Use The Riser Wires

[PhilAtterley]

1 hour ago, hounddog said:

Ok. Making statements as to what to do in circumstances of which you have no idea is plain stupid. 

Easier now? 

 

 

No - it still reads as though you are talking about yourself ! Try letting the dog have a go - I am sure it could do much better !

Edited May 3, 2017 by PhilAtterley

[b0atman]

children stop it 

[sirweste]

I think the big question that this argument hinges on is who's dad could beat the other up.

[Mike Todd]

13 hours ago, hounddog said:

except you have absolutely no idea of the downstream approach to bath deep lock and impossibility of taking a rope to any position where it is possible to retrieve the boat from the towpath so i am afraid i'll have to wait for you to come and apply the awesome weight of your experience to the problem. 

Perhaps the dispute can be considered by reference to this clip from Google

which shows the size of the bridge immediately below the lock and also that there is a much wider section just after, although the towpath is on the straighter side. I suspect that the picture on the first page of this thread was taken from the bridge. Bow hauling the boat out looks a big ask but not impossible. I think I recall that there are steps down just immediately below the lack and before the bridge (you can just see the dark line in the Google image) and the towpath does indeed extend under the bridge. However, you would need to have a rather long line. For those who don't know the lock it is numbered 8/9 as it amalgamates two previous locks (like up north at Tuel Lane, I believe, which is also vertiginously deep - however here you have to work with a lock keeper who will limit how you may operate that lock)

[PhilAtterley]

32 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Perhaps the dispute can be considered by reference to this clip from Google

which shows the size of the bridge immediately below the lock and also that there is a much wider section just after, although the towpath is on the straighter side. I suspect that the picture on the first page of this thread was taken from the bridge. Bow hauling the boat out looks a big ask but not impossible. I think I recall that there are steps down just immediately below the lack and before the bridge (you can just see the dark line in the Google image) and the towpath does indeed extend under the bridge. However, you would need to have a rather long line. For those who don't know the lock it is numbered 8/9 as it amalgamates two previous locks (like up north at Tuel Lane, I believe, which is also vertiginously deep - however here you have to work with a lock keeper who will limit how you may operate that lock)

Thank you very much for posting that aerial photo. If there is a towpath under the bridge as you remember, and as it appears to be in the photo, then the method I described, which would be appropriate only if there was no towpath under the bridge, would not be needed at all. The line from the boat could be used briefly from the lockside by the bottom gates just to get the boat moving, then simply be passed over the top of the open gate, walked down the steps and under the bridge. It would seem that the perceived difficulties referred to earlier exist only in the minds of certain people with a fondness for climbing in and out of lock chambers on slimy ladders !

[hounddog]

Just now, PhilAtterley said:

Thank you very much for posting that aerial photo. If there is a towpath under the bridge as you remember, and as it appears to be in the photo, then the method I described, which would be appropriate only if there was no towpath under the bridge, would not be needed at all. The line from the boat could be used briefly from the lockside by the bottom gates just to get the boat moving, then simply be passed over the top of the open gate, walked down the steps and under the bridge. It would seem that the perceived difficulties referred to earlier exist only in the minds of certain people with a fondness for climbing in and out of lock chambers on slimy ladders !

And those so ignorant they keep digging themselves holes even though they don't know what they're talking about.

[Mike Todd]

49 minutes ago, hounddog said:

And those so ignorant they keep digging themselves holes even though they don't know what they're talking about.

As hominem remarks like that don't take us much further forward. What Phil said in his last post seemed to make sense to me so what about it gives you a problem?

As it happens, I would generally prefer to use a ladder to get back down and then to motor out, especially if not on my own. However, there are advantages of alternatives, including that described, if you have then to go back and close the gates (since we are not on the Southern GU!). Equally, we have a narrowboat so there is room for the boat to move sideways, unlike the wide beam that started the discussion.

Whilst I am quite a fan of trying to works locks (and anything that moves) as efficiently as we can, not least to minimise the amount of wasted energy, I do also like to vary things, hence there is no set pattern as to which of us steers and which operates the paddles etc. It is also interesting to experiment and work out what works best, both for us, and in the differing circumstances across the system. I doubt very much if there is a single preferred solution and even at the same lock it can depend, including on what traffic there is about.

