Gate Paddles

[David Mack]

These are the fully open gate paddles at Kings Lock on the Leicester Section. Hardly worth bothering with!

 

 

And one ground paddle seems to be ineffective. Very slow filling.

Still, all the CRT kit is here for the stoppage next week.

[magpie patrick]

They're open???

 

As part of the stoppage they should fit these...

[David Mack]

It's better a few locks further down. This is Freemans Meadow Lock.

[X Alan W]

I thought I saw or read some time back that C&RT's aim on lock stoppages was to disable ,remove, & block off ,top gate paddles as they were a boat sinking hazard if used incorrectly may be it was an office "bods" musings

[magpie patrick]

Some of the fiercest gate paddles I've seen (prior to getting to Beziers) are on the Kennet, whilst not quite as bad as Fonserrannes they would certainly sink a boat like Lutine, where the front bilge drains under the cabin.

 

The locks in question have no ground paddles, although some of them have signs saying don't use the gate paddles until they are submerged...

[GUMPY]

Problem is after the sinking at Gargrave in 1998  BW decided to fit baffles to deflect the flow and prevent it happening again. Unfortunately BW's design was cr.p trapping all manner of rubbish in the sluice. Sadly the gate paddles were not the cause of the sinking neither was it a recommendation in the MAIB report that they be baffled.

The notice about not opening gate paddles until they are covered would at that time have discharged BW's duty of care, but no they had to ruin most of the broad locks on the system instead.

[magpie patrick]

31 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Problem is after the sinking at Gargrave in 1998  BW decided to fit baffles to deflect the flow and prevent it happening again. Unfortunately BW's design was cr.p trapping all manner of rubbish in the sluice. Sadly the gate paddles were not the cause of the sinking neither was it a recommendation in the MAIB report that they be baffled.

The notice about not opening gate paddles until they are covered would at that time have discharged BW's duty of care, but no they had to ruin most of the broad locks on the system instead.

Yes, I was quite happy with the Kennet locks, but the lack of baffles surprised me. 

 

Narrow locks have deflector plates to send the water sideways, not sure why these weren't used on wide locks.

[Mike Todd]

31 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Problem is after the sinking at Gargrave in 1998  BW decided to fit baffles to deflect the flow and prevent it happening again. Unfortunately BW's design was cr.p trapping all manner of rubbish in the sluice. Sadly the gate paddles were not the cause of the sinking neither was it a recommendation in the MAIB report that they be baffled.

The notice about not opening gate paddles until they are covered would at that time have discharged BW's duty of care, but no they had to ruin most of the broad locks on the system instead.

Alas that is all too often the consequence of unthinking H&S analyses. Same kind of thing with the tail gate bridges on Staffs and Worcs. The general thing is that organisations want to protect themselves against future charges and the easiest way is to stop the original situation occurring rather than providing a safe way of doing it (int he case of the bridges I'm no sure just how much safety gain there was with the hand rails) Problems with gate paddle baffles have long been an issue and it is not helped by the continuing dropping of plastic litter into the canal. But then, if you imagined a contemporary design project to build a lock, almost all about it would cause a half decent safety engineer to blow a fuse! Like suggesting building a publicly accessible track on which individuals would steer transportation devices towards each other with just half a metre between them at closing speeds of 150 mph. In fact, H&S allows a reasonableness test but that is often beyond the capabilities of those to whom safety is delegated.

[ditchcrawler]

50 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Problem is after the sinking at Gargrave in 1998  BW decided to fit baffles to deflect the flow and prevent it happening again. Unfortunately BW's design was cr.p trapping all manner of rubbish in the sluice. Sadly the gate paddles were not the cause of the sinking neither was it a recommendation in the MAIB report that they be baffled.

The notice about not opening gate paddles until they are covered would at that time have discharged BW's duty of care, but no they had to ruin most of the broad locks on the system instead.

Didn't they also do training and issue certificates to people authorised to operate gate paddles at one time

[GUMPY]

13 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Didn't they also do training and issue certificates to people authorised to operate gate paddles at one time

That seems to ring a bell in my befuddled brain.

Do you still have your certificate?

 

Edited October 31, 2018 by Loddon

[Pluto]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Yes, I was quite happy with the Kennet locks, but the lack of baffles surprised me. 

 

Narrow locks have deflector plates to send the water sideways, not sure why these weren't used on wide locks.

I would suspect that wide boats have longer bow decks so the jet of water would be much less likely to reach the hold. You just had to remember to keep the scuttle closed so that water did not pour into the bow cabin.

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Loddon said:

That seems to ring a bell in my befuddled brain.

Do you still have your certificate?

 

Never had one, I was on the Oxford but remember BW were locking gate paddles off

[Iain_S]

If I remember correctly, the certificates were for the Wigan flight, or possibly the whole of the Leeds and Liverpool. I'm not sure whether it was ever put into effect, though. In the dim and distant (to me) past, so might be totally off beam ?