Steve Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Daniel Hutchinson wrote:
>> http://www.alvechurch.com/marinas/anderton/index.html
>
>Link is actually <http://www.alvechurch.co.uk/marinas/anderton/index.html>
>
>This put a crazy idea into my head. I'm involved with the Caldon and
>Uttoxeter Canals Trust and was chatting recently with another member
>about overcoming the problem on headroom in Froghall tunnel. Is there a
>solution here? Suppose your boat floated into a tank which was quite
>deep, say 5ft draught or so. The door is closed and the water pumped
>out. The whole lot will stay afloat as some of the water has been
>replaced by air, but the roof of your boat will be maybe 18 inches
>lower, depending on draught as it sits on the bottom of the tank.
>
>Would this work...? Obviously this assumes that the tunnel can be
>dredged and the tank is not too wide at the waterline.
>
>Steve
>NB Bream
Steve, a Frenchman beat you to this idea by about 150 years.
Exactly this system was used in the Pouilly-en-Auxois tunnel on the
summit of the Burgundy canal. This tunnel was too low for unladen
peniches to pass through, so such peniches were navigated into a
floating caisson, which was then sealed behind them. Flotation tanks
in the caisson were then flooded , making the caisson float lower. The
caisson was then towed through the tunnel by an electric tug. The
flotation tanks were pumped out, and the peniche released, at the
other end.
When I went through the tunnel about a decade ago, the caisson, and
the tug, were still moored there, but I think they hadn't been used
for many years and that the power cable along the tunnel roof (power
was picked up by the tug via a trolley-bus type arrangement, using a
rather worrying and low-hanging bare wire) probably was no longer safe
or workable.
There's (almost) no commercial traffic over this summit any more.
However, the system worked well, and may well be worth considering for
Froghall..
But is Froghall tunnel sufficiently deep enough to allow a caisson to
float low enough to make this work? And is it wide enough to accept a
caisson at all.
Worth investigating, IMHO.
Adrian
Adrian Stott
07956-299966
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