Seriously scary moment at Hillmorton - And another volunteer lock-keeper concern.

[c c]

I assume from your posts that you know the volocky concerned.

 

Just as I assumed from your posts that you know him very well and were there at the time of whateveritwas that happened.

[Catrin]

 

I agree. I was just thinking that all the responses were about getting the boat hung up and not about the really important accident. I'm sure you don't drink cheap plonk, but I hope it was not one you've had in your cellars just waiting for the day to celebrate or commiserate with each other about some minor mishap.

 

Tam

Thanks for the commiserations, Tam, but you are wrong, it was a 5 quid Pinot Grigio from Tesco - sorry.

[Starcoaster]

I don't know anything about the volocky involved, and I wouldn't know him on sight.

But one thing I do know is this: Cath, Alan and David Fincher are probably the most honest, logical, fair and reasonable people I know, or have ever had the privilege of knowing.

Alan's post about the incident itself was clearly and plainly laid out, cast no aspersions, was not worded emotively, and was about as clinical as such an incident could possibly have been described.

Personally, I'd probably either have had a meltdown at the time and/or punched the guy on the nose, then either posted here raging, or gone to bed and not spoken to anyone for days.

There's not many people I would say this about, but if Alan, Cath and David Fincher say a thing happened, and happened in a certain way, I believe them unequivocally.

I would dearly love to hear what the volocky has to say for himself, yes, but I don't need to hear it to know that how Alan described the sequence of events from the viewpoint of their family is accurate and honest.

Edited August 26, 2015 by Starcoaster

[Darren72]

I will state this every time and I also state this to anyone manning the lock for me (or my OH will if she is on the opposite paddle). The only person in charge of the rate of water going into/out of a lock is the person in charge of the boat. I always tell who ever is manning my paddles the rate of water I require and I will not let anyone tell me different. I will not let anyone lower or higher any paddles till I am ready at the stern of the boat. Lock keepers are keepers of locks but in my eyes are NOT in charge of what happens. Obviously on a staircase they know the sequence but I still ask them to fill/empty at my rate not theres, as its my ££££££ and life whats in the lock not theres. If they dont like it I will tell them to step aside and we will do it ourselves.

Shortly after starting today's boating had us descending the Hillmorton paired locks in "Flamingo".

 

Apart from the not unusual particularly low pound between the top pairs of locks, the first two locks were fine.

 

At the bottom pair we took the lock on the non-towpath side, where a volunteer lock keeper was in attendance.

 

He drew one of the bottom paddles on these fast emptying locks, and Cath had yet to draw the other, when it became very obvious that whilst the back end of "Flamingo" was going down, the front end was hung up on something.

 

Cath who was on the other side called across to the lock-keeper saying "the boat is hung - drop the paddle!", but he replied "No it is all-right". Cath repeated "Drop the paddle - the boat is hung", but he said "No it is all-right, it will sort itself out".

 

By now the counter was in danger of being submerged, and the boat on a very downhill slant with the water fast disappearing beneath it.

 

By now an alarmed David who had been with Odin the dog inside appeared and yelled very VERY forcibly to drop the paddle, but fortunately David was able to sprint to the top end of the lock, and draw the paddles long before the lock-keeper had managed to wind down the bottom paddle.

 

The turbulence caused by David drawing the paddles caused the boat to fall, but then cannon up and down the lock on the massive wave caused by it falling down to the water. The rudder was repeatedly cilled and lifted from its pintel.

 

Once the lock was refilled we tried again, and exactly the same started to happen. This time the paddle was dropped leaving the boat hung long enough for me to climb off, to see what was causing it. The stem of Flamingo was wedged to the left of a large nut on the rubbing plate of the left hand gate, jamming the boat against the wall. As we started to refill the lock you could see the stem start to slip past the bolt, before it fell free.

 

We agreed with the lock keeper that I would hold the stem to the other side of the offending nut, and monitor closely as he emptied the lock very slowly. By the third attempt we completed the descent, but the dog was now so terrified he would not get back on the boat.

 

I would first stress that the volunteer lock keeper was polite throughout, but just kept sticking to the line that in several years he had not seen it happen before. He seemed to interpret that as that because he had never seen it happen before, it couldn't possibly be happening now.

 

Of course things do sometimes go wrong, and we have had incidents in the past with no third party involved, but my concern here is that ultimately we are responsible for the safety of "Flamingo" and those on board, and the volunteer lock keeper initially refused to accept Cath's requests to drop the paddle that he had raised.

