Anderton Boat Lift safety

[homer2911]

Heard that a boat was damaged there recently - anyone have information?

[magpie patrick]

Other than steerer incompetence I find it difficult to see how a boat could be damaged, certainly without NBW or this forum knowing within minutes. That would be some hush up.

 

A boat could be damaged by the caisson it was in emptying due to a leak (but a canal boat should be able to withstand this) or one of the guillotines dropping on it. The second would be difficult to keep out of the national news.

 

A boat was damaged around 30 years ago by the first instance, but the lift was then counterweighted on cables, and the leak meant the caisson went down, and then up again rather rapidly. This caused the long term closure that took around £8 million to fix, and resulted in a return to hydraulic operation.

 

On the sister lifts on the canal du centre, a boat was badly damaged about twenty years ago when it was half way out of the Caisson at the lower level, and the caisson started rising. But this was in Belgium twenty years ago, not in England recently.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong, but beyond a bent rudder or broken window through not paying attention, I'd be surprised

[Suzie_q]

Nothing on the local paper site about it.

 

But then again the boat gathering in Northwich was nearly wiped off the front page by the "Headless Monkey found in street" story.

 

link

 

( I lived in the town for 20 years, so not having a go.)

 

[Paul C]

I too would be interested to know how a boat can be damaged in the Anderton Lift. When you go in there, the boat is tied front & back and the engine is switched off, and the actual vertical movement is very gentle (hardly able to feel it at all). The only thing I can think is a collision with one of the bridges, a feature near there (such as the winding hole which is opposite a weir), hit another boat (its a busy mooring spot) or the guillotine gate came down. With the speed that the baths are able to go up or down, even if there was an inadvertent movement the boat wouldn't be in any great danger. ie if the thing came up while at the bottom, and the gate open, the water would flow out and take the boat with it? Similarly, if it went down at the top, the boat would go back into the chamber.

[frangar]

 

When I worked for a boat trip business we hired a dayboat from preston brook for the bosses birthday.....and we almost capsized that by it riding up on part of the broken weir guard in the nearby winding hole....I was amazed how far you can heel a dayboat over.....it emptied the galley.....and there were only 5 Boatmasters onboard....always thought that would have made a good news story....Ahem!!

 

Cheers

 

Gareth

 

PS Have seen the tripboat try to make the top basin entrance wider...quite spectacularly!...much concrete dust!!

[NB Alton]

We go on the Anderton Lift most months. It was probably about 6 or 7 weeks ago that we were coming back up from the Weaver when we met a couple of BW Health & Safety Staff, investigating an accident. They we interested to see how we managed on the lift being maximum length. They didn't go into a lot of detail, but it appeared that a boat (not full length) coming up the lift had drifted back & caught under the rubber buffer bar at the top rear. It sounded like the stern area of the boat was damaged & I think the emergency stop button pressed to drop the caisson.

 

It didn't sound like it was a major accident, but just something they obviously wanted to avoid happening again.

 

Cheers, Brian

[cheshire~rose]

We went on the trip boat a few weeks ago and the chappy giving us the talk about how it all works was very keen to tell us that all boats have to wait for a bolt to shoot into place in the guillotine gate before they are allowed forward.

This would prevent it from dropping onto a boat

[alan_fincher]

We go on the Anderton Lift most months. It was probably about 6 or 7 weeks ago that we were coming back up from the Weaver when we met a couple of BW Health & Safety Staff, investigating an accident. They we interested to see how we managed on the lift being maximum length. They didn't go into a lot of detail, but it appeared that a boat (not full length) coming up the lift had drifted back & caught under the rubber buffer bar at the top rear. It sounded like the stern area of the boat was damaged & I think the emergency stop button pressed to drop the caisson.

 

It didn't sound like it was a major accident, but just something they obviously wanted to avoid happening again.

 

Cheers, Brian

This was my immediate thought.

 

The rubber safety "buffer" is a "modern" feature, but overhangs the caissons, so if a boat is badly positioned in a caisson , the possibility exists to get caught under one on the ascent.

 

I had heard they actually stop the lift and shuffle the boats sometimes to ensure they will clear it, but as you have not mentioned it with Alton, it sounds like it is not something that always needs to be done with a full length boat.

 

Presumably in trying to prevent one danger, (a boat running straight through when entering, and striking the guillotines at the far end), they created another, (the possibility of your back end ending up coming up underneath a buffer) ?

[NB Alton]

Yes Alan, as you say the rubber buffer is an additional safety feature, but does cause other problems as it effectively reduces the length of the caisson when in the top position. I would think it would be better if the buffer was on a pivot or something allowing it to lift if something pushed on it from underneath.

 

We've never had to stop the lift to re-position the boat, but I have heard of it happening with other boats, usually when boats have moved due to not being tied off correctly.

[The Pipe]

That stop has allready caused one damaged swan neck that I know of. The reason for it is when they tested the lift the boat they used jammed in forward gear and hit the end of the tank. I wonder how they managed in the days of the direct reversing semi-diesels fully loaded as well how many times did one of them go through the end of the tank? Strikes me that as the safety feature is now the hazard so we need a safety feature to protect boats from the safety feature.

[Victor Vectis]

We came up the lift this morning. The C&RT chap was talking to us about this incident, without any prompting from us.

 

He said the boat in question was tied up by only the centre line, despite being asked to retie the boat twice. It drifted backwards as it went up and got it's rear end caught under the stop bar.

 

There is a white line painted on the far end of the cassion, a bit like the cill marker on a lockside, and he said boats need to be tied so that they can't drift back beyond it on the way up.

 

SAM, in 'Red Wharf', on the T&M.

[Paul C]

He said the boat in question was tied up by only the centre line, despite being asked to retie the boat twice. It drifted backwards as it went up and got it's rear end caught under the stop bar.

 

When I did it, the lift keeper (right word?) was fairly insistent that the boat was tied front & back, not centreline.

[Victor Vectis]

When I did it, the lift keeper (right word?) was fairly insistent that the boat was tied front & back, not centreline.

 

When we went down we shared the cassion. The lift keeper told us to tie front and back.

 

This morning we had the lift to ourselves. He, the same chap, told us to tie the back and make sure we didn't drift back towards the white line.

[Liam]

Ariel doesn't have any access from the back cabin into the engine room so I've always been one of the few who need to leave the engine running when going up or down. And because I can't access the fore end without walking down the gunnels, I've only ever been asked to tie the back end off.

 

When I went down the lift with the butty (Joe, full length) at Easter, I was asked to leave reverse gear engaged during the descent. I did do this but have now decided I won't be doing that again as the gearbox didn't seem to like ticking over in reverse for over half an hour especially as I'll be using the lift a lot in future.

[Alf27]

Liam, bout time you updated your web site init ?