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Down the Tidal Trent ~~~ Why not do it the easier way ?


Tony Dunkley

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Going by the stones showing on the bridge piers that's about 3 hours after Gainsborough HW and it's run down nearly 4 feet. A couple of hours later around half ebb there would have been getting on for another 2 knots of tide under you. The water level in that video clip is still a few inches above the average sort of level for HW neaps with no fresh coming down.

The rounded stones in the bridge piers are each 2' deep, and the underside of the centre of the arch is 15' above the top stone with about the same clearance under the railway bridge.

 

The photo was taken at 1320, HW Gainsborough was about 1030 - it was a middling tide, I think - so that's a pretty good estimate!

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The outermost cill is certainly lower then the middle cill but not by huge amounts, inches rather then feet.

 

When they are struggling to get enough water over the middle cill, boats sit back under the bridge until the lock is raised enough to get them over the middle cill and then the boats come forward into the original lock chamber if they are too tall to stay under the bridge. Not a "two rise" lock as such.

 

I think I am right in saying that the middle gates have a substantial collection of teapots sitting on the cross beams, so I imagine they are not used any more. But I may be talking about the outward facing gates (made redundant by the new flood doors below the bridge) and not the inward facing pair.. [ETA: just found a photo. I am talking about the outward facing pair!]

 

The first lock on the River Wey has a similar arrangement to that described on the Driffield.

Edited by Scholar Gypsy
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The outermost cill is certainly lower then the middle cill but not by huge amounts, inches rather then feet.

 

When they are struggling to get enough water over the middle cill, boats sit back under the bridge until the lock is raised enough to get them over the middle cill and then the boats come forward into the original lock chamber if they are too tall to stay under the bridge. Not a "two rise" lock as such.

 

Not so, according the Engineers at Newark and an ex- BW Tug skipper who was around when it was being built. They say it's a couple of inches higher than the bottom cill of the old chamber.

Looks as though you may need to have a serious rethink about ~ " When they are struggling to get enough water over the middle cill, boats sit back under the bridge until the lock is raised enough to get them over the middle cill and then the boats come forward into the original lock chamber if they are too tall to stay under the bridge." ~ unless, of course, you've actually been involved in that being done, or seen it for yourself ?

Edited by Tony Dunkley
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Not so, according the Engineers at Newark and an ex- BW Tug skipper who was around when it was being built. They say it's a couple of inches higher than the bottom cill of the old chamber.

Looks as though you may need to have a serious rethink about ~ " When they are struggling to get enough water over the middle cill, boats sit back under the bridge until the lock is raised enough to get them over the middle cill and then the boats come forward into the original lock chamber if they are too tall to stay under the bridge." ~ unless, of course, you've actually been involved in that being done, or seen it for yourself ?

Perhaps if you had been to the lock and seen its operation, after all it's been there in it's current form since 1997, you would know how it is operated and which of the cills is lower frusty.gif

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Perhaps if you had been to the lock and seen its operation, after all it's been there in it's current form since 1997, you would know how it is operated and which of the cills is lower frusty.gif

 

So to summarize your response, . . . you think you know more about the new chamber at Torksey than the BW/C&RT Engineers at Newark and an ex-BW Tug skipper and a lock keeper with a working lifetime on the Trent.

I think that response, together with your reluctance to confirm that you've either seen or successfully participated in the method of lock operation you describe, makes it very evident that this is just another lot of your customary tripe.

Edited by Tony Dunkley
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Based on my very limited experience of cromwell to Torksey and back I think you are right about the advice given by the lockies, ie it's not up to much!

 

 

It certainly wouldn't have been up to much today.

Whilst enquiring about the relative cill heights in the old and new chambers at Torksey, I spoke to the lock keeper on duty there today.

A very pleasant chap and anxious to help in any way he could. Unfortunately he wasn't able to provide any answers at all.

He knew nothing about the relative cill heights, had only been doing the job for 4 weeks, wasn't sure of the location, distance away or name of the next downriver side lock, and had been left in charge, unaccompanied by anyone more experienced.

Edited by Tony Dunkley
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Why enquire about a lock you have not seen in the 18 years since it was modified despite your many proclamations about being some kind of Oracle of the Trent?

