On Wednesday last at about 4:15pm I walked round to post a letter at the box outside our recently closed Post Office. I heard a strange noise nearby like a cement mixer filled with broken bottles and climbed up to the picnic area nearby to investigate. It was the sound of a narrowboat grinding its way through inch or more thick ice past a row of moored boats (including some plastic cruisers) and its prop chewing up the broken ice left behind. The intrepid crew were managing to progress at the rate of about 5 metres per minute. I was surprised that they were going on in the gathering gloom with about two miles to the next possible mooring place as they were just passing a free BW mooring (all facilities, and the adjacent Boat Club bar open that very evening). In the Club House later in the evening there was much talk of the un-named 'blue' boat' (cue comment from Beeky re the Un-fleet) being on the move in such conditions and not stopping to enjoy the local facilities and conviviality. AND ANOTHER THING (but please excuse these ramblings if someone more scientifically qualified than I has already resolved the water below the lock problem.) On the subject of the water below locks being un-frozen whilst there is ice in the lock and in the pound above; doesn't this have more to do with the density properties of water rather than potential energy being converted to heat via kinetic energy? Water is at its densest at 4deg C if I remember, so warmer or colder water than that at 4 deg. would both rise, consequently water at the bottom of a full lock would be at a higher temperature than the ice above it and therefore water leaking out of the bottom would be (relatively) warmer than the temperature at which ice would form on the surface in the pound below the lock. Also the water close to the bottom of a lock will be more sheltered from the wind than the more exposed surface water giving yet another possible explanation. Arthur Naylor nb Warm at Home
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