GU Gates Going Down

[mark99]

You steer in via one gate and other always opens. How do you minimise/counter this.

 

 

[Chertsey]

Get a smaller, shallower drafted, or even better, narrower boat?

 

Any more sensible suggestions greatly welcomed by me too. I am guessing that it is caused by the water displaced by the boat having nowhere else to go, but that smaller boats would have less of an effect?

[Bobbybass]

You steer in via one gate and other always opens. How do you minimise/counter this.

 

 

Get your wife to sit on it..(The gate)

[john6767]

Get your wife to sit on it..(The gate)

That works, and on the gate too.

 

Other than that just go in slower and it will open less, such that you don't actually need to shut it manually and you can open the paddles a bit and let the water shut it.

[RLWP]

Not a lot you can do. The boat entering the lock displaces water which, as it flows out opens the gate

 

Richard

[alan_fincher]

That's what generally happens..........

 

You are "posting" a blooming great boat into the lock, and the result of this is that all the water it displaces has to flow back past it, out of the top gates. Obviously some can pass under the boat, but much tries to pass down the sides of it, hence what happens.

 

The deeper draughted or wider the boat the worse the effect is, and similarly the faster you go in, the worse it gets.

Crawling in, sometimes the gates will stay put, but otherwise expect them to swing open most times.

 

If you have two on board as you enter the lock, then I suggest the one not steering steps off onto the end of the closed gate, before it swings open. They will be on the right side to re-close that one, and the steerer can close the one on the side they came in.

 

If you are alone steering, it is possible, with a bit of practice, to use a cabin shaft, (aka boat hook!), to "hook" the handrail of the gate and restrain it as it starts to swing, and still bring the boat to a halt before the shaft is ripped from your hands. I can now do this 80 to 90% of the time, (unless there is a huge audience, when it has a habit of going spectacularly wrong!)

[Paul C]

I guess the gates on GU are easier to open and close than other broad canals I've done locks on, such as the SU and Droitwich canals. Here, the gates are normally sufficiently stiff to open that a really slow entry, knocking it into neutral as you slide in, can keep the gate from moving enough (it will probably move a few inches) so that you can operate the paddle and have them gently close (not slam) and have saved yourself walking to the other side of the lock, or messing around with poles, grabbing gates while driving, etc

[alan_fincher]

If you try entering GU locks slow enough from the top that the second gate doesn't move on a regular basis, I would suggest you would not be that popular when it is in a busy flight with queuing going on.

 

On GU locks, you really would regularly have to be at an absolute crawl to guarantee that the second gate stayed sufficiently shut that you can just wind paddles at the other end, without an almighty crash as it swings back from half open.

 

Better, IMO, not to even try, and to assume it will almost certainly move, and you will need to have a plan to deal with it.

 

Obviously no two locks are exactly the same, and things like how much wind there is also comes into play, so you can never be 100% certain.

 

One exception case where it probably will not happen is at Stoke Bruerne or Buckby when they are running the back pumping far more heavily than is required, and water is cascading down through top paddles, and over gates, (this seems to happen more and more these days). In those cases, the sheer excess of water trying to bypass the lock will probably stop that second gate opening, but this is only the case when there is far too much water coming down a lock flight.

[BargeeSpud]

Better, IMO, not to even try, and to assume it will almost certainly move, and you will need to have a plan to deal with it.

 

 

Absolutely. I always enter a full lock with the intention of sliding over to that side to close the gate whilst the omnipotent one deals with her gate. Works well for us & takes very little extra time to do it, seconds probably.

 

Added: Obviously only when we're the only boat using the lock.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Spuds

[Burgiesburnin]

And if you reverse in?

[RLWP]

And if you reverse in?

You have to walk the length of the boat to go and close the gate

 

Richard

[mark99]

Ta - for answers. I was racking my brains trying to think of a way thinking I was missing a trick.

 

The way we dealt with it is drop Kim before lock (she walks fast to open the single top gate). The gate is fully opened and the boat glides in very slowly, as it glides in, I put my foot on the fully open gate wall and pushed off the open gate with my foot. This causes rear of boat to move over to other side of lock smartly. I step off and close gate and step on again. Push slighly the lock wall with foot. This lines me up to exit the open bottom gate.

Edited September 16, 2013 by mark99

[RLWP]

You have an excellent technique, why did you ask! ;-)

 

Richard

[mark99]

You have an excellent technique, why did you ask! ;-)

 

Richard

Because some old CaRT employee (piling at Berko) stopped work and watched us enter a lock. The lock gate swung open and before I kicked the boat over he ran up <helpfully> and closed it for me - and said "you need to learn the old tricks" with a wink.

 

So the old brain started thinking there may be a better way.

[alan_fincher]

Agree with Richard - if that works for you, I can't think of better.

If I do similar(ish) I tend to use a combination of throttle and tiller to get the back of the boat across to the other side, rather than physical pushing off something on the "open" side, but I'm probably older and lazier! (Also "Sickle" in particular takes a lot more "push" than a more shallow draughted boat.)

[alan_fincher]

Because some old CaRT employee (piling at Berko) stopped work and watched us enter a lock. The lock gate swung open and before I kicked the boat over he ran up <helpfully> and closed it for me - and said "you need to learn the old tricks" with a wink.