 

I think had David not been there things might well have developed to a sinking.

 

So what do people think we should do,please ? Do we just accept this as an unfortunate set of circumstances, or do we report the near miss to CRT, explaining that the volunteer locky had become convinced "it would sort itself out".

 

It was seriously scary, though , and for me more so, because we did everything by the book, and it was certainly not due to us getting anything wrong.

I would report this without fail.

[Mike Tee]

Just as I assumed from your posts that you know him very well and were there at the time of whateveritwas that happened.

Never met him, but I do reading. Can do joined up writing an all. Alan F's first post was clearly written. Did you read it?

 

How come, out of all the posts condemning this volocky, I try and put a more balanced view and you decide to pick on mine? (Don't think that it bothers me, it doesn't). However, you have not commented on my main point, you post as if you know him, so - would the volocky like to put his side across? If he cocked up, would he like to apologise to those concerned? Did it not happen the way it has been reported? Was it all down to the boat crew?

If you don't know him, why didn't you simply say so?

[DeanS]

I was going up the Bingley 5 last year...official lock keepers working the locks....They opened up the top paddles in the middle of the flight...and we're both in the above lock chamber...not actually watching my boat at all...I was standing besides the boat, as it was in the final 20% and this is normally quite a placid period....except that I had loosely wound my centre rope around a bollard just so I could keep it to the side of the lock....Suddenly the rise of the boat caused the rope to snag itself.....and within a few seconds the boat began to tilt over severely...with me trying to pull on the rope to unsnag it.....Luckily the rope snapped under the force of it all...If one of my own crew had been doing the paddles, we would have had eye contact, but I had no communication with the lockies...they had moved on already to the next lock in the staircase because boats were waiting and everything was a bit of a rush.

Only this week, coming down the Rochdale, entered a lock and my prop embedded itself 3 inches into a huge log caught under the boat....Opened the weed hatch to have a look.....thought everything was ok while I explored things a bit to decide a course of action...suddenly realised one of my crew (Father in law) had decided to open a paddle.......causing the boat to start dropping in the lock...except I hadn't asked him to...and the boat was still too far back...in cill territory....I had a little screaming match to get him to close the paddles quickly........just an example of how things can go wrong, without constant communication amongst all parties...crew...vollies... (took me an hour to remove the log from the prop.....)

[Guest]

I was going up the Bingley 5 last year...official lock keepers working the locks....They opened up the top paddles in the middle of the flight...and we're both in the above lock chamber...not actually watching my boat at all...I was standing besides the boat, as it was in the final 20% and this is normally quite a placid period....except that I had loosely wound my centre rope around a bollard just so I could keep it to the side of the lock....Suddenly the rise of the boat caused the rope to snag itself.....and within a few seconds the boat began to tilt over severely...with me trying to pull on the rope to unsnag it.....Luckily the rope snapped under the force of it all...If one of my own crew had been doing the paddles, we would have had eye contact, but I had no communication with the lockies...they had moved on already to the next lock in the staircase because boats were waiting and everything was a bit of a rush.

Only this week, coming down the Rochdale, entered a lock and my prop embedded itself 3 inches into a huge log caught under the boat....Opened the weed hatch to have a look.....thought everything was ok while I explored things a bit to decide a course of action...suddenly realised one of my crew (Father in law) had decided to open a paddle.......causing the boat to start dropping in the lock...except I hadn't asked him to...and the boat was still too far back...in cill territory....I had a little screaming match to get him to close the paddles quickly........just an example of how things can go wrong, without constant communication amongst all parties...crew...vollies... (took me an hour to remove the log from the prop.....)

I don't think the lockies at Bingley have sunk a boat yet.

 

If Barry was on duty he is perhaps the one lockie I would have put in charge of my boat in a lock...no question.

[DeanS]

I don't think the lockies at Bingley have sunk a boat yet.

 

If Barry was on duty he is perhaps the one lockie I would have put in charge of my boat in a lock...no question.

 

just sharing the experience

[Guest]

just sharing the experience

Feel the love...

 

Yes so was I....

[ValandPete]

Barry is an ace lockie, taught me how to steer the boat in the lock when going up on my own. Also told Peter off when he wound paddle up by half a turn too much, which made him much more aware of how he opened paddles from then on! Unfortunately the last time we went through he had been moved to another flight. He was unhappy about it, sounded as if it was a permanent move decided by managers.

