Locking the professional's way

[Denis R]

I have a feint recollection of seeing a description of this somewhere in a thread in the past but a search hasn't turned up anything.....

Many moons ago, in the days of the lime juice run, at Widewater Lock I used to see breasted up pairs opening the gates using ropes attached to the motor and butty. The steerer would put the motor into reverse and pull the gates open with ropes wound around the handrails on the gates. As the gates opened he'd engage forward and as the pair left the lock the ropes would unwind themselves from the rails and lay themselves along their respective vessel. I have memories of them doing it locking downhill but can't remember if I saw them doing it locking uphill.

What was the technique and how did they attach the ropes to the vessels and to the rails to prevent slipping during the pull, but at the same time give them freedom to unwind?

[JohnOnTheWey]

I have a feint recollection of seeing a description of this somewhere in a thread in the past but a search hasn't turned up anything.....

Many moons ago, in the days of the lime juice run, at Widewater Lock I used to see breasted up pairs opening the gates using ropes attached to the motor and butty. The steerer would put the motor into reverse and pull the gates open with ropes wound around the handrails on the gates. As the gates opened he'd engage forward and as the pair left the lock the ropes would unwind themselves from the rails and lay themselves along their respective vessel. I have memories of them doing it locking downhill but can't remember if I saw them doing it locking uphill.

What was the technique and how did they attach the ropes to the vessels and to the rails to prevent slipping during the pull, but at the same time give them freedom to unwind?

 

Is this the one you mean, Denis?

http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php...amp;#entry70010

 

John

[DHutch]

There was a thread that included a picture of the 'knot' used somewhere on here....

 

 

Daniel

[David Schweizer]

The practice of opening bottom gates with ropes is called thumblining. How to do it is described in this thread :- http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php...;hl=thumblining

 

It is quiter a long thread but if you read all of it you should be able to work out how to do it. Nby the way i forgot to take any photos, but maybe next year.

Edited November 23, 2006 by David Schweizer

[DHutch]

Thats the badger!

 

- Beaten at my own game eh?

[alan_fincher]

I don't have any picture that shows the detail of the hitch they use.

 

But these rather old black and white numbers give some idea of the technique.

 

Here the line from the mast is taken round the end of the bottom gate to be opened, and attached to the handrail

 

 

And here, (actually taken at an earlier lock), the motor is just starting it's reverse to pull the gate open.

 

 

As the boat leaves the lock, you can see the line still hanging loose from the handrail. It will come away on its own, and drop down a few seconds later.

 

 

Definitely no putting paddles down, and shutting gates, when working a boat in this manner though

 

Note that if you have followed the "why did motor boats have masts" thread, here is an obvious use for them.

 

Sorry for quality of the original photos. Put it down to one of the infamous old "Zenit B" Russian Cameras, and an amateur who's technique in the darkroom at the time was more about how many prints I could get done than how good the quality. (I think I may have used too "hard" a paper, looking at them again 35 years later!).

Edited November 23, 2006 by alan_fincher

[Denis R]

Thanks for this chaps. I knew there would be amongst us, those with a more fastidious approach to using the search engine than me!

[Christine]

"I think I may have used too "hard" a paper, looking at them again 35 years later!"

 

 

I was an advocate for Ilford White Fine Lustre paper.

 

..........Ahhhh the old Zenit B. I was using mine up until 2002 until some blighter broke into my car on Portland. I was parked just by the Prison .

[blackrose]

I saw a coal boat working the lock gates with ropes this way a few years ago. Quite impressive, but unless you've got someone with you showing you exactly how it's done it's probably wise not to try this at home.

[David Schweizer]

Nice Photos Alan. My first SLR was a Zenit B, good camera, but heavy, the Standard 50mm lens was exceptionally good.

 

As for the photos, I have been tryin to work out where they were taken, I am guessing that it is the GU going up the chilterns, but cannot work out exactly where. The boat is also intriguing me, It looks like Jaguar, but I cannot ever remember Nick Hill working with a crew, he was always single handed when I saw him.

 

Please enlighten me.

 

David

Edited November 24, 2006 by David Schweizer

[alan_fincher]

Nice Photos Alan. My first SLR was a Zenit B, good camera, but heavy, the Standard 50mm lens was exceptionally good.

 

As for the photos, I have been tryin to work out where they were taken, I am guessing that it is the GU going up the chilterns, but cannot work out exactly where. The boat is also intriguing me, It looks like Jaguar, but I cannot ever remember Nick Hill working with a crew, he was always single handed when I saw him.

