Locals blaming boaters for faulty bridge

[Minos]

We used the S&K a couple of times recently on our trip down memory lane (Circe & I met in Nottingham, so a cruise down the Trent had to happen sooner or later.)

 

This is the bridge in question.

 

Anyone who has cruised the S&K will know it is not exactly a tourist attraction: exposed to the wind, straight, crossing featureless countryside, inadequate shops and insufficient pubs. It's quiet and easy on the eye, but there's not much else to say for it.

 

Thorne Lock is an awkward bugger at the best of times, and that's when it doesn't refuse to give you your key back (thanks to MJG, by the way, for your help there!) The footbridge under the flyover, however, is the stroppiest and most uncooperative piece of machinery I have encountered since I last owned a Windows PC.

 

Which brings me to my point: I used to work in the area and know quite a few people who live there. Local lore is that the bridge machinery is 'sabotaged' (for want of a better word) by boaters in order to force engineers to leave it locked open, allowing boaters to pass through without delay and forcing locals to use the flyover.

 

What has caused this damage to the relationship between the boating community and a town which is host to two boatyards and a sizeable marina?

[Grace and Favour]

We used the S&K a couple of times recently on our trip down memory lane (Circe & I met in Nottingham, so a cruise down the Trent had to happen sooner or later.)

 

This is the bridge in question.

 

Anyone who has cruised the S&K will know it is not exactly a tourist attraction: exposed to the wind, straight, crossing featureless countryside, inadequate shops and insufficient pubs. It's quiet and easy on the eye, but there's not much else to say for it.

 

Thorne Lock is an awkward bugger at the best of times, and that's when it doesn't refuse to give you your key back (thanks to MJG, by the way, for your help there!) The footbridge under the flyover, however, is the stroppiest and most uncooperative piece of machinery I have encountered since I last owned a Windows PC.

 

Which brings me to my point: I used to work in the area and know quite a few people who live there. Local lore is that the bridge machinery is 'sabotaged' (for want of a better word) by boaters in order to force engineers to leave it locked open, allowing boaters to pass through without delay and forcing locals to use the flyover.

 

What has caused this damage to the relationship between the boating community and a town which is host to two boatyards and a sizeable marina?

 

One may well find that the 'Local Lore' was started by no more than a singular mischievous comment from a disenchanted 'erbert (boater OR landlubber) after some drunken evening out. - -

(I know - I know - How could anyone think that a boater could troll like that!?!)

 

But - that's all it takes.

[Minos]

Much respect to ANY "disenchanted 'erbert" who can establish their comment so well that it attains the status of "given truth" in a local community.

 

Sounds to me like a troll's wet dream...

[Grace and Favour]

Much respect to ANY "disenchanted 'erbert" who can establish their comment so well that it attains the status of "given truth" in a local community.

 

Sounds to me like a troll's wet dream...

 

I can not but agree- though I trust you appreciate that my theory was no more than that

Edited April 12, 2012 by Grace & Favour

[Guest]

(thanks to MJG, by the way, for your help there!)

 

I'm not sure I helped that much TBH...it did the same to me when we followed you through the next day, I just walked away and circled a few times until it decided it was time to give me my key back... as well as being a nuisance not dropping one of the bottom sluices so that I had to send our boat down and back up again to re-set it all Thorne lock is clearly a bit of a PITA.

 

PS - hadn't made the connection with Circe and you till this post BTW....good to meet you.

[pearley]

On the times we used it earlier in the year, I got the impression that the problem was with the switches fitted to the gates nearest the console. If you lent on them everything seemed to start working properly.

 

Regards

Pete

[Mac of Cygnet]

On the times we used it earlier in the year, I got the impression that the problem was with the switches fitted to the gates nearest the console. If you lent on them everything seemed to start working properly.

 

Regards

Pete

 

My technique latterly has been to gently shoogle both sets of gates until a click is heard and felt from somewhere. Worked last time.

[magpie patrick]

My technique latterly has been to gently shoogle both sets of gates until a click is heard and felt from somewhere. Worked last time.

 

Okay, curiosity time. How do you shoogle something...

 

It reads to me like using a search engine to find a common cormorant...

[Guest]

Okay, curiosity time. How do you shoogle something...

 

It reads to me like using a search engine to find a common cormorant...

 

Jiggle it?

 

Wiggle it?

 

Hit it with a bloody big mooring mallet?

[Mac of Cygnet]

shoogle

[David Mack]

Okay, curiosity time. How do you shoogle something...

 

It reads to me like using a search engine to find a common cormorant...

 

Shoogle