{"id":540,"date":"2016-01-24T07:03:31","date_gmt":"2016-01-24T07:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/narrowboatingforbeginners.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=540"},"modified":"2017-12-06T20:12:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T20:12:28","slug":"how-to-steer-a-narrowboat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/narrowboatingforbeginners.com\/wordpress\/how-to-steer-a-narrowboat\/","title":{"rendered":"How to steer a narrowboat"},"content":{"rendered":"

F<\/span>ew things are more daunting than when, after a thirty-minute lesson from your boat hire company, you\u2019re handed the tiller of a 65-foot-long iron-hulled narrowboat and told not to hit anything. You were told to move the tiller right when you want to move left and vice versa, but that\u2019s probably about the extent of the training you\u2019ve been given regarding how to steer.<\/p>\n

It might help if you\u2019ve ever steered a fishing boat with an outboard motor, but that 20-foot aluminum craft is a much different beast than the 15-ton behemoth you now see stretching infinitely ahead of you from your vantage point at the tiller.<\/p>\n

Relax! I know it\u2019s scary, but the reality is that 99% of your time on the water there\u2019s very little you can do that will cause any real damage because you\u2019re only moving at 2 or 3 miles per hour. You might be embarrassed and you might encourage the wrath of some feral boat people, but it\u2019s surprisingly difficult to cause any real damage or even any real inconvenience. And you will get better quite quickly.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>Basic steering<\/h2>\n

The first, most basic steering advice to beginners is to push the tiller right to go left and push the tiller left to go right. This \u201copposite\u201d advice never worked for me.<\/p>\n

\"tipFIRST TIP: Point the tiller at the thing you DON\u2019T want to hit. This is a handy tip for a beginner because for some reason the logic of turn right to go left doesn\u2019t make sense to the panicked brain.<\/p>\n

Instead my husband offered the advice of doing something more mentally understandable, pointing the tiller at the thing you don\u2019t want to hit. But be patient, you will slowly move away from the thing you don\u2019t want to hit, which brings us to the second tip.<\/p>\n

\"tipSECOND TIP: You have little control over steering if the propeller isn\u2019t in gear and turning. You may have to speed up to gain maneuverability, but if you\u2019re in imminent danger of colliding with something, it\u2019s better to put the throttle into full reverse.<\/p>\n

Usually your first reaction when trying to avoid a collision is to pull back on the throttle, but as you reduce speed, you lose control and often you still hit. This does not, however, mean you should go full throttle all the time.<\/p>\n

\"tipTHIRD TIP: The boat turns about the middle of the boat, meaning the front of the boat might not hit the bridge, but the rear will.<\/p>\n

A narrowboat handles very curiously because it\u2019s flat-bottomed and draws very little water. It\u2019s surprisingly maneuverable, but moving at such low speed, you have to anticipate your turns and wait for any movement of the tiller to have any effect. Once the boat does turn, it will continue to turn for some time. You\u2019ll quickly learn the side-to-side lazy small turns of the tiller that keeps the boat pointing in the right direction. What you don\u2019t want to do is move the tiller from side to side quickly because it will probably have little effect.<\/p>\n

When approaching a left-hand turn, you\u2019ll have to guess when you want to push the tiller right, knowing that the boat will turn about the middle, and obviously the advice is opposite when approaching a right-hand turn.<\/p>\n

\"tipFOURTH TIP: You can steer the rear of the boat, sort of, by pushing the tiller hard in the direction you want the stern to go.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll often need to make quite sharp turns or multiple turns. When approaching a bridge, for instance, you\u2019ll often find it\u2019s not at 90\u00b0 to the canal, and often the canal turns again on the other side of the bridge. The simple trick of aiming the tiller at the thing you don\u2019t want to hit may not be enough to avoid slamming into the bridge abutments (which is why the stone work of most bridges is often protected by wooden beams). Pushing the tiller right to make the front or bow of the boat go left also makes the rear or stern of the boat go right, and that might make the right end of the boat slam into an abutment.<\/p>\n

You can steer the rear of the boat, however, by sharply pushing the tiller in the direction you want to move the stern \u2014 in other words opposite to the way you steer the front of the boat. So to move the front of the boat, you would push the tiller left to go right, but to move the stern of the boat, push the tiller hard right to go right.<\/p>\n

\"cautionDon\u2019t crowd the driver. The stern of the boat attracts people like the kitchen at a party, but sometimes the driver has to make sharp turns and you may find the end of the tiller in your stomach and \/ or get knocked off the boat.<\/p>\n

And when I say hard right, I mean push the tiller as far to the right as you can go<\/span>. This will affect the rear of the boat more than the front. You\u2019ll learn how long to keep the tiller hard right or left\u2014usually it\u2019s not more than second.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>Turning the boat around<\/h2>\n

Turning the boat around in a winding hole is a daunting task for a beginner. Inevitably you\u2019ll have a crowd of other boaters laughing at you or offering advice. If you\u2019re lucky, your first winding hole will be in the middle of nowhere with earthen banks, so let\u2019s assume that will be your first experience.<\/p>\n

\"noteEveryone on the canal has advice for the poor chump steering the boat and at least half that advice is wrong. Learn to tell the difference.<\/p>\n