"Roger Millin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>Adrian suggested:
>> Crack open the paddle needed to hold the far gates closed the first
>> time you pass it. (That also makes closing the gates easier, BTW.
>> Common working days practice).
>I have some reservations about this:
>1. You demand utopian maintenance (no leaks etc) and then every boat
>flushes (loses) water through each downhill lock for 2 reasons (a)
>Because it assists in closing the gate (b) *Just in case* one of the
>bottom gates is a swinger. This loss of water during the time that
>both bottom gates could be shut (particularly if done by one person
>only) could deplete a small pound above (such as that in the middle
>of the Napton flight for example).
If you are going to debate with me, then could you please ascribe to
me only opinions I actually hold or things I actually said?
I have never "demand(ed) utopian maintenance". In fact, I have
suggested a method of encouraging BW to deal with leaks, and leaving
(significantly) leaky locks closed.
I did not suggest flushing (which AIUI is a term meaning leaving
paddles significantly open for a significant time to move a boat out
of a lock) to close gates. I suggested cracking a paddle open, to
help with closing them and to ensure that, when they are closed, they
stay closed. The latter uses very little water, as to keep the gates
closed requires a tiny head of water.
>2. There is also a safety implication here. In the hands of an
>experienced boater there is no problem.
Many waterway activities are a safety problem for the inexperienced
boater. I think that's why AIUI many on this ng are in favour of
better training for first-timers.
> In the hands of a novice/inexperienced boater they could easily put too much
> feed on.
Or make any of thousands of other possible mistakes. Windlasses are
dangerous too - a novice might leave one on the spindle of a raise
paddle - but we don't outlaw them.
>3. The wear and tear on the gates (which you are so keen to minimise
>by *reducing* (?) gate movements) will be made much worse by the
>slamming due to water through flow described in point 2.
Remember - "crack". If this is done, the gates don't slam, they close
gently.
>Having said that, as you point out in your later posting, the Perry
>Bar flight (most still have them, by the way.
Good to know. I wonder if they have been reopened in recent years. I
was fairly sure they had all been blocked at one point.
>What may have been common working practice in the working boat days,
>dropping paddles, charging gates, using water flow to shut gates
>from fully open etc was probably OK in those days when there was
>tremendous pressure to 'get on'.
I think charging gates was never OK. Stemming them was, though, and
still is IMHO.
I would like to know for sure how much dropping paddles was common
practice. I suspect it was, as it is less hassle. Surely it would be
simple to design paddles that *can* be dropped without damage. I
believe that that was a deliberate element of the "new design" paddles
on the broad GU locks north of Braunston. Has the design of other
paddles changed, so that they are more fragile now?
>But these days, with the relative
>fragility of the system infrastructure and the *definite* lack of
>maintenance compared to those days such practices are not sensible
>and should not be encouraged until such time as we return to their
>level of maintenance (Yep, cloud cuckoo land again, I'm afraid).
Please give some of examples of how reduced maintenance implies more
problems if gates are left open (except for leaks, as I have already
agreed that significantly leaky locks should be left closed). I can't
think of any.
>There are many things that we don't do now that were common in the
>past, keeping slaves, sending boys up chimneys and bear baiting, to
>name but three, but just because they were done in the past is not
>necessarily a good reason for reinstating the practices.
Agreed. But all those were practices that caused serious damage to
the (e.g.) slaves, boys, and bears. They weren't good practice ever.
Not good comparisons, as leaving gates open causes benefits, and
was/is good practice.
Martin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>And just because you don't agree with someone's argument it doesn't make
>their argument incorrect.
True (but maybe you might put "necessarily" before "make").
But if someone's argument is supported by (and depends on the support
of) incorrect data, then that does make it incorrect. It is that type
of argument that I both disagree with and reject, if I supply the
(correct) facts.
Adrian
Adrian Stott
07956-299966
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