 

 

Val

[lampini]

 

Yes, but I'm on a boat without a printer, and no access to any software that allows me to edit a PDF document..........

 

If they would only provide documents that people might be able to edit end email to them, but they don't seem to think these things through......

 

It's a PITA.. i found this the other day....

 

http://pdftools.orgfree.com/webapp/

 

May be of help to some....

[kris88]

I don't think the lockies at Bingley have sunk a boat yet.

 

If Barry was on duty he is perhaps the one lockie I would have put in charge of my boat in a lock...no question.

Not sunk boats, but last year two boats sharing a lock at 5 rise where dropped onto the bottom of the chamber by a volunteer. If he had, had his way he would have sunk them. Trying to refloat them, luckily there was some experienced staff on hand. Videos of this where on the internet.

There is only 1 paid Lockie at 5 rise, who works with volunteers when they are present.

In the good old days you where not allowed to operate a lock on your own, until you had shadowed with an experienced locky for some considerable time. Also having to pass an assessment was mandatory. Now it seems one days training is enough to qualify anybody to operate a lock.

Unfortunately CRT's funding is dependant on increasing the number of volunteering hours, lock keeping is one of the most popular volunteer activities.

Regards kris

Edited August 27, 2015 by kris88

[jenlyn]

The point that stands out, is the crew told the guy to drop the paddle, he didn't.

He should have.

[MtB]

The point that stands out, is the crew told the guy to drop the paddle, he didn't.

He should have.

 

 

Yes agreed. I made the same point earlier in the thread.

 

Proves this Volly is 'not fit for purpose', to wheel out that cringeworthy and overused phrase.

[Tuscan]

 

The point that stands out, is the crew told the guy to drop the paddle, he didn't.

He should have.

Yes surely that is the whole point and the key message that needs to be communicated. If the volunteer is not prepared to take an instruction from the helmsman he should step away.

[c c]

The point that stands out, is the crew told the guy to drop the paddle, he didn't.

He should have.

What to me stands out was the actual cause of the incident. Hanging up a full size historic in a lock. Twice.

If I was in the place of the lock-keeper, I would probably have taken the same view as he did, that I had never ever seen or heard of that before so assume the boat will pop down any second.

If I was the steerer, I would probably have been just as embarrassed as Alan, and wanted to have a jolly good rant.

[churchward]

 

 

Yes agreed. I made the same point earlier in the thread.

 

Proves this Volly is 'not fit for purpose', to wheel out that cringeworthy and overused phrase.

Yes indeed but this just means we are going round in circles I said it was so in post #21 (along with others)

 

I disagree that the incident proves that he is "not fit for purpose" what it means is that he made a mistake and he needs to reflect and correct in future and his supervisor should make sure it is so.

 

We are human we all make mistakes.

[Starcoaster]

What to me stands out was the actual cause of the incident. Hanging up a full size historic in a lock. Twice.

If I was in the place of the lock-keeper, I would probably have taken the same view as he did, that I had never ever seen or heard of that before so assume the boat will pop down any second.

If I was the steerer, I would probably have been just as embarrassed as Alan, and wanted to have a jolly good rant.

 

Wait, what? So a boat is hanging in a lock, but let's just leave it and hope it sorts itself out, whilst, which in my opinion is the main point, totally ignoring the boat's crew?

You think Alan should be embarrassed by how this all went down? Why?

If you think Alan's post was a rant, clearly you've not seen many tantrums in your time.

I think Alan's post was hugely, and in fact overly, reasonably and unemotionally described, given the situation.

i'm starting to think you're just trolling now.

[MtB]

Yes indeed but this just means we are going round in circles I said it was so in post #21 (along with others)

 

I disagree that the incident proves that he is "not fit for purpose" what it means is that he made a mistake and he needs to reflect and correct in future and his supervisor should make sure it is so.

 

We are human we all make mistakes.

 

 

Yes I totally agree, I just couldn't find the 'tongue-in-cheek' smiley...

 

{tongue-in-cheek-smiley]

Found it!!

 

If I was in the place of the lock-keeper, I would probably have taken the same view as he did, that I had never ever seen or heard of that before so assume the boat will pop down any second.

 

 

Words fail me.

[Guest]

What to me stands out was the actual cause of the incident. Hanging up a full size historic in a lock. Twice.

If I was in the place of the lock-keeper, I would probably have taken the same view as he did, that I had never ever seen or heard of that before so assume the boat will pop down any second.

