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Cruising near Skipton


Leemc

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Just spent ace few days on a boat cruising from Skipton and would like to make couple of points.

So quiet, went hours on end without meeting other boats.

Swing bridges, how on earth do single handers cope with these?

Bingley locks amazing canal feature with fantastic lock keepers.

But holy cow the next lock at Dorley Gap is a leaking, dangerous monstrosity of a double staircase. We had two horrible experiences going down then back up. Badly needs sorting or a CRT helper.

We struggled and are pretty experienced!

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We also had a major problem there a couple of years ago going down, we reported it to CRT but obviously its still happening

 

A couple of weeks ago we waited nearly an hour for a pair of private boats to exit the top lock as they just couldn't seem to make the level to open the gates but eventually managed it. As she passed by us just moving off from the lock landing to enter the top lock, the rather plum-in-mouth lady steerer on the second shiny boat shouted across that she had emptied the bottom lock for us so we were clear to descend straight away, and then she added something unintelligable. It was only when we saw that our boat had dropped below the ground paddle of the top lock that we realised what the unintelligable bit of the shout had probably been. She'd left the bottom paddles of the bottom lock open and we were getting pretty close to sitting on the bottom of the top lock. Moral of the story? Even if someone tells you it's fine to proceed, always check first.

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We were going down along with another boat and were in the bottom lock when our boat (which was not actually touching the side) began to tilt badly,

My other half who was steering screamed and climbed onto the other boat, we quickly sorted the lock out by shutting the bottom paddles and letting some water

in from the lock above to level our boat, we then slowly emptied the lock again with no problem.

After we left the lock we looked at all possible reasons why it happened but although there were several boaters around we couldn't

work out why it had happened.

We have since been back through the lock on a few occasions with no problems

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We were going down along with another boat and were in the bottom lock when our boat (which was not actually touching the side) began to tilt badly,

My other half who was steering screamed and climbed onto the other boat, we quickly sorted the lock out by shutting the bottom paddles and letting some water

in from the lock above to level our boat, we then slowly emptied the lock again with no problem.

After we left the lock we looked at all possible reasons why it happened but although there were several boaters around we couldn't

work out why it had happened.

We have since been back through the lock on a few occasions with no problems

That could happen in any lock especially if one of both of the boats have fenders down.

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We moored there couple of weeks back at the Fishermen's ( lovely meal) and went down this double lock the day after. We had no issue at all. We were not sharing. We are 57 foot and there are just two of us.

However, further on, the first lock up the Huddersfield narrow 1E, Stanley Dawson lock, the boat gunwale in the central area caught the side stone at the top of the lock. The stone lifted, the boat tipped and luckily a gongoozler from the university shoved hard on the boat while my wife was stopping the water entering.

Message to self...always watch carefully in locks and never get distracted. (Especially by very pretty barelegged students at summer school wearing little on a warm summer day who are chatting with you)

I have reported the loose overhanging stone. I also received the baleful withering gaze from my lovely wife as a punishment.

Edited by Peter-Bullfinch
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On the way down the Niagara falls from the leaky gates drowned me threatened the galley area.

On the way up we levelled the water between the two locks and opened the gates. As we moved into second chamber the front became wedged on cill between chambers. The front of boat started to point skyward and water swept across back, swamping engine. The crew hadn't opened all four gates/ground culverts into top chamber, 1 was broken (so there wasn't enough water to allow us to clear cill).

Opened all and pulled boat through lock using ropes.

Good learning experience but a bit hairy for a minute or two. And yes we had closed paddles behind us.

Edited by Leemc
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All gates leak to some degree on the L&L (all wide beam locks suffer from this due to many narrowboats only opening one side rubbing the gates). The cill issue sounds like you didn't check their was enough water in the top lock when you emptied into the bottom lock, you must have also been fairly low in the lock or particularly deep drafted?

 

There's many staircase locks in this area that are not fully manned and all can have the issue you describe with the cill. The cill issue is common on Huddersfield locks due to short pounds.

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We had a scary problem on the Field staircase as I previously reported here but these things can happen anywhere. Just serves as a reminder that locks can bite back!

Was that where it looked to be caught up on something on the lock side but couldn't see anything protruding? It could be something like a small log between you and the lock side that gets trapped, once you start tilitimg the boat them jams but the log then disappears when you get everyone straight again.

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Agreed Ribbon, in my ignorance I thought when the middle gates opened that was the signal that all was well to proceed. As I said it was a good learning experience !

Huddersfield has depth warning gauges the other way around at some locks warning not to proceed if the pound is low. Some boats had been caught out in the past by getting stuck on the cill and the short pound draining quickly causing it to sink the boat.

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Was that where it looked to be caught up on something on the lock side but couldn't see anything protruding? It could be something like a small log between you and the lock side that gets trapped, once you start tilitimg the boat them jams but the log then disappears when you get everyone straight again.

It might well have been something like that because when we came back up the lock we kept a careful look at the side and there were no obvious problem spots.

As I said, it's reminded us that even experienced boaters need to pay attention at locks. It's easy to get too casual.

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Skipton sound absolutely terrifying!

 

It really isn't! Clearly the problem at Dowley Gap needs sorting; we've been up and down several times and although we've had no hairy moments as such, they are spectacularly leaky and I remember having trouble levelling the water between the top pound and top lock on at least one occasion. But having cruised many hundreds of miles of canal around the north and down as far as Wolverhampton, I still think the Skipton area is about as good as it gets for scenic, rural boating.

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It really isn't! Clearly the problem at Dowley Gap needs sorting; we've been up and down several times and although we've had no hairy moments as such, they are spectacularly leaky and I remember having trouble levelling the water between the top pound and top lock on at least one occasion. But having cruised many hundreds of miles of canal around the north and down as far as Wolverhampton, I still think the Skipton area is about as good as it gets for scenic, rural boating.

 

There is a stoppage for a broken ground paddle for Dowley Gap today for the top lock. Most issues come when boaters have trouble levelling the water is due to the bottom lock have too much water in it and waterfalling over the gates. The trick here is too let more water out the bottom so you don't get the water fall and then it will level up easier (or just wait!).

Edited by Robbo
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Thanks Robbo ( sorry about spell check earlier) you're spot o when going down- you have to empty bottom chamber before you empty top one. Instructions are there to follow. It was the bolt on the gate paddle that was broken last week.

The idea of a gauge on wall for water level going up is a great one.

The point has been made about locks"biting you" and this one has proved to have quite sharp teeth.

The area is fantastic and really quiet, we will return

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