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A very Scary passage!


johnmck

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To quote one of my younger (4 y.o) daughter's favourite expressions

 

"shocking bad form"

 

Anyway its always bad if someone on a boat becomes alarmed by anything so hopefully it will be or has been dealt with through the correct procedure as suggested by alan_fincher earlier on.

 

It's nice to have help sometimes but if it results in negative experiences then something is going wrong.

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That was just it. We were alarmed at the action taken, felt the situation was out of our control, by people we had no confidence in. Nothing may have happened, but if it did, who would be blamed?

 

When in a lock, we dictate how it is worked, at our pace and safely. When this is taken from you, by someone well meaning, but not in control of the boat, it becomes an issue.

 

After several hundred locks this year, this was the second occasion when a well meaning volunteer caused us concern. The first was on the K&A at Bradford on Avon, but that's a different scenario.

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Here we go again - forum experts who were not there deciding that what the original poster said was invalid or should "man up".

And you expected anything else?

HEADLINE

VOLUNTEER QUICKLY SOLVES PROBLEM BOATER ASKED THEM TO DEAL WITH

Sub-Heading

Boater was taken by surprise at the speed of action and got embarrassed.

No need for such a sarky response.

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To clarify, we had moved upwards from one lock to another and I had closed both paddles, the gates then would not close behind the boat due to the obstruction, I closed one but the volunteer then opened the closed gate, so both gates were fully open. The volunteers then fully opened the white paddle on the lock below, which drains the lock into the side pound, due to the gates being open this pulled the boat backwards. There was no flushing just emptyingband no communication!

Edited by AliG
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To clarify, we had moved upwards from one lock to another and I had closed both paddles, the gates then would not close behind the boat due to the obstruction, I closed one but the volunteer then opened the closed gate, so both gates were fully open. The volunteers then fully opened the white paddle on the lock below, which drains the lock into the side pound, due to the gates being open this pulled the boat backwards. There was no flushing just emptyingband no communication!

 

Thanks for the clarification. I'd have been concerned by the lack of communication under those circumstances (or any other - surely you never open a paddle at any time without permission of the steerer?) The greater backwards pull in an empty lock than a full one would have caught me by surprise - that's a useful thing for all to learn from your experience.

 

MP.

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Given that draining the pair of locks with the boat positioned in the upper one is something that does potentially put the boat in a vulnerable position if it drifts back and is part over the cill between the two chambers, it is only something that you would want to do when all were in agreement, and expecting it. To put the boat in that vulnerable position without consultation seems very wrong to me.

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Given that draining the pair of locks with the boat positioned in the upper one is something that does potentially put the boat in a vulnerable position if it drifts back and is part over the cill between the two chambers, it is only something that you would want to do when all were in agreement, and expecting it. To put the boat in that vulnerable position without consultation seems very wrong to me.

That Sir, sums up the situation we found ourselves in, admirably.

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Given that draining the pair of locks with the boat positioned in the upper one is something that does potentially put the boat in a vulnerable position if it drifts back and is part over the cill between the two chambers, it is only something that you would want to do when all were in agreement, and expecting it. To put the boat in that vulnerable position without consultation seems very wrong to me.

 

A better strategy, possibly, would have been to move the boat back into the lower lock first. That would have allowed the cill to be exposed without having to ground the boat.

 

MP.

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A better strategy, possibly, would have been to move the boat back into the lower lock first. That would have allowed the cill to be exposed without having to ground the boat.

 

MP.

Gosh. I think you have grasped it! But the nub is, we were not given any voice or choice. It just happened without consultation. That is were it became rather more than a little concerning.

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A better strategy, possibly, would have been to move the boat back into the lower lock first. That would have allowed the cill to be exposed without having to ground the boat.

 

MP.

I agree that would be safer, but there could still be a chance that the boat went forward as the lock emptied, and the front went over the cill. With the gates open between the two chambers to me you are not in a standard operating mode at all. Presumably CRT do have a standard operating procedure for this case, but for most boaters this is not a normal situation, hence communication is even more critical than normal.

 

If the point here was to create turbulence in the chamber(s) to dislodge the obstruction, perhaps putting the boat in the lower chamber and emptying slowly and then taking the boat back out to the space between the two sets of locks would have been the bests option. You can then do what you want between the two chambers with no danger to the boat.

 

But the real issue is communication, and the lack of understanding that it is the guy on the back of the boat that is the only person making the decisions on how to sort this out.

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I agree that would be safer, but there could still be a chance that the boat went forward as the lock emptied, and the front went over the cill.