 

Please enlighten me.

 

David

Hi David,

 

Yes it's Jaguar, and I agree, I usually used to see it worked single manned, but he does seem to have got some extra help on this occasion. He could usually be relied on to have a good load on, and I have some other pictures of him somewhere forging his way down the Southern Oxford, (and causing a few hold ups when he got stuck!...)

 

Here he was travelling south through Berkhamsted. Not exactly sure of year, but about 1973 I suspect.

 

The one where the rope is being attached to the lock is Ravens Lane lock (54).

 

I thought the other two were taken slightly earlier ar 'Gas' locks (51 & 52), but looking again, I'm not so sure.

 

Clearly two different locks, as one has oak balance beams, and the other steel, but I'm not sure there was that much trees between canal and railway in those days.

 

Also the locks look maybe a little too deep for the Gas ones, and I'm now wondering if they are some of those slightly south of Berkhamsted.

 

If I can find the negatives, I'll see what sequence the shots are in, and maybe I can work it out.

 

Also the 1834 date (I think) in the stone in the final picture has probaly survived, and would no doubt pinpoint that one, I guess.

 

Unfortunately I was not meticulous about recording such things - I guess I kind of assumed I might remember! (Wrong!!).

 

Alan

 

 

---

[Yoda]

You'll need a good length of rope to open gates. I expect they never closed them. Might have a try myself when I've got enough rope.

[DHutch]

I think the photos are most fabulous, to me its really odd the way that people talk about these people. Even tho i know how long ago it was, and i can do the sums, it just really odd. Like the may grandad talks about steam trains, like they actually existed in really life, not just as peice of preserved history.

- And just the fact that the photos arnt even colour, never mind digital!

 

 

Daniel.

[Yoda]

I think the photos are most fabulous, to me its really odd the way that people talk about these people. Even tho i know how long ago it was, and i can do the sums, it just really odd. Like the may grandad talks about steam trains, like they actually existed in really life, not just as peice of preserved history.

- And just the fact that the photos arnt even colour, never mind digital!

Daniel.

 

I keep forgetting how young you are and I understand the way your Grandad feels about trains. He has lived through things that are now history and people are now forgetting. Fact is Daniel that one day you will have children and you will have to pass on everthing that you have learnt to them. My Grandfather saw the start of aviation, the whole world linked up by railway (he was a railroad engineer) and a man on the moon. He is luckier than me because he lived in the age of change and survived two world wars, that destroyed most of the family.

[alan_fincher]

I think the photos are most fabulous, to me its really odd the way that people talk about these people. Even tho i know how long ago it was, and i can do the sums, it just really odd. Like the may grandad talks about steam trains, like they actually existed in really life, not just as peice of preserved history.

- And just the fact that the photos arnt even colour, never mind digital!

Daniel.

Hang on Daniel !

 

We are only talking about 1973 here, so well after most commercial long distantce narrowboat carrying had ended.

 

I don't know a great deal about Nicholas Hill, (more usually referred to then as "Nick Hill" then I think), but I'm guessing he was an enthusiast who got into the act of carrying and delivering coal canalside, and probably didn't come from a narrowboating family.

 

I could be wrong though, and someone will know, I'm sure.

 

His name still comes up regularly as a speaker at various waterways events, I believe, (I'm assuming it's one and the same person ?). Perhaps someone can tell us more about him and his involvement in the waterways. I'd also be very interested in where Jaguar is now, and what it's doing.

 

And it's not that colour photography wasn't well developed, (no pun intended ), by the 1970s It's more that I was a poor student, who could barely afford to pay for black and white film bought in bulk, or for black and white paper and chemicals to do my own printing.

 

I used colour only very rarely, as I wasn't able to print it myself, and getting someone else to would have eaten to heavily into my BEER money. (Now do you get the idea )

 

You'll need a good length of rope to open gates. I expect they never closed them. Might have a try myself when I've got enough rope.

 

No, if opening locks in this way (going downhill), or pushing gates open with the boats, (usual practice going uphill), no attempt would be made to drop paddles or close gates. This was certainly normal practice for working the Southern Grand Union. Back when these pictures were taken, pleasure boaters would have been instructed to lower paddles, but not to shut gates, (unless there were special circumstances applying). The practice of closing gates on leaving a lock has only spread this way sometime in the intervening period, (not sure when, as I was boatless for most of those years).

