Wolverhampton 21

[dmr]

There is a longish pound about 3/4 way down which if empty is quite difficult to fill. Last time I did the the 21 was lock hobbling for mtb (remember him) in one of his silly deep boats and it took all day. Did have beers in the Great Western afterwards, the only reason for doing the 21.

 

...............Dave

[Laurie Booth]

27 minutes ago, dmr said:

85% for scripture, never realised you were a religious man, feel guilty now for leading you astray in so many pubs ?

 

...............Dave

Yep, my best subject at school. Nowt in the Bible about not going in pubs  You can keep leading me astray

[dmr]

2 minutes ago, Laurie Booth said:

Yep, my best subject at school. Nowt in the Bible about not going in pubs  You can keep leading me astray

Actually yes, I think there is a bit about wine ? but not sure about any mention of beer in Ma Pardoes.

 

...............Dave

[Rob-M]

9 hours ago, The Bearwood Boster said:

We actually really enjoy the 21 which we've done loads of times.There can be a lack of water problem if you set off early up or down.But...CRT are usually about to sort things out.

We usually start at the bottom at about 7:30 and nearly always see someone from CRT checking the pounds and letting water down.

[colmac]

Last time we did it from the Black Country museum we had to stop 5 times to clear the prop of weeds, mind you it was mid summer so the weeds were probably growing a bit more.

[ditchcrawler]

On 04/10/2020 at 09:00, Keeping Up said:

  My favourite moorings are at Tipton, about half a mile before the museum. Good mooring on the towpath plus also opposite (outside the Health Centre there)

Know as John the Lock Moorings, much quieter , road wise than the museum moorings and good Indian takeaways close by. They are about 2 hours from the top of the 21. There are very secure moorings on the off side after the first bridge at the top of the 21 opposite the services, the only access is by boat.

[Peter X]

I'd echo that, doing the 21 has always been fun for me. I've only done it as one of the crew on the NBT pair, loaded with cargo, going up, but several times.

The problems it presents can be awkward:

Lock 20, the second one up from the bottom, always seems to have some debris and silt behind the bottom gate on the towpath side, making it difficult to open. It helps that  the NBT carry a keb and we know how to use it.

Due to cobblestones and low headroom under some bridges, be careful if cycling on the towpath.

It's not unknown for one or more pounds to get drained, either due to vandalism or to boaters making mistakes and leaving paddles open. But CRT are aware of this and come to the rescue. I remember one night when, moored between locks 15 and 16 I think we were (not sure), I woke up in the morning on the butty cross bed with my weight pressing my head against the hull. Sleeping had become impossible due to the boat listing as the pound drained. A CRT man appeared and explained they were running water down the flight to help us. So while the rest of the crew got up and ready, I cooked breakfast for everyone on a hob sloping down towards me, very carefully holding on to the frying pan handles. We ate, got out and did the locks, and on we went. Happy days.

Wolverhampton seems to have a bad reputation, but it's not so awful, I've found the people to be generally OK., and it's hard to dislike the town which gave us the excellent TV series "Raised by Wolves"! But there is often litter in the canal. Serious litter; I once saw one of those big steel pedestrian barriers lying flat in the mud.

 

Mooring at the top is not too difficult or unwise. And it's handy for the shops.

 

I too have Latin O level; grade 4, my exam board used numbers. I never found it useful for doing lock flights, and when I met nicknorman once in 2018 we had a nice brief chat but none of it was in Latin.

I am...X

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Without Latin:   I  can descend the  21 locks on me tod in 3 hrs

Piss easy flight 

Piss piss easy
How do you say piss easy in Latin? 

 

 

 

[Tracy D'arth]

6 minutes ago, Goliath said:

Without Latin:   I  can descend the  21 locks on me tod in 3 hrs

Piss easy flight 

Piss piss easy
How do you say piss easy in Latin? 

 

 

 

 

facile defricatus urina

[Peter X]

Google translate is the easy way; they cater for Romans too:

facile defricatus urina

I don't think I've ever been down the 21, but 3 hours single handed sounds quick, especially as the locks are rather spread out.

[dave moore]

We went down the 21 in the mid 60s with Cactus, steered by Malcom Braine. An hour and 25 minutes from top to bottom, strapping in while bottom gates paddles were started. Every next lock ready, I think there were 4 of us altogether.. Malcom steering, myself and Roger Ainsworth with the boat, Chris Nichols setting ahead. I’ve never bettered that time after many transits since.

[MrsM]

We really enjoyed it (the flight) and had the best time at the Black Country Living Museum. V pleased to find a pump-out at the facilities block there as this was not mentioned in our Nicholson edition. Enjoyed the tunnel trip but sad not to have a go at legging due to beeping Covid. While I'm not sure about all the new branding it's nice to see that CRT have got recycling bins along the towpaths into Birmingham.

[dmr]

1 hour ago, Peter X said:

Google translate is the easy way; they cater for Romans too:

facile defricatus urina

I don't think I've ever been down the 21, but 3 hours single handed sounds quick, especially as the locks are rather spread out.