 

Enjoy wasting CRT's time do you?

 

For what it is worth crt have lost a couple of resident lockies recently they have to replace them. They have to start somewhere.

 

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to prove here, other than you don't know as much as you would like people to believe!

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For Anthony's information it was on a small tide during a dry summer spell when we grounded on the cill. The option was go for it or wait a few days for a bigger tide and lose a few days of

our holiday.

 

We went for it and had to be flushed off but then continued on our way down to Hull and then onto the Broads without losing any days to low water.

 

Can you remember the date and the time when you got stuck on the cill, and which cill it was ?

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We were going to the Norfolk Broads so it wasn't last year, must have been the year before. Would have been in July.

 

I can get the exact dates from the log on the boat tomorrow evening.

 

I will send your best wishes to the new lockie on Saturday morning.

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Hope so we are big and blue cream stripes and roof plus wheelhouse hard to miss we will be with the zebra boat enjoy icecream.gif

 

Peter

We will have a Motley Crew of different boats in tow. A pair of dutch steel cruisers, a large Sunseeker and a pair of Sealines. We are hoping to all get on the park moorings opposite the castle as we are booked in for a meal on Saturday evening in Newark. Sure we will all get in somewhere.

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A number of two-rises in Yorkshire (and some elsewhere) were only such on this basis, the lower chamber gave a few inches lift, usually off tidal water, to get into the upper one

 

Snakeholme+Sea+Lock.jpg

 

This is the lower chamber of Snakeholme Two-Rise on the Driffield Navigation - intended to get deeper draught boats into the upper chamber, and until Struncheon Hill was added this was the lowest lock on the navigation

 

 

One good example of this having to be done is the lower chamber at Cromwell.

When the lock was first built in 1911 with just what is now the top chamber, the bottom cill was made far too shallow, making the lock impassable for much of each day and forcing the Nottingham bound traffic to load light.

The lower chamber was added in 1935 with a bottom cill 3'' 6'' deeper, making the lock available at almost any state of the tide for the 6' draught that the rest of the Trent had been improved to.

A good opportunity to do something along the same lines at Torksey was there for British Waterways in the 1990's.

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We will have a Motley Crew of different boats in tow. A pair of dutch steel cruisers, a large Sunseeker and a pair of Sealines. We are hoping to all get on the park moorings opposite the castle as we are booked in for a meal on Saturday evening in Newark. Sure we will all get in somewhere.

Sounds like a good one we arnt going onto the Trent until monday morning at 6 and I thought there was only one 6 in a day should be straight through to Cromwell as its 10 meter tides. Only just retired today so looking forward to this holiday and then some constant cruising next year clapping.gif thats sure to get the debates going

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Sounds like a good one we arnt going onto the Trent until monday morning at 6 and I thought there was only one 6 in a day should be straight through to Cromwell as its 10 meter tides. Only just retired today so looking forward to this holiday and then some constant cruising next year clapping.gif thats sure to get the debates going

We will pass you somewhere on Monday then. We are heading back down the Trent to the ski club at High Marnham for Monday evening. Lovely pub The Brownlow Arms tucked away behind the flood bank.

 

Not much use to you mind as they don't let steel boats on the pontoon rolleyes.gif

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We will pass you somewhere on Monday then. We are heading back down the Trent to the ski club at High Marnham for Monday evening. Lovely pub The Brownlow Arms tucked away behind the flood bank.

 

Not much use to you mind as they don't let steel boats on the pontoon rolleyes.gif

We will be ships in the night ha ha help.gif

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We were going to the Norfolk Broads so it wasn't last year, must have been the year before. Would have been in July.

 

I can get the exact dates from the log on the boat tomorrow evening.

 

I will send your best wishes to the new lockie on Saturday morning.

 

Were you able to find the date and time when you were stuck on the sill at Torksey whilst trying to get out of the lock before the tide had made enough ?

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In common with other tidal rivers, the timing of an outbound, or downriver, passage is more difficult than for the easy inbound, or upriver, passage which, on the Trent and for vessels drawing up to about 5', is normally made on the first of the (flood) tide.

