Canal boat: Four 18/19 year old lads...

[Miljea]

Aaaaaand... breathe!

The mothers of the other three lads are probably on here, at a guess! That would be funny.

My DS, 18, Year out from uni, is lovely. And clueless. He's not huge on RL friends (at all), but, frankly, his RL friends, such as they are, only seem to get together in cyberspace.

Months ago DS mentioned a canal boat trip, with these other guys, for a lad's birthday. In Feb, somewhere in the Midlands. DS was at sixth form with the now-at-uni inviter, who has a uni mate and a 'local to his uni' mate to make up the 4.

I thought it would die a death, but it hasn't.

Like I said, DS is sweetly clueless.

My concerns?

Getting along the south coast. He's never caught a train alone- even a bus, other than a school one! This is Southampton to Brighton. With a change.

Driving from Brighton to the midlands with an unknown teenage driver.

Arriving late and all going yadda yadda yadda about How The Boat Works (tho the inviter has done it before, as has my DS, albeit in a 'someone else taking responsibility' (us) way.). Then bouncing off into the dark.

Not understanding what are feasible journey times. That you can't travel by night. Knowing the electrical capabilities of the boat, versus battery charge 😊 And water supply. Ending up at pubs to eat, otherwise bringing food, to reheat. Who is planning all that without being derided?

Having a cold, dark, wet, miserable 5 days because no one took control of the situation.

Obviously I need to go along to Make It All Alright 😂😂 but....

Learning experience? Brilliant holiday? Or catastrophe?

Bearing in mind, come Sept, he might be at a uni a 5 hour, inc cross-London train trip away.. 😮 We'll never see him again.

But I almost fear he doesn't know what he doesn't know.

I may be feeling rather anxious about it......

There is @SunshineDays2019. I can't quite figure out why the OP. Is trying to make out it's a Herculean task

Lowprofile What I'll do is talk through with him all the stuff he needs to know about the trip and needs to ascertain on Saturday; like how much experience the renter has; is a route planned? What are they doing about food? Are they planning on stopping at pubs?

Hopefully he'll know how 'together' or flakey they are before committing.

I gather the renter's dad is paying for most of the trip.

IF it IS going ahead, I'll talk him through pitfalls (we have been canal boating as a family 3 times, albeit not recently); and will get him to watch youtube videos about locks and mooring. Good advice about being on deck or operating the locks.

TBH, he is, as you all now know, not 'a lad'. My hope is that to be invited along by this (sort of) friend implies they are not 'lads'. Thus won't be staggeringly drunk trying to operate locks.

I am less concerned about 'cold and wet', tho he will go equipped.

A lot of the more tricky locks have a lock keeper to operate it. I've learnt this from a lovely programme about canal boating on Channel 5 catch up with Timothy West and Prunella Scales who are lifetime canal boaters. Perhaps he might watch some of these too?

Gosh OP NONE of the things you mentioned in your first post are concerns. Absolutely none. Worst case scenario they get cold and wet and hungry and miserable. (Really Southampton to Brighton on a train...)

The MASSIVE worry which you've not even mentioned is four pissed lads negotiating a lock. You do get that's actually a genuine risk. People drown in locks. When the bottom sluices are open if you fall in you're fucked - all that water flowing out takes you with it. That is the only bit you absolutely must must must stress to him - the rest of it will be brilliant fun. Probably not at the time but a few weeks later

I can’t decide whether you’re serious. You’re certainly being ridiculous.
Of course he can catch a train. Many twelve year olds navigate airports and international transfers quite happily.
Canal boats aren’t rocket science. They haven’t even got a wheel or gears.
They’ll spend most of the time in pub I suspect. The pubs are used to groups of lads. They can but burger and chips.
Locks aren’t rocket science either. All sorts of idiots manage them.
Let him have some fun. Most eighteen year olds are at festivals abroad, skiing in large groups or inter-railing. Unless he has a learning disability you need to let him cut his apron strings.

titchy you haven't read the thread, have you?

I absolutely have made my concerns about locks very, very clear

If you cba to keep up, your opinion is worthless.

3 changes??

This is the journey DS came up with. Because I told him to research it.

I, mollycoddle mummy, discovered a direct 'no change' route. But these pictures are every other train from Southampton airport to Brighton.

cherry I'd dispute your assertion that most 18 year olds are abroad, at festivals, and so on.

Spend 5 minutes in The HE board to see the number who are, sadly, not coping at uni.

I can't understand the worry about changing trains.

We've done lots of narrowboat holidays and very few locks are manned, and even rarer out of season I'm afraid. They really do need to understand the risks, people die in locks, and it isn't about just falling in the water, so the depth can be irrelevant. If the boat gets caught on a cill, that's a major issue. There are all sorts of unexpected currents in a lock too, especially if you are one boat in a large lock.

