Hatton Locks record transit time

[Chertsey]

Well I'm amazed. I thought we'd done well when we went up with Holland in 2014 en route to Stratford. Same technique as Starman, but with only two people on the bank - albeit both on bikes so still getting them set ahead. My blog records 2:50 albeit 'without feeling we were hurrying'. I do recall it being very satisfyingly efficient.

 

I guess it helps a tiny bit having a shorter boat, you can be getting the gates shut while it's still coming in... I haven't got sufficient confidence in my/the boat's ability to stop fast to come in fast.

[starman]

Well I'm amazed. I thought we'd done well when we went up with Holland in 2014 en route to Stratford. Same technique as Starman, but with only two people on the bank - albeit both on bikes so still getting them set ahead. My blog records 2:50 albeit 'without feeling we were hurrying'. I do recall it being very satisfyingly efficient.

 

I guess it helps a tiny bit having a shorter boat, you can be getting the gates shut while it's still coming in... I haven't got sufficient confidence in my/the boat's ability to stop fast to come in fast.

Since that Hatton experience we've always tried to persuade fellow travellers through double lock flights to adopt the 'side by side' technique - come out of the lock together, keep together and enter the next together. It's not just a question of speed; just makes life so much easier and less stressful. Surprising how few people are willing to try it though.

 

And, a different point: why don't more blokes do the lock wheeling? Or even help? There's nothing in the rules that says the man has to be statuesque on the counter while his wife struggles. Might get rid of a few beer guts too

[Chertsey]

Since that Hatton experience we've always tried to persuade fellow travellers through double lock flights to adopt the 'side by side' technique - come out of the lock together, keep together and enter the next together. It's not just a question of speed; just makes life so much easier and less stressful. Surprising how few people are willing to try it though.

And, a different point: why don't more blokes do the lock wheeling? Or even help? There's nothing in the rules that says the man has to be statuesque on the counter while his wife struggles. Might get rid of a few beer guts too

Indeed. By 'same technique' I was including women on the boats, blokes on bikes on the bank, and boats stuck like glue. Yes, I tried to persuade a few odd people to try it last year, I think they just didn't get it. It was KK on Owl who showed me that trick. Coming out of double locks together is also useful for holding back at the end of the flight to get the lockwheelers back on. Mind you, we went one better last year, breasted the boats up with one person taking them through the locks leaving three on the bank (but with a dog and no bikes). Not Hatton but that would have been good.

[alan_fincher]

I'm currently re-reading John Thorpe's "Windlass In My Belt", where the time claimed to do the Hatton flight in a pair of working boats is just 1 hour 10 minutes.

I have to say I can't get my head around that figure, but most of John Thorpe's re-telling of his youthful experiences working with Alec & Lil Purcell seems to be so accurately recalled and meticulously recorded, that it seems unlikely he has got this point wrong.

 

However CanalplanAC records it being over 2 miles between top and bottom lock, which I can't see can reasonably use less than 30 minutes of the actual time available, even if you could leave and enter each lock doing a full 4 MPH. Even that would then leave just 40 minutes to work the locks themselves, which averages only 1 minute 54 seconds per lock.

 

Nope! - I still can't get my head around how you would do this!

[MtB]

Alan, when was Alan Thorpe claiming this rapid passage? I'm wondering whether there were gate as well as ground paddles at some point in the past. That would make the locks even faster.

 

Here on the K&A boating single handed I can barely do two locks in 1hr 10mins!

[Tim Lewis]

I'm currently re-reading John Thorpe's "Windlass In My Belt", where the time claimed to do the Hatton flight in a pair of working boats is just 1 hour 10 minutes.

 

I have to say I can't get my head around that figure, but most of John Thorpe's re-telling of his youthful experiences working with Alec & Lil Purcell seems to be so accurately recalled and meticulously recorded, that it seems unlikely he has got this point wrong.

 

However CanalplanAC records it being over 2 miles between top and bottom lock, which I can't see can reasonably use less than 30 minutes of the actual time available, even if you could leave and enter each lock doing a full 4 MPH. Even that would then leave just 40 minutes to work the locks themselves, which averages only 1 minute 54 seconds per lock.