"Old tricks" may well include techniques like getting a rope around the handrail of the gate as you enter, and using the momentum of the boat to keep the gate pulled shut.

 

Not for the feint hearted though, and precisely the same kind of thing that a CRT employee may instead tell you off for doing, (particularly if you are not very adept at it when they are watching!).

 

I'll use a shaft on the handrail sometimes, because the worst that can happen is I have to let go of it if I misjudge how fast I'm entering, (and it floats, so I can get it back!), but roping a gate shut where there is no strapping post I would baulk at.

 

Another technique boatmen might have used is to have a paddle wound at the other end before you even enter - the gate is unlikely to take off on its own then, but I'm sure we are all far too responsible to do that, (or I hope so!).

 

But don't forget in the later days of long distance narrow boat carrying on the GU boats almost invariably operated as motor/butty pairings so would not usually have been interested in trying to enter a lock with just one boat without disturbing the other gate - they would probably have been more interested in doing exactly the opposite - namely rushing in with the motor, and hoping the other gate swung enough out the way to offer a clear path for the butty to follow them in.......

[RLWP]

"Old tricks" may well include techniques like getting a rope around the handrail of the gate as you enter, and using the momentum of the boat to keep the gate pulled shut.

 

Not for the feint hearted though, and precisely the same kind of thing that a CRT employee may instead tell you off for doing,

 

I really wouldn't recommend that on a wide lock. On a narrow lock, you pull the gate up against the jamb, so any shock loading goes straight into the stonework. On a wide lock, when the gate shuts against the cill, you'll wrench the top corner of the gate out of plane and risk breaking the gate

 

Richard

[alan_fincher]

 

I really wouldn't recommend that on a wide lock. On a narrow lock, you pull the gate up against the jamb, so any shock loading goes straight into the stonework. On a wide lock, when the gate shuts against the cill, you'll wrench the top corner of the gate out of plane and risk breaking the gate

I'm certainly not recommending it either.

 

But it is probably no worse on the structure of the gate than when the first gate comes too under considerable force, if bottom paddles are well wound before both top gates are fully shut. And one sees people doing that regularly - not that it is always entirely their fault, particularly if it is a case of gates blowing open again, after they have already been properly shut at least once.

[Keeping Up]

But don't forget in the later days of long distance narrow boat carrying on the GU boats almost invariably operated as motor/butty pairings so would not usually have been interested in trying to enter a lock with just one boat without disturbing the other gate - they would probably have been more interested in doing exactly the opposite - namely rushing in with the motor, and hoping the other gate swung enough out the way to offer a clear path for the butty to follow them in.......

 

I love it - but that would take some courage too!

[Tuscan]

My old mate in his 70's regularly throws a rope over the gate when entering or exiting a lock I've tried to copy but normally is make a fool of myself.

[RLWP]

I'm certainly not recommending it either.

 

But it is probably no worse on the structure of the gate than when the first gate comes too under considerable force,

 

I can't have explained it very well. It's much, much worse.

 

Strapping a single gate closed (or being a bit quick on the paddles), you pull the gate shut firmly all around - flat into the hole.

 

If you strap a wide gate shut, you pull the top corner into the lock with you when the bottom hits the cill, bending it out of shape and springing the joints in the gate

 

Richard

[alan_fincher]

 

I can't have explained it very well. It's much, much worse.

 

Strapping a single gate closed (or being a bit quick on the paddles), you pull the gate shut firmly all around - flat into the hole.

 

If you strap a wide gate shut, you pull the top corner into the lock with you when the bottom hits the cill, bending it out of shape and springing the joints in the gate

 

Richard

 

Is it hugely worse - worse perhaps, but I'm not convinced by how much

 

If neither gate is yet fully shut, and you let the rush of water through bottom paddles let it slam against the cill, the whole gate has been accelerated with some force towards the cill, but the bottom is brought to a sudden stop, whilst the same "top outer corner" you are talking about tries to carry on, potentially still flexing the gate, and straining a its mount points. (Only the second of the two gates to slam shut will also come up against something solid - the other gate - on its top outer corner).

 

Of course a lot of GU gates are steel, and I imagine less likely to be damaged than their wooden equivalents, (by either thing), although I believe it is generally felt that abuse of steel gates puts far greater forces on the lock structure to which they are attached, because they can't flex like wooden ones can.

 

As an aside, the trouble with letting a whole single top gate slam against the lock structure, is whilst the gate may at least come up against something solid all the way up its outer edge, over time the brick or stonework of the lock may not take very well to it. An experienced boater strapping a boat into a lock, and closing the top gate by doing so, would probably manage not to cause the gates to crash shut too hard, although I'm well aware of some archive film showing a Clayton's tar boat doing it, where the "closure" seems to end in a minor tsunami!

 

 

[blackrose]

You steer in via one gate and other always opens. How do you minimise/counter this.

 

 

 

Get yourself a widebeam, then you have to open both anyway.

[furnessvale]

You steer in via one gate and other always opens. How do you minimise/counter this.

 

 

Always go uphill:-)

 

George ex nb Alton retired

[Naughty Cal]

 

Get yourself a widebeam, then you have to open both anyway.

Or a boat that is only just too wide to go through a single gate