OP please do try to drum how important this is into him.

And if you do catch the cill, shout to the person winding the lock really loudly to shut the paddles quickly and refill the lock. And thence forth ignore the fact that the rudder needs two people to push it to the right....

Oh and I had read the thread btw, I just thought it odd you mentioned a pain in the arse train journey in your OP but nothing about something which could result in death.
As far as I know no one has died as a result of great western railways being slow.

And yes MOST 18 year olds are fine. They may not make the healthiest of dinners, their sheets are probably disgusting, the train journeys probably take a couple of hours longer, they probably annoy their flat mates by not changing the bin, but they manage. And crucially learn.

In truth NT kids very few cannot cope. And that's meant to be reassuring btw.

what could possibly go wrong?

ok yes I know that the answer is "lots". but on the plus side - they get to feel independent and do something adventurous while never actually being more than a half hour stroll along a towpath to get help if they do sink/ run out of fuel etc.

learning experience. definitely.

the highest risk part of the plan sounds like the going in a teenager's car on the motorway - consider buying a train ticket from Southampton to Birmingham to reduce that risk.

I know very few eighteen year olds who haven’t been to Reading, to Outlook in Croatia, inter railing, working abroad on a gap year or doing a thousand other things. Mine were working in Switzerland from seventeen. At eighteen my son was being handed his commission as an officer in the armed forces.
I rather suspect the ones who can’t cope with university are the overly mollycoddled who are taught fear and anxiety are the correct reaction to an invitation to a nightclub and that danger lurks at every crossroads.
Let him grow up without you chasing his coat tails.

People don’t ‘cope’ at university for all sorts of reasons, blaming it on not being tough enough is an appallingly crass generalisation.

OP I think you are being quite aggressive with posters who are responding quite reasonably to your concerns. The fact that 90+% of posters are horrified that your 18 year old has never traveled on public transport before should tell you something.

I do think that there are real concerns with a group of 18 year old boys doing this sort of holiday - but not the ones you have detailed. I would be really concerned if it was my 18 year old and his mates on a canal boat but that's because I don't trust them to be sensible around alcohol.

Your DS will be absolutely fine on his train journey and they'll manage to feed themselves for 4 days. The pp suggesting that they video the instruction talk on their phones is a good idea.

As long as they stay relatively sober and agree that the boy with canal boat experience is 'leader' they should be fine.

Myself and 4 friends did this when we left 6th form

We didn't want to work the lock so just went up and down same stretch for 4 days.

I can't work out if the op is serious or pulling all our legs.

This is how you learn to do things, by doing them.

*We didn't want to work the lock so just went up and down same stretch for 4 days.

How far was the stretch?

Okay, thanks to all the helpful posters.

Well done you, all of you whose DC were running Camp America at 17.

Let's hope your generalisations about how young people should behave, be, achieve - based on your experience of one never fail you.

Good night.

My goodness you’re rude.

You know what @Miljea , I've been thinking about this again and I think that a lot of posters, myself included, have been quite harsh in this thread. We've read your OP, thought about our own confident and sociable teenagers and wondered what on earth is going on.

But that's the point of your post isn't it? Your DS isn't confident and sociable. He has always struggled to make friends and so this is a really big deal for him. He's not made that solo train journey simply because he doesn't go out, has nowhere to go. I do get why your worried, really. Not only are there all these 'firsts' for him there must be the question of how he's going to fit in with the group.

Given that the other teenagers are older than him and actually at university I wouldn't worry about their ability to get themselves from a to b and plan food; they'll have done this before and your DS will just go along with what's going on.

The alcohol issue remains and I would just hope that they are sensible. I'm guessing your DS doesn't really go out drinking, may not want to stand out if others are drinking and won't know his tolerance levels. So a worry. Again I hope they are a sensible group.

Yes, make sure he has plenty of warm things and waterproofs, and going through the canal boat rules, procedures etc before hand is a good idea.

I really hope he has a nice time.

Cherrypavlova- and so are you!!

OP I can see where you're coming from when you have a socially awkward teen. My first instinct was to think the same as others, can't believe he can't do that etc.

However when you really take time to think about it and consider your later posts, I can understand why you're anxious.

I can't help with the practical side of things, never having been in a long boat.

My DS is going backpacking for nearly 4 months the next Saturday - at least you don't have the Coronavirus to worry about!!!

It’s not rude to point out someone is being rude. Unless this would be an endless cycle of
“Actually THAT was rude Pasanda”.

No where has Cherry been anything that would be considered rude, but it’s fun to jump on people.