A boating idiot
We were following a boat out of Braunston and, keeping our distance, so were able to maintain 3 mph, checked on the Smartphone GPS. We both slowed to pass Tumbleweed who was moored almost in bridge 100, writes Kevin McNiff.
The skipper, seemingly a mature guy, exchanged pleasantries and off we went. I noticed by Fox's gate that Tumbleweed had come 'our' side of the bridge and appeared to be mooring.
Collided
However, he appeared at bridge 101 with his engine at full revs, got through the bridge, collided with the Armco and then he disappeared into the boat which was heading for the offside!
Further along as we went under Bridge 102, he reappeared, at speed, and clouted the concrete bank on the towpath side as he attempted to round the sharp 90 degrees bend; slid along the bank for several dozen yards (I don't do metric!) and then got away. By the time we were approaching the nicely piled section so popular with the week-enders around these parts, progress was slowed by all.
Hooting to overtake
As soon as I had gone through Bridge 103, speed was back to 3mph; next thing I know is Tumbleweed (pictured) is hooting me to overtake and trying to catch me up! It seemed like tailgating on the motorways in the fast lane when everyone's doing the same speed.
At one point he was only four feet from my rudder! SWMBO appeared and politely shouted back to him to back-off but he stayed with us, becoming a real pain in the back side as we negotiated Shugborough. The 'S' bend Bridge 107 where boats coming towards us meant slowing down saw him once again crash into the piling to avoid an oncoming boat.
Overgrown vegetation
The vegetation between bridges 107 and 108 is now overgrown again but still he tried to speed up to get past. Being a single hander, I reckoned on him wanting to get past to reach the Napton Flight. The boat in front and I were maintaining 4mph now and surely this is not causing a tailback?
The nutter then tried to get past in the really narrow section approaching Wigrams Turn at Napton Junction. This time the request to back-off was pure Anglo Saxon. The boat in front turned right towards Calcutt and I pushed on towards Napton with him still tailgating me!
Collided with piling
My guess about Napton Locks was right on the money but when I slowed past Napton Narrowboats, he had to back off also. Once again on the turn towards Bridge 111, he collided with the piling and then slid almost all the way up to the Bridge Inn, where he seemed to stop. But no, he reappeared on the way round to the locks. The volunteers had the bottom lock ready for us and that was the last we saw of him until the moorings
on the summit by the radio mast, some two hours later.
As both the boat in front and I were already doing the 3-4 mph speed wherever possible, I saw no reason to be pushed aside by the arrogance or stupidity of this man, and I certainly did not want the prospect of following him up a flight of locks where leaving gates and paddles open and up was a distinct possibility. His basic lack of control was also an issue that I did not want to be following. Had he kept his station and distance, he would have at least had some help by raising a paddle as we left the lock wherever feasible.
What an idiot!