The F Word comes to the river Cam

This morning we sent this e-mail to the Ouse  Valley River Club, with a copy to the Environment Agency. The incident with the fisherman at Holywell was bad enough, but this was ridiculous. Yes, it was a tight fit but, at no point was there any danger of us hitting him and we moored on double springers so that MR wouldn't move. There was also no wind. When he jumped out of his boat I thought he was going to either take our rope for us or move up a bit!!!!! The, "passing boater," who was also told to f*** off was also a narrowboat so I think he has heavy metal issues. If you are on a narrowboat between Waterbeach and Cambridge, then he's coming your way (NB Lucky Duck you have been warned).

Dear Commodore,

I am making a formal complaint against one of your members who verbally abused  both myself, my husband and a passing boater and physically threatened my husband.

Last evening we were approaching the EA Moorings on Fidwell Fen River Cam, my husband had pulled our 66ft narrowboat alongside a gap which was in between two cruisers positioned at either end of the mooring, to assess whether he could safely moor and his decision was that there was enough room.

My Husband reversed our boat into the gap leaving the front of the boat out in the river handed the helm to me and he went to the bank with our centre line, to ease the bow into the gap so as not to touch the cruiser in front. At this moment the owner of the Cruiser 'Scotch Mist' Reg No G9866 exited his boat screaming abuse at my husband. The level of this abuse was such that it could clearly be heard, over the engine noise, by a passing boater who asked him to moderate his language. At this stage, the stream of invective was redirected to the passing boater and backed up with sign language.

As the boater passed he then continued his abuse in our direction with suggestions as to what we should do with our, "lump of metal" before approaching my husband with raised clenched fists, threatening to sort him out.

At no point did we return the abusive language or threatening behaviour and, after mooring, I tried to have a quiet word in the hope that he might quieten down but he was not to be pacified. This 'gentlemen' clearly has an anger management problem and sets a very bad example for, not only your Club, but boaters in general. River users should not be subjected to these, or any, levels of abuse whilst quietly going about their business.

Yours faithfully,

Jill Budd

NB Matilda Rose


OK, so I'm making a joke of it now, but it leaves me feeling quite sick and shaky - I came very close to calling the police. I probably should have done but there is no road access to this mooring and I didn't get the name of the "passing" narrowboat. The guy on the boat behind slept through it (or pretended to) and I really didn't want to waste anymore of our time on him with making statements etc.