[email protected] wrote: > I've had a comment asking "How would going backwards help?". I've > explained about fitting the bow into the corner of the lock, but never > having actually boated this waterway (since Sanity is 60', just as > well, looks like), I couldn't be more specific. > > Just what exactly is the advantage of reversing down the lock?
In the case of some boats (including GUCCCo 'Fulbourne'), when the boat is pointing uphill the top of the sloping stem post can extend slightly over the sill of some locks, whereas when pointing downhill the vertical stern would butt against the sill with no such overhang. This has in the past been necessary to get a 71ft 6in boat through a couple of locks on the Warwickshire Avon and Cowbridge Lock on the Witham Navigable Drains. It also enabled us to take two full length ex working NBs (one 70ft and one 71ft 6in) down Lower Kyme lock on the Slea - whereas we would have had to go through one at a time if we'd been pointing downhill. As we found out the hard way. The very hard way, in fact - that was when operating the upper guillotine gate took several hundred turns of the handle. Martin L
