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Dee above Llangollen


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For those of you who know the Chain Bridge Hotel above Llangollen; they posted this photo of the Dee, from their dining room window, on Facebook this morning. I've never seen the Dee looking even remotely like this before; I wonder what Horseshoe Falls look like, and just how much current there is on the canal right now.

 

 

FB_IMG_1552852331598.jpg

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Wow.  Looks a bit concerning.

 

Slightly off topic, there was a time when you could take one's boat beyond the town, on the canal of course, and I remember reaching Horsehoe Falls.  Even though it was a 17ft boat, it had to be reversed back a fair way to to find the space to turn it.

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3 hours ago, Tacet said:

Wow.  Looks a bit concerning.

 

Slightly off topic, there was a time when you could take one's boat beyond the town, on the canal of course, and I remember reaching Horsehoe Falls.  Even though it was a 17ft boat, it had to be reversed back a fair way to to find the space to turn it.

 

I tried it in a hire boat some 30 years ago. As soon as we tried to go beyond the town moorings we went hard aground on a gravel bar. I assume it was placed there deliberately to prevent all but the shallowest draft boats going any further - and to protect the commercial interests of the horse drawn trip boat.

 

I seem to recall themodern Roger Fuller butty Phoebe made the trip all the way up to Horseshoe Falls several years ago.

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We stayed at the hotel in 2008, same rough current, but nowhere near as high.  Left the balcony door open so the rushing water could lull us to sleep.   BTW - very reasonable prices for such a nice place. (then).

We had taken our paddle-driven boat to Llangollen twice in 1973, and she went there again after I sold her.

 

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We're cruising up the Llangollen canal at the moment and have been almost coming to a standstill at some bridges such is the strength of the flow - we just thought that was normal for this time of year around here ?

 

Thanks for the pics - we'll be in Llangollen soon to take a look!

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12 hours ago, David Mack said:

 

I tried it in a hire boat some 30 years ago. As soon as we tried to go beyond the town moorings we went hard aground on a gravel bar. I assume it was placed there deliberately to prevent all but the shallowest draft boats going any further - and to protect the commercial interests of the horse drawn trip boat.

 

I seem to recall themodern Roger Fuller butty Phoebe made the trip all the way up to Horseshoe Falls several years ago.

We got beyond in 1986 in a Chas Hardern Hire Boat, but decided that going all the way to the end was too much faff - I'd already done it in a car top dinghy with outboard, we sheered the pin on going past the town moorings on (probably the same) gravel bar - I'd assumed it had been thrown up by boats turning there. 

 

The canal between Llangollen and Horseshoe Falls is only incidentally navigable - I'm not sure it was intended for navigation and I'm pretty certain it never took a toll. 

 

Does anyone know, before they put the gauging house at the top, whether there was any sluice or structure at all? I guess there was otherwise on days like this the canal would be very full!

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11 minutes ago, Boater Sam said:

A deep draughted boat usually stops in the bridges, the flow is always high to feed Hurleston reservoir for Crewe and Nantwich.

Wait till you try to stop going back down!

 

Yeah - looking forward to it! Should use half as much fuel!! ? 

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9 minutes ago, MartinV said:

Yeah - looking forward to it! Should use half as much fuel!! ? 

And get back a bit quicker!

I have an idea they increase the flow at night,  but during the day I reckon the flow is about half a mile per hour.  Doesn't sound much, but if you are doing three miles an hour through the water, then you are doing 2.5mph going up and 3.5mph coming back, which is quite a significant difference.

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2 minutes ago, dor said:

And get back a bit quicker!

I have an idea they increase the flow at night,  but during the day I reckon the flow is about half a mile per hour.  Doesn't sound much, but if you are doing three miles an hour through the water, then you are doing 2.5mph going up and 3.5mph coming back, which is quite a significant difference.

Interesting!  We've had to start mooring at the front to a mooring ring (when available) to the side and a chain forward of the bow because we're moving so much when moored.

 

That could also be due to the number of hire boats going past at speed though ? 

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52 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

We got beyond in 1986 in a Chas Hardern Hire Boat, but decided that going all the way to the end was too much faff - I'd already done it in a car top dinghy with outboard, we sheered the pin on going past the town moorings on (probably the same) gravel bar - I'd assumed it had been thrown up by boats turning there. 

 

The canal between Llangollen and Horseshoe Falls is only incidentally navigable - I'm not sure it was intended for navigation and I'm pretty certain it never took a toll. 

 

Does anyone know, before they put the gauging house at the top, whether there was any sluice or structure at all? I guess there was otherwise on days like this the canal would be very full!

As far as I am aware the feeder was used for freight, possibly slate and limestone, the horse boat warf as is was used to load.

 

The gravel bar is intentional to stop navigation as there's nowhere to wind, the horse boat just swaps the horse to the other end :)

 

I did hear a story that the trip boat operators tried to design and boat with a propeller in a tube to avoid damage for the trip up to the falls, could be an urban myth though 

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AFAIK the amount of water that flows from the Dee onto the Llangollen Canal is simply a small fraction of the total, and is between a min and max amount, somewhat related to its role as water feeder for the Hurleston Reservoir. So an increased flow on the river wouldn't really impact the canal. And I can't see them using the canal to "relieve" excess flow on the River Dee  - they'd simply allow nature to take its course and allow the Dee to flow whatever it does. After all the Dee has flooded many times historically.

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9 minutes ago, Paul C said:

AFAIK the amount of water that flows from the Dee onto the Llangollen Canal is simply a small fraction of the total, and is between a min and max amount, somewhat related to its role as water feeder for the Hurleston Reservoir. So an increased flow on the river wouldn't really impact the canal. And I can't see them using the canal to "relieve" excess flow on the River Dee  - they'd simply allow nature to take its course and allow the Dee to flow whatever it does. After all the Dee has flooded many times historically.

Surely there must come a point where the Dee at Horseshoe Falls would be high enough to overtop the controlling sluice there. 

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22 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

Surely there must come a point where the Dee at Horseshoe Falls would be high enough to overtop the controlling sluice there. 

Surely there are spill weirs on the canal for just that event.

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  • 4 weeks later...
5 minutes ago, Heartland said:

When I produced the Border Canal book it was clear that the Weavers had taken a small boat up to the chain bridge 

47888.jpg

Which one are do you call a small one, the one in the foreground or the one by the pub?

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5 minutes ago, Heartland said:

When I produced the Border Canal book it was clear that the Weavers had taken a small boat up to the chain bridge 

47888.jpg

And someone else a much larger one!

 

In the days when people went pleasure boating in what amounted to small dinghies with cabins on* then a trip to Horseshoe Falls would not be problematic

 

*This is not supposed to be derogatory - I quite like the idea! 

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2 hours ago, coastiefrank said:

We are at Ellesmere and there is hardly any flow on the canal at the moment.  I have no idea why it would be like that on the Dee as it has been quite dry for the last few days.

 

Because the pic was posted a month ago.

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When we went up to Llangollen in 2010 (I had no idea it was so long ago, but I’ve looked it up) The was an open day at the metre house, so we went for a look inside.  The water from the Dee goes into a big pipe, which then narrows, then widens again — using the Bernoulli principle to draw water into the canal.  Because of this, I’d be surprised if much extra water made it into the canal in periods of high flow on the river, because only so much can get through the pipe.

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