The wife, (with her huge heavy windlass) winds all paddles up like this - in a slow steady motion. She has been told off by BW expert temporary lock keepers for shouting at them when they (as trained) slam their paddles half up as quick as possible chucking the boat all over the place. One 20 something told her she would be 'excluded'. Life with BW is often stranger than fiction. Which, I suppose brings us back to BW and the trip-hazard bollards. Surely from BW H&S - as applied to the greater (unpaying) public these things should at least be on the non-towpath side where they would be out the way. So, sticking them on towpath side how long before the first BW warning notice blossoms - or are they even now being printed to be placed on posts driven in between the bollards to make more hazards. Mind you it could be that when some BW senior actually leaves an office, trips over one of their BW Bollards and realises they are on the wrong side they will maybe be grubbed up and moved at yet more expense. It has happened before. Would that I had such money to waste!
--- On Sat, 8/9/08, Nick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Nick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: Bollards To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, August 9, 2008, 1:57 PM Malcolm wrote: > On Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:41:06 +0100, Brian from sunny Suffolk > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] info> wrote: > > >> David Sullivan submitted this idea : >> >> >>> BTW I would welcome some bollards at narrow locks as my >>> 50ft boat is inexorably sucked forward at some locks to hit the top gate >>> when the paddles are raised. >>> >>> >> Stick it against the gate to start with >> >> > > > > Yes - but then what. > > Opening a paddle will often make the boat move back a meter or so and > then once the water flows establishes itself the boat will be moved > forward again - and hit the gate / cill. > > So you either use a line ashore to stop the boat moving back - > > use the engine to keep it against the cill/gate > > or open paddles very slowly. > > > single handed - I choose to use a line - why burn fuel unnecessarily - > especially in today's high fuel cost climate. > > The key thing I've found with many locks is that you *open* the paddles slowly. That doesn't mean you only open them a bit, but if you take, say, 10 seconds to half open them rather than 2 it makes a *huge* difference to the turbulence. It's that initial bit of water that rushes down the culvert that seems to have the effect. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