Inbound, there is more tide, and therefore water, under you the further you go, whereas outbound downriver, what water remains from the tide that you may have waited for to fill up the upper reaches is long gone from the lower reaches by the time you get there. The severity of this problem increases with the distance of the upper reaches from the estuary, and in this respect the Trent must be one of the most difficult rivers in this country.

There are two essentials for making a safe and successful passage on the last of the ebb from the upper reaches down to the Ouse and the Humber. Firstly departure from the starting point at the correct time, and secondly either strict adherence to reliable charts or knowing the river sufficiently well to be able to make Trent End without grounding before you get there.

The boat in the captioned photo below wasn't far off getting the timing right, but having failed to keep to the navigable deep water channel, grounded several miles short of their objective, which, as they were bound for Goole and wanting to stay afloat over the low water period, should have been to anchor until just before flood, very close to the South shore stones in the vicinity of Boundary Light in the Ouse.

It is clear from the caption that they believed themselves to be in the 'navigable channel', but in fact they're aground on the ness between Waddington Light and Waterton Light at least 150 yards out of the channel where there is never less than 10' to 12' of water on the lowest of tides.

Grounding in the lower reaches of the Trent can be a very dangerous thing for small craft to do in certain conditions. Grounding in itself is no big deal, but on really big Springs, particularly with very little or no fresh coming downriver, the speed and force of the incoming tide is quite enough to capsize a grounded small cruiser or narrowboat before it floats off. There was an incident some years ago when a loaded tanker bound for Colwick up the Trent, the 'Lapwing' owned by Cooks, caught a sandbank early on a big tide, in the Humber but not all that far from where this cruiser was, and was swung athwart the tide and rolled over.

The force and destructive power of big tides in the lower Trent and Ouse should never be underestimated. Treating either of these rivers with too little respect and caution, depending then on luck alone to keep you safe, as the cruiser in the photo did, you could end up having a very bad day.

_________________________________________________________

 

DSCF0212.jpg
With a big spring tide behind us we were now making good progress towards Trent End where we would anchor up for a couple of hours and wait for the incoming tide to take us back up the Ouse to Goole. With just a couple of miles to go it looked like we would enter the anchorage with no problems despite setting off later than planned, until the depth sounder started showing less and less water well in the navigable channel. We slowed to a crawl before deciding it was no longer wise to carry on and dropped the anchor before the beached the boat. It was a peaceful enough spot and with no water in the channel we were not causing an obstruction to navigation so we brewed the coffee, broke out the cheese and crackers and listened to some music whilst waiting for the tide to lift us back off the bottom.

Edited by Tony Dunkley
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One of us has got it very wrong if we end up being ships that pass in the night wink.png

Well we waved as we went past you yesterday.

We had earlier had a bit of a drama when coming out of Gainsborough, we picked up some rubbish on the prop and ended up in the trees on a bend and then just clipping a bridge. I was to be honest a fairly worried mansick.gif , we just had a little bit of steerage so as soon as a straight appeared I hit full reverse then forward etc until power was restored. If we had hit the bridge sideways it would have been end of trip and possibly us and the boat.

Hope your trip out was better than ours

 

Peter

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Our trip was very uneventful thanks. Nothing out of the ordinary to report at all.

 

Plenty of water around, nice big tides and a bit of fresh thanks to the rain.

 

It was busy on the Trent, despite the rain all day yesterday, but very enjoyable.

 

We know that plenty of boats had trouble the other way. One was being towed in by Newark tug yesterday after a couple of days at Gainsborough, and a couple of aegir!

 

FB_IMG_1441091494627.jpg

 

Not our picture this one!

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f said teapots.

 

I think I am right in saying that the middle gates have a substantial collection of teapots sitting on the cross beams, so I imagine they are not used any more. But I may be talking about the outward facing gates (made redundant by the new flood doors below the bridge) and not the inward facing pair.. [ETA: just found a photo. I am talking about the outward facing pair!]

 

The first lock on the River Wey has a similar arrangement to that described on the Driffield.

 

And here (with acknowledgements to Naughty Cal) is a photo that shows said teapots. I assume that old outward pointing gate is no longer in use.

