Remember the film Jaws? Dah-dum... dah-dum... (pause while girl swimming looks around with a sense of fear)... dum-dum-dum-dum, dum-dum-dum-dum... (scream)

One of the best things about the movie, and what made it genuinely scary, was that you didn't get to see the shark much - instead you mainly saw the fear it generated, and occasionally its leftovers. Eew.

The scariest thing about the Canal du Midi (...dah-dum...) is not a wayward water-dwelling creature, but something much, much more terrifying: The Hire Boat (scream!).

The Midi is festooned - if not infected - with hire boat operators, who offer you the chance to experience life on the canals 'sans permis', which basically means you pay them money and they give you a boat for a week, or whatever, and you don't need a licence, permit or any sort of experience. Here's the keys, off you go.

But from our experience - along with the warnings we've been given by other more experienced boaters - the Hire Boat is to be feared, and avoided if at all possible. It is the shark of the canals.

And like the baddie in Jaws, hire boats attack at the most unexpected times, and can wreak as much damage. They tend to appear just as you're rounding a sharp bend on the canal, aiming straight for you, but with multiple people up on the flybridge wrestling for control of the craft. Alas yes, it seems most hire boats are steered by committees, and as we all know, an elephant is a mouse designed by a committee. Therefore, committees on boats don't work, simple as that.

The word Captain, or Skipper, is a singlular noun, applying specifically to the one person in charge of a vessel. The word Bungle is a collective noun, and applies to the group of people up top who believe that thay are all in charge of the hire boat's speed and direction. When you see a Bungle driving a hire boat, be afraid.

Just the other day we were approaching one of said bends in the canal and, knowing it was blind, tooted our horn, a lovely stainless steel trumpet of a thing that belts out a 130 decibel parp that says without doubt, We. Are. Here.

But it had no effect whatsoever on the long sleek hire craft that hurtled round the corner in our direction, and as we throttled off and turned our wheel in evasive action, the bungle on this boat all reached for anything resembling a lever or wheel and successfully steered their craft straight into the bank. Their bow rose up momentarily, and we thought they were about to take a short cut through a vineyard, but in fact the boat just ground to a halt with its pointy end aimed skywards.

As we slid by, they slid back off the bank, with no obvious damage to anything other than egos. Possibly their gin and tonic bottles had fallen over below, but that would be about the extent of it.

That's just one example of hire boat madness. Most of the others have been at the locks, where boats have to squeeze through the gap between the lock gates to enter and exit. This gap leaves about a metre on either side of the boat (depending on your beam), and providing you take it slowly - and account for the wind if it's blowing - it's usually quite straightforward. But not so for hire boats, who just before entering a lock activate their bow and/or stern thrusters to get themselves straightened up, only to slew sideways into the lock and bang and bounce their way in. Maybe this is where the word Barge comes from.

The other lighter side of the hirees is watching them trying to moor the boat to the lock's bollards. It's at this point the main Bungle splits into individual bunglettes, some of whom stand on deck and throw ropes to others standing at the edge of the lock - ropes wihich inevitably fall in the water. Meanwhile, the sole bungle left in charge has managed to get his boat sideways across the lock. There is much shouting and yelling between all concerned, often in Dutch, German or even Russian. The sea battles in Master and Commander pale by comparison.

We, of course, did all this in the early stages of owning Liberty, so we shouldn't be too smug, but the hire boats' efforts make us look like experts. One large Russian guy on a hire craft in front of us yesterday called me Indiana Jones after he watched me throw our stern rope round a bollard first time. Phnar, phnar.

So why are hire boatees so hopeless? Why do they go too fast on the straight bits, and take the corners dangerously? Why can't they steer their boats neatly into locks, or throw ropes, or even generally know what to do? I blame education, or in this case a lack of it.

We've spoken to three hire boat couples (none a Bungle, because there are never more than two behind the wheel, though often you still can't tell who's in charge...) and they all told us that they had received little or almost no instruction from the hire boat companies they'd rented from.

Steph and Michael - said their hire company rep hardly spoke any English and seemed to just want to tick the boxes on his checklist. "I'd give them three out of ten," said Steph grumpily. She and her partner were waiting for someone from the company to come and fix their toilet. Eew, again.

Brian and Jean of England agreed about the lack of education. "He showed us the gas stove," said Brian, "but never showed us how to turn it on!" Turns out there was a 'hidden switch', which, luckily, they located. (On the other hand, Jean blamed it all on celebrity TV chef Rick Stein, whose Canal du Midi hotel boat series had given them the idea of going boating. Unfortunatley they had brought no warm clothing or wet weather gear, and had got wet, cold and miserable. 'If I see Rick Stein I'll kill him!' said Jean. She meant it.)

No instruction was given on how to manage locks, which, of all the aspects of canal boating, is probably the most risky, and little mention was made of speed restrictions, which explains why so many hire boats sweep past moored boats causing rocking and rolling. (Mind you, I have to confess I did exactly the same the first time I went out in a rented narrowboat in England many years ago. As I passed a guy working on his boat he called out, 'Oi, he's fallen off!' 'Who has?' I asked. 'The water skier!' the bloke replied. I laughed, and then realised it was his way of telling me to slow down...)

John and Veronica of Australia said much the same thing of their hire boat rep, as did an American guy we spoke to in a lock. 'What instructions?' he asked.

In the end though, there really can only be one skipper in charge on a boat, and it's this lack of understanding that causes the most problems.

Yesterday as a we were having a leisurely start to our day in the port at Colombiers, we witnessed another Attack of the Hire Boat, as a Bungle of Dutch tried to steer their vessel out of the marina. Despite six or seven people all being in charge they managed to swipe the stern of their boat into the bows of two moored boats, scratching the paintwork on one and denting the railings on the other.

As we left we saw two of the crew sheepishly walking back on the quayside with the boat's insurance documents in hand.

Cue music: Dah dumb... dah dumb.... Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb...