When we came through Grindley recently the wife had to explain to the BW man about the white line in the middle riser. It seems he had been given the job as a one off without instruction. Earlier, at Hurleston the wife actually turned the second lock down round against us (coming up) as the keeper had ordered one (coming down) into the short pound there and was now letting a second one down. The keeper (who has been boating) seemed to understand when she told him why, but some crew clown from the second down - who was not local But obviously felt he knew more about locks than a mere woman, then arrived and started talking down to the wife about how to do this pound. Meanwhile his wife, instead of staying in the lock to stop and swap when we were up and ready to come out, came out and only the keepers grabbing a rope stopped her sailing off across the pound in the wind. I have done the cross over many times with with much larger hires but this lot, like many privates, know too much to actually respond to stop/go signals from the boat they are waltzing with so we took a lot of waving and yelling to get madame to 1 move so we could get out, 2. move forward so we could get in. After a final exchange with the clown were finally round them and in the top lock. That said, the keeper who is normally on at Hurleston knows her locks and controls things in a sensible way, In contrast, at Grindley you never know what you are going to get.
--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Ron Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Ron Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: BW has plans for wind & hydro power generation To: [email protected] Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 7:25 PM Michael Askin wrote: > Ron Jones wrote Re Grindley Brook: >> I *just* got over the cill in the >> staircase 2 weeks ago > > If it was the top or bottom cill, we all should be worried, however if > it was a cill in the middle it probably just means someone didn't take > enough care over water levels through the locks. Difficult not to take care with the BW man watching and helping! It was the cill between top and middle, and I was the third one up, so he was about to reverse the direction. But the nice BW man said the levels were down due to lots of boats that day (it was a Saturday, and this was about 5pm) Ron Jones Process Safety & Development Specialist Don't repeat history, unreported chemical lab/plant near misses at http://www.crhf. org.uk Only two things are certain: The universe and human stupidity; and I'm not certain about the universe. ~ Albert Einstein [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