 

Nope! - I still can't get my head around how you would do this!

 

Can only agree with you Alan, as noted before we did the flight once in 80 minutes with a single boat with eight crew in 80 minutes, there is no way that a pair could have improved on our time by 30 seconds a lock!

 

Tim

[alan_fincher]

Alan, when was Alan Thorpe claiming this rapid passage? I'm wondering whether there were gate as well as ground paddles at some point in the past. That would make the locks even faster.

 

Here on the K&A boating single handed I can barely do two locks in 1hr 10mins!

It's John Thorpe, and written late 1950s.

 

No, the "candlestick" Ham Baker paddle-gear has been ubiquitous at Hatton, and all of the widened locks on the Birmingham line of the GU since the modernisation of the 1930s. There have never been gate paddles at either end of the modernised locks.

 

Yes, it's true that they do have some massive paddles, so if you can do the 21 turns of each paddle fast enough, they are very rapid. I have never knowingly timed one, but I suspect they are still about 90 seconds between the points the gates at one end could slam shut with the paddles at the other end already up, and the pint you could get the exit gates open. I also have no idea if the locks fill faster than they empty, or vice versa, so it might be possible to be faster in one direction than the other. The trip where 1 hour 10 minutes is recorded, they were going up the locks. (As an aside Atherstone narrow locks tale about 90 seconds to empty, but typically 4 minutes to fill, so an unimpeded passage down will always be very much faster than an uphill passage).

 

Interestingly John Thorpe's book also refers to the characteristic rattle of pawls as you wound the paddles, so we are talking about the "claws" on chains only having replaced them after the date he wrote, I believe. There would also have been no projecting indicator rods to tell you if a paddle were up or down - you had to peer through a hole on the side of the paddle-gear casing to work that out.

[RLWP]

I meant to time the top lock last week, then forgot

 

Richard

[fittie]

About 40 years ago it took one and a half hours with me & bike lock wheeling and an old leaky boat full of coal. Going up hill BTW can't remember the return though. It's an age thing. So a crew of 2. As soon as the boat was in the lock shut the gate and run up the paddle and then off to get the next ready. Gates left open - different times.

Just trying to remember if the skipper shut the gate and i did the paddle thing before cycling off to the next lock but...sadly, I can't.

[RLWP]

Just trying to remember if the skipper shut the gate and i did the paddle thing before cycling off to the next lock but...sadly, I can't.

 

Unlikely if you managed that time. Stopping and starting the boat to shut the gates would take too much time, as would walking back. It could work if you cycled back to close up

 

Richard

[fittie]

No, I ment shutting the gate after the boat entered the lock as I wound up the paddle - not closing the gate after the boat had left the lock - that was left open

[RLWP]

No, I ment shutting the gate after the boat entered the lock as I wound up the paddle - not closing the gate after the boat had left the lock - that was left open

 

Got you

 

I'm wondering how the steerer would do that quickly. Would they step off as the boat entered the chamber and use the stairs?

 

Richard

[matty40s]

Can only agree with you Alan, as noted before we did the flight once in 80 minutes with a single boat with eight crew in 80 minutes, there is no way that a pair could have improved on our time by 30 seconds a lock!

 

Tim

Oh ,I don't know, less water to empty with two boats and all that.... ;-)

[FadeToScarlet]

 

Got you

 

I'm wondering how the steerer would do that quickly. Would they step off as the boat entered the chamber and use the stairs?

 

Richard

Step off with a checking strap, up the steps, check and start gate closing maybe?

[RLWP]

Step off with a checking strap, up the steps, check and start gate closing maybe?

 

Perhaps. The GU locks are pretty big with a lot of stuff hanging around the lock mouth - is what you are suggesting possible?

 

Richard

[FadeToScarlet]

 

Perhaps. The GU locks are pretty big with a lot of stuff hanging around the lock mouth - is what you are suggesting possible?

