop ect ect the uk is overflowing with *******s:mad:
 
I was fishing the Wye in June and a single skull and a pair from Ross Rowing club collided in my swim so I shouted "two of you and one of him,must be Pimms o'clock"........they didn't find it nearly as funny as me !!!
 
I was fishing at Severn stoke and some tango whiskey alpha tango in a yacht of some description or whatever it was, came down the river like a bat out of hell doin warp speed, it's quite a wide stretch to be fair, I had to move my rods for fear of him hitting them, yes that's how close he came to me, all that space of river he had and he still wanted to sit on my lap, then there was the aftermath of boat waves crashing the rocks and soaking me which wasnt to bad cos it was red hot, now I ain't got nothin against boaters, as I grew up on my nan an granddads dawncraft cruiser, just inconsiderate idiots. Rant over.
 
its mainly due to inexperience and no proper tutoring that mishandling or misusing boats bring, i had a bad experience years ago at the henley regatta
i had taken my family on a few weeks hols on our old cabin cruiser,
wanted to get through henley before the regatta got well under way,
on the henley stretch (only half the river available for all navigation apart from the regatta boats, we suddenly had a small speedboat start weaving
between oncoming boats both ways at speed, as it passed close to us i could see they had a case of champagne opened and were obviously half drunk or more, 4 times i had em cut right under my bow causing me to violently slam my boat into reverse to put the brakes on!. the next time the repeated the irresponsible act i didnt slam my gearbox into reverse i just shoved the throttle down:eek::eek: with every intention of sinking em, the river police was on me in minutes! after my full explanation they promptly ignored the dangerous antics of the speedboat drunken hurrah henrys and gave me a really severe warning of dangerous boat handling:eek::mad::mad:
i wasted over 2 hours waiting for em at henley lock to demonstrate in the roughest way i knew, reason is a total disreguard for navigation safety and a complete lack of experience an tutoring in boat handling, stll mad at em after 28 years
 
Paul Pittman said:
The rowers on the Thames I find to be a bunch of ignorant and very selfish people. I am going to start firing boilies at them if they continue to row so close to the bank while I am fishing.
Click to expand...

They're an absolute joke. You get a few who are considerate, but the majority (that I seem to encounter) sadly are completely braindead. The other week there were 3 boats who decided to moor up right where there were people fishing, right in their swims. It was hillarious to watch one of the anglers doing his nut. I can understand completely why he was so angry. He managed to keep his swim though. He wouldnt let them get on the bank. They had to sail away! I don't really know why they wanted to moor there though, it looked like if they had been successful he would have thrown them back in! Perhaps even with a black eye and broken nose for good measure!
 
Adrian, I have guested on your bit and had the same problem. I dont mind boaters but when they are underneath your rod tip on a stretch of river thats maybe 80-100ft across its just ludicrous the conversation after a single rower went through both my lines went a little like this.

Me- Jesus christ are you kidding me how close in are you you f******g idiot.
boat idiot- yeah thats really helpful (he didnt stop or slow down)
Me- You could at least stop so I could untangle you, jesus christ stop for gods sake(i had found religion quite quickly)
Boat idiot-Are you aware of the navigation rules?
Me- Yes you go up on the right and come down on the right, however your in danger of getting charged road fund tax you ******* *****.

Now you would think that the people who go rowing are generally intelligent, two days later he almost ran through both again. You couldnt write it.

As for kids with no life jackets thats just shocking.
 
Jack Pells said:
They're an absolute joke. You get a few who are considerate, but the majority (that I seem to encounter) sadly are completely braindead. The other week there were 3 boats who decided to moor up right where there were people fishing, right in their swims. It was hillarious to watch one of the anglers doing his nut. I can understand completely why he was so angry. He managed to keep his swim though. He wouldnt let them get on the bank. They had to sail away! I don't really know why they wanted to moor there though, it looked like if they had been successful he would have thrown them back in! Perhaps even with a black eye and broken nose for good measure!
Click to expand...

Molesey Rowing club seem to be the worst I have encountered so far. Had serious words with quite a few of them recently and also emailed the club secretary. Considering the Thames around Sunbury etc. is over 100 yards wide I see no reason for them to be 10 foot from the bank.
 
I think Molesey think they can get away with owning the river because they have produced an olympic rower. Winds me up. When they choose to come an inch from the bank I might have to begin throwing my rubbish into their boat, or a ball of groundbait at them.

When I was really young, I remember accidentally casting a maggot feeder into one of the big white pleasure cruisers. To be fair to them, they were in the middle of the river, and I didnt intentially cast into the boat. However, I found the woman screaming frantically at the feeder slowly emptying maggots into her boat absolutely hilarious.
 
I remember fishing at defford years ago to suddenly see loads of small sailing boats coming down the river,one seemed to purposely swerve towards me and nearly took my rod in,the next one to approach me got a pult full of maggots in the boat :)
 
I heard one of the Francis Francis club punts was swamped by two powerboats coming out of Teddington lock recently.
 
Most of the Molesey lot know my boat now. I really need to practice my jerkbait casting. They soon get shy of the 150 lb braid 40lb wire and the 2/0 trebles on cheap ABU jerkbaits .
 
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