 

DSC_0873.jpg

Edited by Scholar Gypsy
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Tony,

 

I have just been reading B. A Lane's book "Severn Tanking". He gives a couple of examples of large barges lost on big tides in the Severn estuary. One incident was of three tankers, the Severn Traveller, Severn Carrier I and a dumb barge Severn Venture. The Severn Carrier I broke down and the Severn Traveller tried to take her in tow all three being rolled over by the current after touching ground. Five of the eight men being lost

The other one he mentions was the loss of the BP Explorer in 1961 again being rolled over by the tide after touching bottom, with the loss of both of the crew.

As you said, big tides are not to be messed with.

Edited by John V
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In common with other tidal rivers, the timing of an outbound, or downriver, passage is more difficult than for the easy inbound, or upriver, passage which, on the Trent and for vessels drawing up to about 5', is normally made on the first of the (flood) tide.

Inbound, there is more tide, and therefore water, under you the further you go, whereas outbound downriver, what water remains from the tide that you may have waited for to fill up the upper reaches is long gone from the lower reaches by the time you get there. The severity of this problem increases with the distance of the upper reaches from the estuary, and in this respect the Trent must be one of the most difficult rivers in this country.

There are two essentials for making a safe and successful passage on the last of the ebb from the upper reaches down to the Ouse and the Humber. Firstly departure from the starting point at the correct time, and secondly either strict adherence to reliable charts or knowing the river sufficiently well to be able to make Trent End without grounding before you get there.

The boat in the captioned photo below wasn't far off getting the timing right, but having failed to keep to the navigable deep water channel, grounded several miles short of their objective, which, as they were bound for Goole and wanting to stay afloat over the low water period, should have been to anchor until just before flood, very close to the South shore stones in the vicinity of Boundary Light in the Ouse.

It is clear from the caption that they believed themselves to be in the 'navigable channel', but in fact they're aground on the ness between Waddington Light and Waterton Light at least 150 yards out of the channel where there is never less than 10' to 12' of water on the lowest of tides.

Grounding in the lower reaches of the Trent can be a very dangerous thing for small craft to do in certain conditions. Grounding in itself is no big deal, but on really big Springs, particularly with very little or no fresh coming downriver, the speed and force of the incoming tide is quite enough to capsize a grounded small cruiser or narrowboat before it floats off. There was an incident some years ago when a loaded tanker bound for Colwick up the Trent, the 'Lapwing' owned by Cooks, caught a sandbank early on a big tide, in the Humber but not all that far from where this cruiser was, and was swung athwart the tide and rolled over.

The force and destructive power of big tides in the lower Trent and Ouse should never be underestimated. Treating either of these rivers with too little respect and caution, depending then on luck alone to keep you safe, as the cruiser in the photo did, you could end up having a very bad day.

_________________________________________________________

 

DSCF0212.jpg

With a big spring tide behind us we were now making good progress towards Trent End where we would anchor up for a couple of hours and wait for the incoming tide to take us back up the Ouse to Goole. With just a couple of miles to go it looked like we would enter the anchorage with no problems despite setting off later than planned, until the depth sounder started showing less and less water well in the navigable channel. We slowed to a crawl before deciding it was no longer wise to carry on and dropped the anchor before the beached the boat. It was a peaceful enough spot and with no water in the channel we were not causing an obstruction to navigation so we brewed the coffee, broke out the cheese and crackers and listened to some music whilst waiting for the tide to lift us back off the bottom.

Old post you have trawled up there Dunkley.

 

Our mistake that day was finding a nice pub in Gainsborough and spending longer than anticipated there, leaving a tad later on the tide then planned and running shy of water on the approach to Trent End just before Burton Stather, if the picture was a little further around to the left the blue crane would have been in sight.

 

The boat has swung around on the anchor in that picture, we decided to drop anchor when we got to 1ft below the hull as it was clear we wouldn't get to Trent End and that nothing else would be coming up river with no/little water in the channel. With the leg raised the boat stayed afloat, just, for the duration. The incoming tide simply swung the boat around on the anchor and when there was sufficient water we carried on our way into Goole no harm done.

 

Not sure what point you are trying to make digging up that post as no harm was done and we carried on on our way a couple of hours later!

 

Not a bad day at all

Edited by Naughty Cal
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