Guy Morgan wrote: > When going uphill, the idea is to use the paddle on the > same side as the boat. The water comes into the lock low down and > some way from the head gates, passes under the boat, bounces off the > far wall and holds the boat against the wall. If excess crew is > available, then the other paddle can be raised once the boat has > settled and the first paddle is right up. > > If sharing, both paddles can be raised at the same time, though as > with a single boat (and indeed in any lock) paddles need to be > brought up carefully to avoid throwing the boats about. It may be > useful to know that each paddle takes 21ish turns to raise fully. > > Cheers > > Guy
With Erne-Nest we have to be careful with this route, as even we are deep enough draught to get the paddle culverts not quite coming out below the boat, especially if the pound is down a bit. So I would draw enough paddle on the ns to finally shut the gate and let the boat waver about, rise a foot then put the whole paddle on, by then the boat will be clinging to the ns for dear life! Having a maxish length boat for the Grand Canal, I have to say even we use a crew member on the bow rope when going up...4 x3ft gate paddles* could sink a boat VERY quickly, or blow in a cratch cover (which we always have down when going up in a Grand Lock) yep EVERY lock (but one) has the full array of gate paddles..and very few are broken. -- Neil Arlidge - NB Erne Nest - about to chill*-out on Lough Derg. chill* hopefully not this time :-)
