Feral boat people
I’ve mentioned the feral boat people a few times without explaining who they are and what threat they pose to you, the newbie narrowboater. Here’s what you need to know: Ferals are a subset of the mostly well-adjusted, happy liveaboards you meet on the water, but over time they’ve become grouchy and sullen. Previously they might have covered the roofs of their boats with cheerful canal art water cans and beds of flowers, but now their boats are something you want to hurry past. Some canals and certain stretches of canals are more attractive to ferals and you will see them in higher concentrations. You’ll recognize ferals when you see:
- Unusual boats. Ferals love to inhabit oil rig survival pods, original working narrowboats or narrowboats done up as submarines. Boats are either unusually long or incredibly short.
- No exposed roof. It’s covered with wheelbarrows, dead plants, bicycles, solar panels, windmills, lumber, tires, etc.
- You can’t see into the windows because all the dirty curtains are closed or the boat is jam packed with stuff or they’re obscured with hand-lettered signs such as “Would you pour boiling water on your baby? Slow Down!” or “Save the Badgers!”
- What appears to be an abandoned boat until you see a curtain twitch or if you’re unwise enough to rock their boat with your wake or God forbid you crash into their boat. Then they erupt from their boat calling you a “festering gob” or a “gormless sod.”
Ferals are mostly harmless, except to your sang-froid. You might have been whistling a happy tune, putting down the canal without a care in the world, congratulating yourself for finally figuring out how to steer. Then you get yelled at to “Slow Down!” because in your oblivious happiness you had failed to slow for their moored boat. They’re correct for chastising you, of course, but was it really necessary for them to shoot those fire arrows at your boat and to jump up in down in their ritual war chant?
Running the stern aground
This isn’t as common as running the bow aground, but it can happen, as my husband reminded me. If you’ve just made a tight turn around a bend in the canal, the stern of your boat might have caught on weeds, mud or sand. If you suspect there are a lot of weeds, then try remedies other than using the throttle: moving the crew to the other side or to the front of the boat, getting off the boat or pushing with the pole.
Don’t put the throttle in reverse, you’ll just drive the stern farther into the obstruction. Instead, point the tiller away from where the boat is caught and apply forward throttle. If you hear banging and scraping, however, stop immediately. You don’t want to damage the propeller.
If you’ve had to use the throttle where there are weeds, then inspect the weed hatch afterward and clear the propeller shaft if needed.
To avoid running aground, try to keep to the center of the canal as much as possible, but remember that boats pass on the right. Rather than being forced to pass another boat on the right when you suspect there are weeds, tree roots or mud, slow down and let the other boat pass where there is more room.
I suppose there is a possibility you might have run aground in the center of the canal because of a submerged tree trunk or shopping cart (perhaps on an urban canal). Some variation of one of these techniques should work. As far as I know, there are no narrowboats permanently stuck in the middle of any canals, the crew reduced to moldering skeletons.
