Jump to content

Buckby Flight Closure


Leo No2

Featured Posts

One top gate post has completely snapped.

Now letting one boat through at a time - on ropes. Lock to be open 900-1500 (1730 today) but a lot of boats are queuing already.

 

Do you know which post, heel or mitre, at what point on the post the damage is, and which side gate it is ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The chap from CRT just came up the queue, counting boats. They're going to keep going 'till 7.30 tonight, and we're the last one through. There are half a dozen boats behind us who'll have to wait until tomorrow.

 

MP.

Bugger, that's car or train to the festival for us then.

 

20150827_175358_zpsfyqoxqau.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The chap from CRT just came up the queue, counting boats. They're going to keep going 'till 7.30 tonight, and we're the last one through. There are half a dozen boats behind us who'll have to wait until tomorrow.

 

MP.

 

I'm helping on the Northampton arm flight - unsurprisingly it was fairly quiet boatwise today. Now that they're letting boats through Buckby at last (yaay!), any idea on numbers coming down the arm tomorrow (just so I know how many Weetabix to have for breakfast)?

 

LCx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bugger, that's car or train to the festival for us then.

 

Going down is not too bad. We were the last boat through, around 7.30, and there were maybe six boats left in the flight to do tomorrow. It's taking about 30 mins to do one up and one down, so if you set out down the flight before anyone else tomorrow, you might be through around lunchtime.

 

 

Going up is horrible, the queue at close-of-play tonight was back to bridge 16. Assuming few moored boats not in the queue, that's a couple of days worth, by my estimation.

 

Credit to the CRT guys on the ground, they were doing a sterling job with great good humour, and kept it up until bad light stopped play. The notices state that passage is available 9 am to 3 pm, but they intending to run much later again, as long as there are no problems.

 

MP.

 

I'm helping on the Northampton arm flight - unsurprisingly it was fairly quiet boatwise today. Now that they're letting boats through Buckby at last (yaay!), any idea on numbers coming down the arm tomorrow (just so I know how many Weetabix to have for breakfast)?

 

LCx

 

Difficult to tell. I talked to one other boater heading to the festival, and someone from MLCC heading home. Plus there's the Moomins, of course.

 

MP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most of what they say on NBW is rot.

 

Do you mean the extent to which NBW criticizes the way C&RT's neglect is resulting in so many structural failures of gates and paddles, and unscheduled stoppages ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This attached photo may give a better idea of the problem

 

 

Looks to me like rot.

 

Seems a shame that when they fixed up the other end of the lock a few months back they didn't give thwe whole thing a bit of a look over to see if anything else was about to giveup the ghost.

 

Surely these are things that the much vaunted regular inspections should have identified as likely failures long before they became real ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Seems a shame that when they fixed up the other end of the lock a few months back they didn't give thwe whole thing a bit of a look over to see if anything else was about to giveup the ghost.

 

Surely these are things that the much vaunted regular inspections should have identified as likely failures long before they became real ones.

Absolutely. Preventative maintenance. I saw the rotten balance beam that broke and it had really,really rotted.

Is the quality of the lock gates as good as in days gone by. What I mean is, do lock gates last as long now as before. Timber treatments, soaking etc.

I seem to remember somewhere that in t'olden days t'navy would float sailing masts in purpose built pounds. As well as floating timber for ship building.

That were g'day a when ships were made of wood & and men of steel. Nowadays................?

 

This is just poor maintenance. Has it gone too far, and now too much of an issue to get back on top off?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Absolutely. Preventative maintenance. I saw the rotten balance beam that broke and it had really,really rotted.

Is the quality of the lock gates as good as in days gone by. What I mean is, do lock gates last as long now as before. Timber treatments, soaking etc.

I seem to remember somewhere that in t'olden days t'navy would float sailing masts in purpose built pounds. As well as floating timber for ship building.

That were g'day a when ships were made of wood & and men of steel. Nowadays................?

 

This is just poor maintenance. Has it gone too far, and now too much of an issue to get back on top off?

Dunno about longevity, but I did notice that the busted gate had a 1998 plate on it, so it's no spring chicken.

 

MP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's why I asked really. Is seventeen years a long life for a chunk of wood? To my dim but sometimes witty mind, that doesn't seem very long.

 

If this the case, perhaps CRT should survey in depth! the conditions of lock gates and trimmings from about,say, tens years.

 

Does CRT have a chart of sorts that record these things? Or has it all gone 'reactive'?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Absolutely. Preventative maintenance. I saw the rotten balance beam that broke and it had really,really rotted.

Is the quality of the lock gates as good as in days gone by. What I mean is, do lock gates last as long now as before. Timber treatments, soaking etc.

I seem to remember somewhere that in t'olden days t'navy would float sailing masts in purpose built pounds. As well as floating timber for ship building.

That were g'day a when ships were made of wood & and men of steel. Nowadays................?

 

This is just poor maintenance. Has it gone too far, and now too much of an issue to get back on top off?

 

Maintenance, preventative or otherwise, won't stop timber in lockgates from rotting, nor will rot as severe as that happen in a short time. The gate should have been replaced at least 12 months ago, and probably more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.