Goliath can do a narrow lock single handed slightly quicker than we can with one steerer and one locker, so with a good road 3 hours might be possible. We usually take much longer but usually have Great Western Hangovers.

I bet the bugger leaves the gates open behind him ?

 

................Dave

[cuthound]

12 hours ago, Goliath said:

Without Latin:   I  can descend the  21 locks on me tod in 3 hrs

Piss easy flight 

Piss piss easy
How do you say piss easy in Latin? 

 

 

 

 

Were you on your bike? ??

[Tacet]

12 hours ago, dave moore said:

We went down the 21 in the mid 60s with Cactus, steered by Malcom Braine. An hour and 25 minutes from top to bottom, strapping in while bottom gates paddles were started. Every next lock ready, I think there were 4 of us altogether.. Malcom steering, myself and Roger Ainsworth with the boat, Chris Nichols setting ahead. I’ve never bettered that time after many transits since.

We manage 1h 22mins descending - but it was mobhanded and a clear run.  With a more experienced team we might have been able to shave 5 minutes . 

 

As it was in a 57ft boat, I reckon your 1h 25 mins in a full length is the better time.   If you are engaging reverse to stop the boat, a shorter vessel has more time to slow its pace after the gates are closed.  But how does it work when strapping in?  Do you have to take it gently at the approach or can you enter the lock with gusto?

 

There is some hydraulic effect when a boat enter a chamber which causes it to slow - which must be a function of the cross section of the boat compared to the lock at the cill.  I find that if you approach the lock too fast, the  current of water leaving the chamber pushes the bow towards the nearest side as inevitably you are nearer one side than another.  It can can result in quite a clunk which supports relativity theory that the lock becomes narrower the faster it is approached.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

13 hours ago, dmr said:

Goliath can do a narrow lock single handed slightly quicker than we can with one steerer and one locker, so with a good road 3 hours might be possible. We usually take much longer but usually have Great Western Hangovers.

I bet the bugger leaves the gates open behind him ?

 

................Dave

On that flight the bottom gates are very easy to close using a pole from the back of the boat. 
 

Canalplanner gives 3hr 13min for the flight. 

[dave moore]

It’s a long time ago now and things were different then, as I recall Malcolm entered at a good speed, stepped off with the strap and put it round the post. As the gate started to close we whipped up the bottom paddles which helped the top gate to shut. As soon as we had level, the gates were open and Cactus was headed for the next lock. I think we closed gates behind her, before running ahead to the next lock. Malcolm, of course, was well versed in the ways of professional boatmen, using the boat where possible to take the work out of things. A very different ethos exists today.....

[Guest]

Ascended the 21 single-handed today in 6 hours. It would have been leisurely 4 1/2 hours, but I spent the extra time retrieving the boat below lock number 2 as she drifted away whilst I was emptying it. Spent a while trying to flush her back down to lock number 3, but she settled quite comfortably in the shallows against the bushes on the offside half way along the pound. Waded across the bywash of lock 3 and battled my way through the dense foliage and down the bank and stepped tentatively into the depths where I was met with more spindly tangled branches and eventually managed to haul myself up onto the stern. 

 

This isn't a mooring recommendation by the way. 

[David Mack]

7 hours ago, Rumsky said:

Ascended the 21 single-handed today in 6 hours. It would have been leisurely 4 1/2 hours, but I spent the extra time retrieving the boat below lock number 2 as she drifted away whilst I was emptying it. Spent a while trying to flush her back down to lock number 3, but she settled quite comfortably in the shallows against the bushes on the offside half way along the pound. Waded across the bywash of lock 3 and battled my way through the dense foliage and down the bank and stepped tentatively into the depths where I was met with more spindly tangled branches and eventually managed to haul myself up onto the stern. 

 

This isn't a mooring recommendation by the way. 

Back in 1993, I nearly lost the boat below Lock 3, when it drifted too far is I shut the bottom gates, going down. Unwilling to countenance the prospect of what you had to do, and with my 10 week old firstborn son on board alone, I made a split second decision to leap from the lock side onto the boat. 

I would probably have been OK if it wasn't for the taff rail around the cruiser stern. Caught my foot on it, went base over apex and landed in a heap on the deck. And couldn't stand up again. One broken ankle and the other severely bruised. 

Jacqui had gone setting ahead and eventually returned wondering why I hadn't started to work through the next lock. We made it down the locks to Autherley Junction, moored up and took a taxi to hospital where the damage was diagnosed and I left with a plaster cast, pair of crutches and a copy of my X-ray to show at the local hospital when I got home.

Spent the next 2.5 weeks of our extended hire boat trip with me doing all the steering and Jacqui doing the locks, getting up to Llangollen, then via the Caldon Canal to Coventry and Braunston and back to Bidford on Avon.

As my Mother, who joined us for part of the trip, said after one particularly long day, "Not bad for an old age pensioner, a nursing mother, a babe in arms and a man with a broken leg!"