[Sir Nibble]

Chris knows this lock and so do I. I doubt many boats would carry the length of rope needed, few of us could lift it, and there's no way of getting it through the road tunnel anyway. He's right. Single handed through bath deep lock is a long ladder climb.

[bizzard]

Most  window cleaners wouldn't trust any other ladder other than their own and would supply his own slime free one to prop up on his boat roof to the lock side to climb up and down on. This practice was not an unknown method anyway in ladderless lock days.

[PhilAtterley]

 

Waterway Gazetteer for Kennet & Avon Canal confirms Bridge No. 192 - Pulteney Road Bridge - by Lock 8-9 Bath Deep Lock.

The bridge number is visible to the right, above the lock-wheeler's head, and yes, I can see now - it is obviously quite impossible to get a line down the steps from the lockside onto the towpath under the bridge, and then bowhaul the boat out of the lock - no chance of doing that whatsoever, and as for the length of the line, it would have to be ridiculously long - 60' at the very least - only around 15' - 20' less than the standard 5 or 6 lb (pounds weight) cotton line that every pair of working boats carried for bowhauling and/or pulling the butty through single locks with the motor.

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by PhilAtterley

[ditchcrawler]

On 2017-5-1 at 21:13, PhilAtterley said:

In fact, it is not what they are for. The ladders that have been installed in canal locks, both single and double, in recent years have been put there solely for the purpose of meeting today's Health & Safety concerns - so that anyone falling into an empty or part empty lock, which these days will almost certainly have both sets of gates shut, can climb out of the chamber. Back in the working days of our canals there were no ladders in lock chambers, but the bigger locks on rivers such as the Trent were equipped with them, and despite being kept relatively free of slime through frequent use, climbing them was nobody's idea of fun, and is certainly something that would never be done unless there was absolutely no alternative. 

Phil I have no doubt at all that you are correct on this matter of why ladders where installed, I just hope that anyone who falls in this one when its empty has long arms, I couldn't step on it from the gunwale , as you can see its level with my roof.

[PhilAtterley]

23 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Phil I have no doubt at all that you are correct on this matter of why ladders where installed, I just hope that anyone who falls in this one when its empty has long arms, I couldn't step on it from the gunwale , as you can see its level with my roof.

This must be the British Waterways version of the old joke with a solitary gate in the middle of nowhere and nothing in the way of fences or hedges on either side of it, or if I wanted to be unkind, I might suggest it had been installed by knuckledraggers for the sole benefit of other knuckledraggers.

There are in fact other examples of this particular blunder along the Trent, where ladders stopping well short of normal river levels were installed in lockcut walls in the 70's and 80's.

Edited May 3, 2017 by PhilAtterley

[Chewbacka]

16 minutes ago, PhilAtterley said:

This must be the British Waterways version of the old joke with a solitary gate in the middle of nowhere and nothing in the way of fences or hedges on either side of it, or if I wanted to be unkind, I might suggest it had been installed by knuckledraggers for the sole benefit of other knuckledraggers.

There are in fact other examples of this particular blunder along the Trent, where ladders stopping well short of normal river levels were installed in lockcut walls in the 70's and 80's.

Maybe the bottom end of the ladder lines up with the higher decks of the 70's work boats. 

[ditchcrawler]

59 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Maybe the bottom end of the ladder lines up with the higher decks of the 70's work boats. 

Well its the roof of my Narrowboat and I can just do Froghall Tunnel 

[Sir Nibble]

2 hours ago, PhilAtterley said:

 

Waterway Gazetteer for Kennet & Avon Canal confirms Bridge No. 192 - Pulteney Road Bridge - by Lock 8-9 Bath Deep Lock.

The bridge number is visible to the right, above the lock-wheeler's head, and yes, I can see now - it is obviously quite impossible to get a line down the steps from the lockside onto the towpath under the bridge, and then bowhaul the boat out of the lock - no chance of doing that whatsoever, and as for the length the line, it would have to be ridiculously long - 60' at the very least - only around 15' - 20' less than the standard 5 or 6 lb (pounds weight) cotton line that every pair of working boats carried for bowhauling the butty through single locks.

 

Well I have only ever worked at the left hand side of this picture but my memory is clearly at fault. I concede the point entirely, I was evidently wrong.