Monday 31 August 2020

A brief lesson about locks

I find the weekends can be scary Weaver, what with hire boats and canoes and paddle boarders, I have no problems sharing the water with them if they know what they are doing but some take the most stupid risks.

The towpath is also incredibly busy with cyclists at the weekend, the dogs and I take our life in our hands/paws when we walk. I get off the towpath if I can as it's safer walking elsewhere. Of course it is a bank holiday so we have three days of it.

It's very cold here today so far I'm hoping it will warm up later. 

The locks on the K&A either have paddles that open in the gate or ground paddles. The basic idea is that you empty the lock, open the gates pootle into the lock and then fill the lock with water. Today I was walking Loulou when  boat entered the lock. I helped shut the gate once the boat was in, I then watched as the crew started trying to open the already open paddles on the bottom gate. After a few minutes I suggested that they would have more success if they closed the paddles in the bottom gate and opened the paddles in the top gate as this would enable the lock to fill. The very patronising twat on the boat told me not to be silly, he informed me that the safest way to fill the lock was with the ground paddles. This particular lock doesn't have ground paddles so I can only assume that he was hoping the water would run up hill. At this point I walked away. They were in the lock for about 40 minutes until another boater showed them what to do!

Here is a YouTube video of a lock being opened. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVIovDjH1jU

2 comments:

Cardinal Wolsey said...

It's difficult to know when to offer help, sometimes it's wanted, sometimes not. Rescued a hire-boat here who had been blown across and pinned onto the offside - half family aboard, half on the towpath, no-one holding a rope of any kind, Dad on the tiller trying to drive it like a car. The hire company hadn't even shown them the centre-line, let alone told them what to do with it. They'd also told him to tie up with double-hitches or something - whatever it was, it looked like rope-knitting gone wrong. The company had told him to find and watch the C&RT videos on boat handling!!! Poor guy was desperate to make a good show of it, so I gave him my own favourite tips, and told him that slow slow slow really would be his best friend - when it wasn't that windy, because then nowt works... and while everyone's grinning, everyone else has also been there, done that.

I always size people up first though, sometimes it's better to just walk on (and sometimes better to just watch, in case they need someone to throw life-rings and dial 999).

mamasmercantile said...

I can't understand the mentality of refusing help when you so obviously need it.

New neighbours.

A couple of days ago I met the couple who have purchased one of the flats here. The flat is over two floors, has two bedrooms, two bathrooms...