A novel way to damage a canal lock

 While we wait for CRT to fix the lock gate at Claydon (see previous post). Here's a little tale the CRT man told me about the stoppage at Grants Lock below Banbury last week.

Boaters will know what a bottom gate paddle looks like. They can skip the rest of this paragraph if I'm teaching them to suck eggs.  Here'a very rough sketch I just knocked up.

When you turn the windlass it rotates a cog against a toothed rack which then lifts or raises. The rack is at the upper and of a long rod (usually square section for some reason) and the bottom end of the rod is attached to the actual paddle wich is a large rectangular plate covering a hole in the lock gate. Raising the paddle lets the water in the lock escape, so emptying the lock.

Boaters will also know that when you are ascending a narrow lock, the strong currents produced by the water rushing in can really shove the boat back and forth strongly.  Two techniques can overcome this. One is to position the boat hard against the top gate and have the engine running in gear. The other is to keep the rear of the boat a yard or so ( or a metre if you prefer) from the bottom gate and using the engine, keep the boat in position by driving it against the current, forward and back, as it pushes and pulls. 

Well at Grants lock, some clever boater had another idea. He looped his stern rope around that long paddle rod, like you might on the riser rods in big river locks. I'm guessing he might have also had his engine in gear pushing forwards. Well those rods and paddles are designed to go up and down only and so when the boat lurched forward the paddle didn't resist much and gave way ,thus emptying the lock faster than it filled. Doh!

So lots of boaters had to patiently wait for CRT to come and fix the paddle. Best part of a day's cruising lost I suppose. I do feel sorry for those poor folks on a week's boat hire when something like that happens.

While writing this we got a notification from CRT that they are offering assisted passage through the broken lock gate at Claydon (see previous post), so it looks like it's not fully fixed but they need to clear the backlog of queueing boats. So I guess we might at last take Herbie up the hill today. Gonna be scorchio!

Nearly out on the canal

 

Spot the fifth man!  Oh there he is lying under the balance beam vainly attempting to fix the bolt that holds the lock gate in place. I can tell you he was puffing and grunting quite a lot. "Need more washers" shouted the man.  "We haven't got any" came the reply. Anybody that thinks these guys have an easy life should come and have a go.  Up here, some way from the road, these's no heavy machinery to help or no spare parts store handy.

This is Claydon bottom lock on the South Oxford and it is the reason why Herbie isn't out on the canal today.  Apparently the old fixing bolt had sheared off for no apparent reason except perhaps old age.  When I spoke to the CRT guys they thought they'd have it fixed by the end of the day yesterday but there was nothing about it in the batch of CRT updates we got this morning.  Never mind, it gives me a chance to get a bit more painting done. I'm now nearing the finale of the restoration of the port side handrail. Just the red top coat(s) to go. That'll be five coats of paint in all. Two anti rust primers, one lovely Craftmaster undercoat (how do they get their paints to flow so well?) and two red top coats in Hempel paint. The Hempel is ok, but not as lovely as the Craftmaster. However Hempel has the Bordeaux Red colour we want to match the other reds on the boat. This warm weather is good for filling the old rust pits with  Isopon providing you work fast, but when the sun is out the metal gets hot really quickly and you can't paint, so you have to be opportunistic and dash out there with the paint brush when the weather looks right.

Now then I should explain while we've been gone missing for so many weeks. Well the primaary reason was that we were at home looking after our son Richard who was convalescing from a double hernie operation.  He was told not to lift anything heavier than a kettle for six weeks and as he normally lives on his boat, that wasn't going to work.  Anyway he's recovered now so we're able to get away for a bit.

Apart from getting a bit of painting done, our plan was to go up the hill to our favourite spot below Claydon and indulge in a mixture of chilling and odd jobs.  So we don't want to go through that busted lock at all. However the queue of boats moored up there now  stretches back as far as where we want to tie up, so we're waiting until they can move away.  I worry for the possible hire boaters who have booked an expensive week aboard and then get stuck waiting for days.  If there are any above those locks, they have nowhere to turn round.

Meanwhile here in Cropredy marina is not a bad place for us to wait. Gertie the cat quite likes it and we have a pleasnt sopt to sit outside and watch the world go by.  People often go on about the amazing skies we get round here and they're no wrong. Here's the view from the other end of the marina yesterday.