[Guest]

3 hours ago, David Mack said:

Back in 1993, I nearly lost the boat below Lock 3, when it drifted too far is I shut the bottom gates, going down. Unwilling to countenance the prospect of what you had to do, and with my 10 week old firstborn son on board alone, I made a split second decision to leap from the lock side onto the boat. 

I would probably have been OK if it wasn't for the taff rail around the cruiser stern. Caught my foot on it, went base over apex and landed in a heap on the deck. And couldn't stand up again. One broken ankle and the other severely bruised. 

Jacqui had gone setting ahead and eventually returned wondering why I hadn't started to work through the next lock. We made it down the locks to Autherley Junction, moored up and took a taxi to hospital where the damage was diagnosed and I left with a plaster cast, pair of crutches and a copy of my X-ray to show at the local hospital when I got home.

Spent the next 2.5 weeks of our extended hire boat trip with me doing all the steering and Jacqui doing the locks, getting up to Llangollen, then via the Caldon Canal to Coventry and Braunston and back to Bidford on Avon.

As my Mother, who joined us for part of the trip, said after one particularly long day, "Not bad for an old age pensioner, a nursing mother, a babe in arms and a man with a broken leg!"

Ouch! Sounds like I got away lightly. The other occasion the boat has drifted away when exiting a lock and was pushed out by flowing water, I was able to make the leap of faith without encountering a taff rail so both feet planted firmly where they were needed. Not something I'd want to do regularly though, misjudge it and you see the result. 

[MrsM]

15 hours ago, Rumsky said:

Ascended the 21 single-handed today in 6 hours. It would have been leisurely 4 1/2 hours, but I spent the extra time retrieving the boat below lock number 2 as she drifted away whilst I was emptying it. Spent a while trying to flush her back down to lock number 3, but she settled quite comfortably in the shallows against the bushes on the offside half way along the pound. Waded across the bywash of lock 3 and battled my way through the dense foliage and down the bank and stepped tentatively into the depths where I was met with more spindly tangled branches and eventually managed to haul myself up onto the stern. 

 

This isn't a mooring recommendation by the way. 

My goodness what a pain and I tilt my hat at you for your endeavours recovering your boat. 

7 hours ago, David Mack said:

Back in 1993, I nearly lost the boat below Lock 3, when it drifted too far is I shut the bottom gates, going down. Unwilling to countenance the prospect of what you had to do, and with my 10 week old firstborn son on board alone, I made a split second decision to leap from the lock side onto the boat. 

I would probably have been OK if it wasn't for the taff rail around the cruiser stern. Caught my foot on it, went base over apex and landed in a heap on the deck. And couldn't stand up again. One broken ankle and the other severely bruised. 

Jacqui had gone setting ahead and eventually returned wondering why I hadn't started to work through the next lock. We made it down the locks to Autherley Junction, moored up and took a taxi to hospital where the damage was diagnosed and I left with a plaster cast, pair of crutches and a copy of my X-ray to show at the local hospital when I got home.

Spent the next 2.5 weeks of our extended hire boat trip with me doing all the steering and Jacqui doing the locks, getting up to Llangollen, then via the Caldon Canal to Coventry and Braunston and back to Bidford on Avon.

As my Mother, who joined us for part of the trip, said after one particularly long day, "Not bad for an old age pensioner, a nursing mother, a babe in arms and a man with a broken leg!"

Amazing story. You are all heroes. X

[Dav and Pen]

Before all the road works( improvements) there was a pub at the top lock which sold excellent Springfield bitter the brewery being about half way down the flight. There was usually lots of travelers on some waste ground and the kids thought nothing of dropping bricks on you. Always very pleased to get through without any trouble. No anti vandal keys then but a quick easy flight.

[Iceni_exporer]

Hi

 

I'm single handed heading for The Wolverhampton Flight.

 

Is there anywhere safe to stop in the flight ?

 

Wondering about spreading the challenge over 2 days

 

Mike

[Captain Pegg]

3 minutes ago, Iceni_exporer said:

Hi

 

I'm single handed heading for The Wolverhampton Flight.

 

Is there anywhere safe to stop in the flight ?

 

Wondering about spreading the challenge over 2 days

 

Mike

I have seen a hire boat give up and moor up between locks while I was descending one evening. The locks are more spread out as you descend but there’s no proper mooring.  Be aware that it is a flight that’s prone to pounds draining overnight.

 

If you moor overnight at the top doing 21 locks in one day shouldn’t be too much of a problem, unless you’re not used to single handing or not fully mobile.

[Rob-M]

5 minutes ago, Iceni_exporer said:

Hi

 

I'm single handed heading for The Wolverhampton Flight.

 

Is there anywhere safe to stop in the flight ?

 

Wondering about spreading the challenge over 2 days

 

Mike

What will you be doing for the other day and a half...?

 

It isn't a difficult flight, other than quite near the bottom of the flight I've never seen anyone moored.  It isn't unusual for a few pounds to be empty in the morning so I wouldn't want to moor in them overnight.