Abandon all hope of a pleasant experience when trying to turn a boat on a windy day in a marina. The only advice I can offer is to try to gauge the direction of the wind and know that when your boat is perpendicular to the wind, you will be pushed away and plan your turn appropriately. Keep the tiller in line with the boat and then pray to the canal gods.
Of course that never works and you will often find the boat veering right or left. Your best bet then is apply a short burst of forward throttle and push the tiller right to turn the front of the boat left and push the tiller left to go right; or to move the stern of the boat, push the tiller hard right to move the stern right or hard left to move it left.
Buy cheap, two-way radios for your trip. They will work as intercoms from your spotters in the bow to the driver in the stern. You can also use them when sending people ahead to check the status of a lock or when to enter a tunnel. Regardless of whether you are turning left or right the boat will pivot on this central point. Manoeuvrability comes from the power you have in the throttle, unlike in your car where your instinct is to slow down to be able to make a much sharper turn, in your narrowboat slowing down will make your turning circle much larger.
If you do not have the narrowboat in gear and the propeller moving you have little to no control and therefore you have to engage the gear and get the propeller moving to regain control.
If you are heading towards a collision you are much better served to put the throttle into reverse full power rather than trying to slow down with no power in the engine. On a trad stern like we have it may seem fine to perch on the benches either side of the tiller however it becomes apparent very quickly just how frustrating for the driver it is when they cannot make the moves they need in order to move freely around the canal, consider standing or sitting somewhere out of the way and although this may be at the cost of flowing conversation it is for the added benefit of safe navigation.
We love nothing more than getting cosy and enjoying a night in with Netflix and a bowl of popcorn and so we […]. You might have seen from our logbook entry for April that we have welcomed a cat aboard our narrowboat and are […]. Home » How to steer a narrowboat. Once the boat does turn, it will continue to turn for some time.
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. You can steer the rear of the boat, however, by sharply pushing the tiller in the direction you want to move the stern — in other words opposite to the way you steer the front of the boat.
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