 

But the risk of that happening is no more than the chance of a boat descending a lock drifting back to over the cill. It does happen, but due to lack of attention rather than unexpected effects from completely draining a lock chamber.

 

The actions of the volockies were clearly wrong in this case, and I hope the OP will take the Fincher's advice on what to do about reporting that.

 

I don't think it's particularly news to most boaters that people do stupid things with lock paddles on occasion, (though it might be news that volockies do). The effect of completely emptying a lock in a staircase with a boat in it is unexpected (at least to me) and worth noting for the future.

 

MP.

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Sounds bad. Definitely needs reporting

 

The only valid way to remove an obstruction is to use a long shaft and stab it with the boat hook end (if you can find one with a sharp point) or as you said a keb. Any other way of moving it is bad practice really as not only is it dangerous for the boat and the infrastructure it also means that the item is still in the water and could cause more problems.

 

Sounds like you encountered a tw@ sad.png

 

I wonder if any of the volunteer lock keepers actually know what a keb is and if so where it could be located.

 

I know it would need a very long handle if it were used from the lockside.

Back in the day 2 kebs with different length handles were kept in the stop planks " Sheds " probably over the intervening years they have been "aquired " so no longer there

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Back in the day 2 kebs with different length handles were kept in the stop planks " Sheds " probably over the intervening years they have been "aquired " so no longer there

Sadly that's true. I do see kebs now and then on the workboats - usually well locked up. It would be worth CRT buying some or having some made up. Its quite easy to make one and get a 4 or 5m aluminium tube for it for durability. A lock flight with no keb about is a ridiculous state of affairs IMO :huh:

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When going through my 3rd ever narrow lock in 1994 on the Oxford Canal I was very impressed to see another boater pull out a large log which had been obstructing a gate using his long shaft. By stabbing the wood with the spike it was possible to lift it right out.

 

I've done the same thing loads of times since and always find it very satisfactory :) it does require a proper old shaft head with a sharp point on it.

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But the risk of that happening is no more than the chance of a boat descending a lock drifting back to over the cill. It does happen, but due to lack of attention rather than unexpected effects from completely draining a lock chamber.

 

The actions of the volockies were clearly wrong in this case, and I hope the OP will take the Fincher's advice on what to do about reporting that.

 

I don't think it's particularly news to most boaters that people do stupid things with lock paddles on occasion, (though it might be news that volockies do). The effect of completely emptying a lock in a staircase with a boat in it is unexpected (at least to me) and worth noting for the future.

 

MP.

 

I'm not sure some people have fully grasped what happened here. In my view, the actions of the lock keepers could have ended up sinking the boat.

 

This is Foxton, a staircase. The boat was going up, so had moved into a lock chamber without a huge amount of water in it. The gates wouldn't close. So the gates were opened, and the paddle lifted to empty the chamber below. Those are pretty big paddled (remember the case of the woman who got swept right through one of them?) so the boat, not surprisingly was pulled backwards.

 

In a worst case scenario, the boat could have been moved backwards enough that it was half in one lock and half in the one below. And with the water level dropping, the bow could have been on the bottom of the upper lock, while the stern was still dropping in the lower one. Eventually, the boat could have ended up tipping backwards (just like the sinkings on the Huddersfield narrow, where there was insufficient water to get the boat out of the lock, and leakage meant the level in the lock continued to drop, leaving the boat with the bow caught on the cill, and the back end down in the lock).

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It could even be worse - the steerer could slip off the boat and end up in the lower chamber with the boat descending onto them :huh:

 

It really was a dangerous situation IMO and needs to be prevented from happening again. I suppose the offending object is still in there somewhere :banghead:

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The good thing about an obstruction being close to where the gate closes is it is easy to remove with a keb. Once it is randomly drifting about at the bottom of a lock its impossible to find until it causes more problems. I suppose it were the bottom lock it would just end up in a pound but if its in the middle of a staircase it really needs to be removed.

 

Maybe CRT can do a press release about draining a lock and removing a offending fender - a bit of publicity :rolleyes:

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A bit unusual but this (on the left) is an old Grand Junction Canal Company keb :) found with the magnet in Rickmansworth.

 

Most newer kebs are like a bent garden fork but the older type with flat tines were better for getting coal out with apparently.

 

The other item in the picture is a 3 pronged body drag

post-1752-0-22858000-1474884927_thumb.jpg

Edited by magnetman
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It could even be worse - the steerer could slip off the boat and end up in the lower chamber with the boat descending onto them.

 

Or the Volunteer's actions might have made the boater move directly in the path of a falling meteorite.

But hey - its always satisfying to have someone else to blame for all the bad stuff that life throws at you to deal with.

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