Date - 2 September 2010 Day - Thursday Start - 0950 hrs End -1700 hrs Another bright sunny day and we were on the move just before 10 am. When we arrived at the bottom of Bratch locks there was one boat in the flight and one waiting. Diana walked up to speak to the lock keeper and came back to tell me to follow the boat ahead up the flight. Not only was there a lock keeper on duty but also a volunteer assistant so things were running quite smoothly.The boat that arrived just before we went in was not so lucky as they were told to wait for three boats to come down. A had bit of a chat with the lock keeper about the flight when he came down to check out licence details.I seems that at one time they could have been a stair case and that the size of the chambers is very poorly balanced with the top one about 10 foot, the second only 8 and the bottom a whopping 13 foot so there is no where near enough water coming down the flight to maintain the chamber levels which is why side ponds were built between the chambers. One of the effects of doing 3 up and 3 down was that there were now three boats travelling up the canal quite close together so the chances of meeting boats in the pounds to give one up and one down become less and although we met several boats we had to turn every lock we came to, the boat ahead of us had to turn most of them and the front one had them all in his favour. As we passed Oxley Marina a motorised butty was about to draw away, it was half of an ex hotel pair and was motorised before it was sold on, is fitted with a hydraulic drive driving a propeller in the Ellm (rudder). We moored for the night on the 48 hour moorings just beyond the Fox and Anchor pub at 5 pm. Just after we had made Harnser secure the motorised Butty moored just ahead of us so we were able to talk hydraulics.
You will find our latest position and all our past travels on our blog at http://nbharnser.blogspot.com/ -- Brian
