Leboat Horizon

[oldgregg]

This is a nasty one. A woman has been killed in Italy after getting crushed between a boat (I assume the overhang on the sides) and a bridge.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6989347/Mother-crushed-death-children-Italy.html

[grendel]

it is always sad to hear such stories,

it is a none too gentle reminder not to try fending off of anything with body parts, after all we are talking about boats weighing in at tons, even though they are moving relatively slowly they have a great deal of inertia, and they just dont stop.

[Malanka]

She wasn’t crushed by the boat she was crushed by the weight of water pushing the boat against the bridge, a totally different scenario. And sorry Grendel, but if not body parts then what ? Boat hooks, mops? Hardly 

 

M

[Malanka]

It’s not difficult to understand tragic though things like this are. She was not crushed by the weight of the boat she was crushed by the effective force of whatever surface area of boat hull being pushed by THOUSANDS of tons of water. 

In extreme cases such pressure will flip the boat and crush anything between the boat and the bridge. She made the wrong choice and died because of it but again she was not crushed by the weight of the boat. 

In physics terms F=MxA

 

 

M

[Gracie]

I know it's important how it happened but let's not forget that little ones lost their Mum, a Husband lost his wife no matter the physics of it

An absolute tragedy, my heart goes out to her family

Grace

[Chelsea14Ian]

Yes Grace very sad all round, we must always be careful on the water no matter how slow boating appears.Boats can be replaced, people cant.

[Maxwellian]

8 hours ago, Malanka said:

It’s not difficult to understand tragic though things like this are. She was not crushed by the weight of the boat she was crushed by the effective force of whatever surface area of boat hull being pushed by THOUSANDS of tons of water. 

In extreme cases such pressure will flip the boat and crush anything between the boat and the bridge. She made the wrong choice and died because of it but again she was not crushed by the weight of the boat. 

In physics terms F=MxA

 

 

M

The Physics was easy to understand, it was the last part to Grendel that confused me.

[Hylander]

Doesnt even bare thinking about, how awful for that family and a stark reminder how easily accidents happen whether on the water or land.     Poor little kiddies and that poor husband , he will never forgive himself.   Such a tragedy.

 

 

[Malanka]

Maxwellian. 

That’s easy, it is not always possible to simply stand by and watch a slow motion ( hopefully) crash happen and simply saying nobody should use body parts ( in itself a little odd) without an alternative in its place is a little bit of a broad brush sweep.

To date I have seen boat hooks, mops and brushes used to fend off boats. All inappropriate and dangerous when a simple boot in the right place correctly and safely applied would suffice. 

I do not take grief vicariously upon myself as there is more than enough to go round already. I thank god it’s nobody I know and feel for the family however nothing I write will lessen that families torment. 

What Grendel wrote was an inaccurate  and IMO too simple a reflection of how this poor lady died. The thousands of tons of incompressible water pushing that boat into the bridge could never be countered by her or anyone else. It was not simply the boat momentum as that could be countered quite easily as I would imagine anyone who has turned a boat using ropes and not the engine can attest. In that turning scenario would body parts be acceptable to use? Of course they would !

Against that bridge never. 

Yes it’s tragic however simply saying never use hands or feet to guide or fend a boat when we all know this is safely done a million times a day doesn’t make sense. 

If this poor lady had used something else she would in all likelihood still have been crushed. It was not what she used that killed her but the decision to try to fend at all in those circumstances to stop the impact which by then from the description in the article would have been inevitable. 

A barely analogous situation that may explain is one my father taught me years ago which still holds true which is swerving the car and hitting potentially another car or a pedestrian to avoid an animal running into the road. The safest but most horrible course of action is to let it happen but of course brake safely too. Rather than introduce an unknown ( consequence of swerving) 

To be clear I’m not lessening the tragedy at all but dispassionately discussing the likely cause. I did the same and always have even when discussing with his father, how my cousin died crashing his motorbike into a loose horse when he was 22, or carrying my nieces coffin after she died by weighing 14 ounces at birth. There are many other tragedies in the world every day me waxing about them rather than discussing why is not going to lessen any of them. Sorry if anyone is upset by that.