 

You might get away with trying the trick shown if you use a line from a ring or stud in the middle of your boat. But the liklihood is that that line would have to be long enough to do this, that it would then foul your prop if it dropped into the water as you left the lock. (Not an issue on a 70 foot boat with mast, because it's relatively a lot further forward compared to overall boat length). On the whole I'd not try this, unless you have a suitably equipped working boat.....

 

And if you get the "hitch" wrong, expect dramatic results as you attempt to get going

 

Alan

Edited November 25, 2006 by alan_fincher

[Hairy-Neil]

I believe Nick Hill is still about the cut. In recent years he's sold up and retired and gone back to boating as a tug steerer. Often works the boats on dredging contracts and did the same on the Fibreway contract when that was installed in the towpaths.

 

Believe the Jaguar belongs to Malcolm Burge these days.

[John Orentas]

Twenty odd years ago I spent a night in Ellesmere Port boat museum, there was getting on for fifty boats making the trip the following day up the Ship Canal to the national rally in Manchester. That evening we watched as two of the chaps from the museum, both ex boaters moved the very large MSC barge Bigmere into the lower basin for it's trip the following day.

 

They did it without any motive power at all, through several locks and basins. I always wondered why barges always seemed to have a winch mounted on the deck, I found out as one of the chaps walked his way with a line through the complex, tying up here and there as he went, meanwhile his mate was winding away pulling the big lump on it's route. They had then to pass under a foot bridge without a towpath below, as did the line, that will fix them I thought, the bloke with the rope stood on the bridge, coiled about 20ft of it and threw it out and below, casually turned round and caught the end as it reappeared on the other side. He did that on several bridges and never failed once.

 

An hour or so later Bigmere was to ready lock out into the ship canal, she was towed into Manchester by the tug Daniel Adamson, in good condition then but looking very sad these days and at the centre of a restoration scheme, heard nothing of her for a couple of years.

 

(I have tried that rope trick a few times when no one was looking, it's not easy).

Edited November 27, 2006 by John Orentas

[DHutch]

Hang on Daniel !

- We are only talking about 1973 here...

- Yeah, but thats still 14years before i was born!

[Carrie]

Fantastic pictures thanks!

You've got to admire the problem-solving going on. I think I've kinda got the hang of pulling the second gate closed with a boathook so I don't have to do any of that crossing the gap malarkey!

[DHutch]

I though i would just post the image from the above thread in here for direct comparisen as well.

 

We might have to have a small experiment with this technique at some time!

- Obvously taking it extreamley slowly, so as not to risk damaging anything should it go wrong.

- But it would be very interesting to acctually put the above into pratice. And although we dont actaully have a mast like a working boat, we do have a large mast bracket on the cabin roof in almost eaxctly the right place!

 

 

Daniel

[alan_fincher]

Going back to points made by Neil (I think!) in the earlier post.

 

1) The pulling rope worked against the vertical end of the handrail, not the woodwork of the lock, as shown here, (or at least whenever I saw it done).

 

2) I've only ever seen this done on broad locks, and it has always been with the hitch using the upright stanchion above the middle part of the gate, so not as shown taking the rope right across to one close to the hinge. (Although the latter might still work, it would need an unnecessarily long line).

 

Both these points are very obvious in my Jaguar photos.

 

It's not entirely obvious in the drawing that the loose end of the line is passing round the back of that vertical stanchion, before hanging down in front of the gate, (all as viewed from the "outside of the lock, the way the pictures are drawn).

 

Unfortunately the photos are not really clear enough to illustrate this point.

 

The line has to be of a suitable type such that when the boat goes into reverse, there is sufficient friction where one part is trapped under the other, that it stays firmly put, and pulls, rather than just slips. I'm not sure just any old bit of rope will necessarily work.

 

Who's going to be first to post pictures of their own successful attempt at this !

[David Schweizer]

Alan is absolutely correct about the positions of the lines, he is also correct in stating that a certain type of line was used. We used soft hemp three stranded rope about half an inch diameter. The proceedure could be undertaken without using the Samson Post but, unlike Nick Hill in the photos, we used two ropes on a single motor, attatched them to the front stud and opened both gates. This kept the boat in the centre of the lock, rather than slew it across to one side.

[DHutch]

***Searches for a supplyer of 3strand hemp....***

 

 

.

[allybsc]

***Searches for a supplyer of 3strand hemp....***

.

 

Hemp

 

this any good?

[bottle]

I think Daniel was having a little fun but

 

if you want the real thing go to Tradline at Braunston