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Bath Boats left underwater


Naughty Cal

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The automatic control systems for sluice gates don't seem to be designed like the critical systems they are, with redundancy of sensors, voting, monitoring, and so on. Something similar happened on the Weaver a few weeks ago when the sluices at Vale Royal opened wide and emptied the top end of the river, stranding boats and causing excess water problems downstream.

 

MP.

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3 hours ago, MoominPapa said:

The automatic control systems for sluice gates don't seem to be designed like the critical systems they are, with redundancy of sensors, voting, monitoring, and so on. Something similar happened on the Weaver a few weeks ago when the sluices at Vale Royal opened wide and emptied the top end of the river, stranding boats and causing excess water problems downstream.

 

MP.

It happens elsewhere. The sluice Gates at Holme lock are remotely operated and monitored and occasionally things go wrong. They have both stopped the flow and raised dramatically the river level thro Nottingham and dropped the river to a dangerously low level whilst I have been out on the Notts Princess a boat which especially air draught is critical for. Had I not noticed one dark night I would have ploughed the upper deck into Trent Bridge. 

Edited by mrsmelly
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15 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

It happens elsewhere. The sluice Gates at Holme lock are remotely operated and monitored and occasionally things go wrong. They have both stopped the flow and raised dramatically the river level thro Nottingham and dropped the river to a dangerously low level whilst I have been out on the Notts Princess a boat which especially air draught is critical for. Had I not noticed one dark night I would have ploughed the upper deck into Trent Bridge. 

The EA sluices at Stamp End, Lincoln play up on a regular basis. They are currently replacing the sluices so hopefully they are replacing the control gear at the same time.

  • Greenie 1
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This happened to us on the Meuse in France a few years ago. The sluice gates were held down by hydraulic pressure. Some local vandals worked out that if they cut through the hydraulic pipes the gates spring up and let all the water go. Apart from grounding our boat at 45 degrees the wave swept children from a beach below the weir and put a Nuclear Power Plant that drew water from that reach into shutdown. Never realised how difficult it is to move about a boat healing that far over. Luckily when the pound was refilled the boat started to lift just as the water was lapping the gunnels. The French locals were fantastic in supporting the boaters.

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27 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

The EA sluices at Stamp End, Lincoln play up on a regular basis. They are currently replacing the sluices so hopefully they are replacing the control gear at the same time.

One would hope so - usually there is not much wrong with the sluices, although obviously gearing gets worn, it's the control mechanism that causes the problem. 

 

In the case of the ones at Twerton they go up when they shouldn't, or stay up when they should go down. 

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3 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Depends how many minutes it drops for ...

 

20mm doesn't really matter, but 1.8m (~6 feet!) really isn't good for unattended boats not expecting severe level changes.

 

In 90 minutes. 

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15 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Clearly this situation is serious, but Somerset Live is a panic-rag of the first order aided and abetted by a local population all to ready to cry foul and lap up tales of gloom and doom - and I live here! I was slightly surprised to find similar instances of sluice failure elsewhere as for some reason only ours result in people from the Midlands and beyond telling the world that CRT in Bath should do a better job with sluices they don't own.

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The real damage seems to be on Weston Cut - I didn't get that far yesterday but photos suggest it has completely emptied and boats have tipped over. If the level fell six feet then that's what will happen

 

EA have also issued a statement (it's in today's times) acknowledging their gate has caused the problem and effectively admitting they don't know why. Presumably the previous problem had been fixed. 

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22 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Clearly this situation is serious, but Somerset Live is a panic-rag of the first order aided and abetted by a local population all to ready to cry foul and lap up tales of gloom and doom - and I live here!

Another local paper now part of the Reach PLC Group, formerly Trinity Mirror Group, so is it any wonder.

 

They took over our local rag in 1999 and slowly drove it into the ground, moved printing to Oldham, moved office to outskirts of town and then shut it. Its now a joke of a paper employing freelance journalists who trawl the local Facebook groups to lift stories often without permission for clickbait articles for its own "Live" website.

Not fit to wrap yer chips in :(  the name of the editor says it all, Mr W. Ankers

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2 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

Another local paper now part of the Reach PLC Group, formerly Trinity Mirror Group, so is it any wonder.

 

They took over our local rag in 1999 and slowly drove it into the ground, moved printing to Oldham, moved office to outskirts of town and then shut it. Its now a joke of a paper employing freelance journalists who trawl the local Facebook groups to lift stories often without permission for clickbait articles for its own "Live" website.

Not fit to wrap yer chips in :(  the name of the editor says it all, Mr W. Ankers

Our local went the same way.

 

Cheeky buggers once quoted me based on a post I made on a local Facebook group. Ok yes the comment was in the public domain but the way the report was written clearly implied I'd spoken directly to them which of course I hadnt.

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