[grendel]

14 hours ago, Malanka said:

And sorry Grendel, but if not body parts then what ?

all I really meant was to be careful not to put body parts between the boat and whatever you are fending off from, such that they could become trapped between the boat and anything else, we dont want people as fenders.

[Malanka]

Sorry Grendel you said fending off with,  not don’t get your body parts between if using them to fend off. 

It’s the use of with that I objected to. 

Now you’re saying between which I agree with 100% and was the reason for my post. 

There’s an ocean of difference between what you wrote earlier and what you now write. 

I 100% accept you meant to write then what you write now! You know the answer to that one. 

[JawsOrca]

Kinda reads the same to me.. dont put yourself in the way of a boat which weights more than you. Despite being able to compress the water et al. sometimes if water the boat or god decides to push back your arms body legs etc will come out worse like this poor lady. Thoughts are with the family.

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[Wussername]

31 minutes ago, JawsOrca said:

Kinda reads the same to me.. dont put yourself in the way of a boat which weights more than you. Despite being able to compress the water et al. sometimes if water the boat or god decides to push back your arms body legs etc will come out worse like this poor lady. Thoughts are with the family.

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app
 

My experience tells me to keep arms, legs and feet inside the boat especially when mooring and when other boats are mooring alongside. It is a simple request for the helm to request and for the crew to acknowledge.

 

[Hylander]

When it comes to stopping a boat it is not necessarily the fault of the water or the wind or the boat skipper.   I take all the blame for what happened to me many years ago on the canals.     I was daft enough to think that I could stop a canal boat with a rope , and to boot with it wrapped around my hand which was in a glove.     The boat came alongside and no I did not stop it , all that manifested itself was the rope got tighter around my hand and my hand with the rope eventually tried to go through the mooring ring.  How I did not lose my hand was a miracle.  Hubby immediately banged the boat into reverse before any more happened and I lay on the tow path my face firmly wedged into the stones and earth and poor hand trapped.    I was seen by the ShropDoc and I was very very lucky.   

 

So I agree with Grendel it does sometimes involve limbs if you are daft enough like I was to try the impossible.

[Malanka]

Originally that is not what Grendel said and with which I disagreed. Latterly this is what Grendel says and I like you agree. 

The issue simply put is this poor lady like you made a poor choice/ decision in a split second. The consequences for you were somewhat better than for her. 

We all make poor choices in deeds and also earlier on in words. We don’t all pay with our lives for poor choices. I know a young lad who fell between canal boat and the bank the resultant crush reduced his pelvis to more pieces than it was designed with. 

I have had my fingers dislocated and broken merely sitting in a sailing boat as someone else’s choice of leaving the boat resulted in me being the pea in the biscuit barrel. 

Lord save us all from poor choices and unfortunately the consequences for this lady were horrendous.

[grendel]

3 hours ago, Malanka said:

I 100% accept you meant to write then what you write now! You know the answer to that one. 

I apologise for not being a scientific type that takes care that what they write is unambiguous  I was just trying to pass a safety message about taking care.

now back to the poor lady, a poor choice maybe, but in moments of stress what might seem the right thing to do can be a poor choice indeed.

so let just take care out there folks.

[Malanka]

Apologies for living in a world of facts and unambiguity for 32 years. This usually results in the throwing of slippers or swearing at the tv. I lost the itchy send finger a long time ago!! 

 

[Vaughan]

I have navigated some of those rivers around La Lagune de Venise and the currents at certain times can make boat handling very difficult. It is not a place for those without experience.

It is my personal belief that there is a responsibility on hire boat companies, and their agents, to offer holidays on suitable waterways. We on the Broads can enjoy our boating in a place where it is as safe to do so as it could possibly be. It has always been a playground where there are very few, if any, hidden hazards. The same goes for the English canals and for most of the waterways in France, where the navigations have 3 categories. Hire boating is only permitted on waterways of the 3rd category, as the others are considered too hazardous.

Other places may have famous names and sound idyllic in the brochure but "bare boat" hiring should not, in my opinion, be undertaken on what are otherwise purely commercial waterways, where there is too much risk of something going wrong.