If I was the steerer, I would probably have been just as embarrassed as Alan, and wanted to have a jolly good rant.

When a canal boat 'drops' suddenly in a lock the results can be catastrophic.

 

That was the cause of four deaths on the leeds and liverpool in 1998.

 

https://assets.digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/media/547c71a6ed915d4c10000127/Drum_Major.pdf

 

From the synopsis.

 

Very shortly afterwards it was realised that Drum Major's bow fender had caught between

the top of the bottom gate and the balance beam above it and, as the water-level began to

fall, the bow remained suspended while the stern dropped to such a degree that it started to

take water on board. Steps were taken to try to arrest the situation by shutting the bottom

gate paddles and opening a top gate paddle. In opening the top gate paddle, however,

water started to pour into the stem of Drum Major, and the paddle was quickly closed.

Suddenly the bow came free of the bottom gate. The boat dropped heavily and created a

large wave that surged through the lock and swamped Drum Major, causing her to fill with

water and sink. Attempts to rescue the four disabled people trapped inside were

unsuccessful. All four were declared dead at the scene.

 

I read Alan's post as them being very close to a similar situation all be it in a narrow rather than broad lock. I'd have been bloody furious TBH.

Edited August 27, 2015 by MJG

[billS]

 

If I was in the place of the lock-keeper, I would probably have taken the same view as he did, that I had never ever seen or heard of that before so assume the boat will pop down any second.

If I was the steerer, I would probably have been just as embarrassed as Alan, and wanted to have a jolly good rant.

 

This is the most ill judged statement that I have ever seen on this forum.

[cotswoldsman]

 

The thing that I will remark upon is that when they first introduced volunteers, I spoke out stridently (yes, I know, don't I always) against them, and made it clear that I wanted nothing to do with them, and that the only help that I required is that they leave me alone to work the lock.

 

I predicted that the role would bring some people who wanted to play their way, and would use their position to assert their right to do so

 

At the time, I was roundly criticised by many.

 

I was being precious about my boat. Volunteers would be trained. I should be delighted about this. Who the hell did I think I was with this "my lock" nonsense?

 

It would seem that experience has proved that we are ending up with too many people who aren't going to do it right.

Yes you did and I was one of the ones who thought you were wrong so I guess I owe you an apology. In my defence I had a sued that CART would ensure they were trained properly but guess I should have known better

[gazza]

Having been away from C&RT waters since 2011 and before the advent of volunteer lockies - can I ask what the process is to get em to wind their neck in?

[Dave_P]

When a canal boat 'drops' suddenly in a lock the results can be catastrophic.

 

That was the cause of four deaths on the leeds and liverpool in 1998.

 

https://assets.digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk/media/547c71a6ed915d4c10000127/Drum_Major.pdf

 

From the synopsis.

 

Very shortly afterwards it was realised that Drum Major's bow fender had caught between

the top of the bottom gate and the balance beam above it and, as the water-level began to

fall, the bow remained suspended while the stern dropped to such a degree that it started to

take water on board. Steps were taken to try to arrest the situation by shutting the bottom

gate paddles and opening a top gate paddle. In opening the top gate paddle, however,

water started to pour into the stem of Drum Major, and the paddle was quickly closed.

Suddenly the bow came free of the bottom gate. The boat dropped heavily and created a

large wave that surged through the lock and swamped Drum Major, causing her to fill with

water and sink. Attempts to rescue the four disabled people trapped inside were

unsuccessful. All four were declared dead at the scene.

 

I read Alan's post as them being very close to a similar situation all be it in a narrow rather than broad lock. I'd have been bloody furious TBH.

 

 

From the end of that report:

 

British Waterways is recommended to:

1. Require all owners of boats using canals and navigations under its control to inform British Waterways of all accidents and hazardous incidents.

[Tuscan]

What to me stands out was the actual cause of the incident. Hanging up a full size historic in a lock. Twice.

If I was in the place of the lock-keeper, I would probably have taken the same view as he did, that I had never ever seen or heard of that before so assume the boat will pop down any second.

If I was the steerer, I would probably have been just as embarrassed as Alan, and wanted to have a jolly good rant.

But isn't the problem here that the guy is not a lock keeper, he is just a volunteer , who is not specifically tasked to be in charge of and work boats at the Hillmorton locks. This was made very clear to me by volunteers at other locks. I don't have a problem with this apart from being the inconsistency of approach.