 

Richard

I think so, thinking back to the "Idle Women" books,they describe getting off up the steps with a checking strap to stop the butty. And I'm sure I've seen it elsewhere too.

 

But whether that's the best way for a single motor, I wouldn't know.

[matty40s]

It's what I do most of the time when they havnt put a silly bridge over the lock mouth....

[RLWP]

It's what I do most of the time when they havnt put a silly bridge over the lock mouth....

 

And it works going up Hatton?

 

Richard

[matty40s]

Some of the locks yes. But not all. Depends which side the narrow lock was and which side the towpath is.

[Nightwatch]

An oldish thread so please don't read the whole lot. But you probably have by now. Doh!

Planning on an early start tomorrow. We are at a Tom o' the Woods. 2.5 miles to the top of the Hatton Flight. We are going down the flight tomorrow from hopefully 10 ish onwards.

Are there volockies in attendance on Thursdays?

Is there anyone on here transmitting the the flight that we could double up with? Just makes life easier. Someone for me to chat with whilst Margaret of lockwheeling.

 

[carlt]

In 2000 I did it in 1hr 45mins with a crew of 6 and an extremely knackered motorised wooden butty (Taplow).

However we were extremely motivated (that area was most definitely hostile territory for wooden boat rescuers back then), it was the early hours of the morning so nobody to get in our way and I was boating solo while my crew drove ahead and had every lock set in my favour and every gate open as I approached.

We were slowed down because Taplow's bows were hanging off so I had to be very careful in the locks not to hit the front gates whereas usually I would just stay in forward gear and ride the gate down so I believe 1hr 30 would have been doable with a healthy boat.

[X Alan W]

Didn't do a lot of south road boating probably Hatton 3 or 4 times. First time 28 tons of concrete piles ,we were followed down by a BW empty pair, but he was not  on orders so didn't have to loose him by, 2 of us, boats breasted & strapped,gates left open & bottom gates thumb lined offered to close bottom gates & draw a top paddle but he said not to bother bottom paddles were closed by knocking of locking device & letting them run down most if not all had their rubber bump stops, cannot remember the exact time but think it was under 2 hours, some of the locks still had ratchet & pawls,& some crowfoot & chain, the crowfoot fitted ones IIRC had indicator rods again IIRC it would have been autumn 62 I recallthe BW steerer saying if that's your first time down "you did good" a year or so later I helped him up Audlem with a load of copper sludge from Ellesmere Port to Brum always preferred the narrow locks even having to work each one twice

[MtB]

7 hours ago, carlt said:

In 2000 I did it in 1hr 45mins with a crew of 6 and an extremely knackered motorised wooden butty (Taplow).

However we were extremely motivated (that area was most definitely hostile territory for wooden boat rescuers back then), it was the early hours of the morning so nobody to get in our way and I was boating solo while my crew drove ahead and had every lock set in my favour and every gate open as I approached.

We were slowed down because Taplow's bows were hanging off so I had to be very careful in the locks not to hit the front gates whereas usually I would just stay in forward gear and ride the gate down so I believe 1hr 30 would have been doable with a healthy boat.

 

What happened to Taplow? Did it survive you rescuing it? I never see it around.

[alan_fincher]

50 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

What happened to Taplow? Did it survive you rescuing it? I never see it around.

It was sunk near Cheddington rather more than 2 years ago.

Although I can't recall hearing of its final fate I think it is fairly unlikely it was refloated or pulled out whole.

Purely speculative, but this was very near Jem Bates territory, so I suppose it is possible that some of the metal bits may have survived for potential reuse?

[Nightwatch]

Time was 1030 ish. Spoke to a chap single handing, just. Come up the flight. I asked how long it took him,he said six hours. So e set off at 04.30. That's keenness for you.

We have delayed our descent until tomorrow as we have a muscle injured crew member. Some of the locks on the Stratford took their toll. AND I told them to eat ALL their weetabix that morning.

(I did offer to work the locks,and this was declined) Crew member is very competent at working the boat,but not if there's watchers within half a mile.

May take a trip to the cafe for latebrekkers.