 

 

[Malanka]

Absolutely Vaughan,

 

We hired from leboat down towards the fewer locks area and the speed at which coasters passed moored boats ripped out mooring spikes or pulled cleats up. Very dangerous. 

I believe focusing on boat safety and some technical bits should be in the hand over. More emphasis on throttle control too. 

On the broads I do dislike seeing unsupervised under 12s helming. By all means let them learn and enjoy but parents should be with them 100% of the time and be prepared to intervene when necessary not when the youngster asks which may be too late.

 

M

 

[Malanka]

Fiona remembered where the place was it was Aiges Mortes.

 

Very hot,  very boring journeys, great restaurants, very dangerous coasters going way faster than you. City center marinas are typical and can be fun but a bit noisy. 

[grendel]

On 03/05/2019 at 16:18, grendel said:

it is a none too gentle reminder not to try fending off of anything with body parts, after all we are talking about boats weighing in at tons, even though they are moving relatively slowly they have a great deal of inertia, and they just dont stop.

I suppose its here i should apologise for the ambiguity in my original post, yes I rushed my post to get the safety message in, I didnt reread it and check it said what I wanted it to - this just shows the ambiguity that can arise from different ways of phrasing things, we all know what I meant, but thats not what I actually said.

To be fair, rereading it probably wouldnt have done me any good, it was only about 10 years ago when my daughter was diagnosed as dyslexic - when she did her law degree at university, to that point it had gone unnoticed, but when they described the symptoms she exhibited,  I realised that i too must suffer, little things like essays at school that skipped whole paragraphs, these were always there when I re read what i had written, but had mysteriously vanished once they had been marked, 

Strangely, when I was at school, I would read maybe 2 books a day, so the problem was never spotted in me. but it does mean I can reread something I have written very carefully and still not spot things that should be there because I thought of them, but arent.

so apology offered, excuses made, and be careful people not to get any bits squished, we dont want to be reading about any of you suffering even a squished finger or toe, let alone suffering as this family has.

[Malanka]

Well said Grendel mate. I wasn’t sure you meant what you said at first as it wasn't logical and you’re a logical guy. I soon realized you meant don’t get squished but by then I’d pointed out you didn’t actually say that so apologies all round. 

I fully agree we don’t want anyone squished or to fall in and to be honest we have a couple of spots on the system where this kind of tragedy could happen here so I reiterate be careful folks. 

 

M

[dnks34]

From looking at the picture showing the accident boat and the signs of current in the flow of water it occurred to me that something similar could happen on an outgoing tide at Great Yarmouth.  In truth I have always thought the bridges mixed with tidal current have the potential to be a real danger and Im surprised that to my knowledge there has not been a serious injury at either of the Bridges other than the usual boats ending up wedged beneath them. 

I do often think that Great Yarmouth would benefit from some safety measures especially as its not unknown for some northern yards to discourage their hirers making passage to the south.  The novice or unsuspecting could very very easily be caught out there. 

[Malanka]

Or Reedham as many are tempted to turn right in front of the bridge on an outgoing tide. Not good to even think about 

 

M 

[Vaughan]

10 hours ago, dnks34 said:

From looking at the picture showing the accident boat and the signs of current in the flow of water it occurred to me that something similar could happen on an outgoing tide at Great Yarmouth.

I understand the thinking here, but the risk is not the same as we have seen in this accident in Italy. The only real danger to "life and limb" offered by the Yarmouth bridges would be if the skipper (private or hire) tried to go through at the wrong state of the tide, with the canopy still up and this, quite clearly, would be his own fault.

We do not have low, lifting bridges on the Broads where a boat can be swept against them and held there by the current. Nor do we have weirs, where the danger of being swept against them is the same. Boating is, of course, a potentially hazardous, activity holiday, so there will always be risks to be made aware of. There is a big difference however, between a place such as the Broads where these risks have been well managed over the decades, and an area where pleasure boating has never had a priority - or even an equality - with commercial traffic, so the place is simply not "set up" to accommodate the special requirements of amateur holidaymakers.