How not to do a lock staircase - not us "guv"

Monday, 13 April 2009 15:50

These impostors - they muscle in ...... However I think he did a good job with a short succinct blog!

Yesterday (Sunday) we walked to the Cathedral via Chester City Walls in brilliant sunshine. It seemed something special to walk in the peace and quiet towards an Easter Service - time enough for reflection on God's Cathedral of Nature.

The Cathedral was packed and we were glad we had gone. After our chat to "Halfie" we went back to Epiphany and reversed for water. Then it was off up the three lock Northgate staircase.

These locks were cut through solid sandstone

The rule for going up most short staircases is top lock full, bottom lock empty. In a 3 lock one the middle one has to be full too - one empties into the next. Going down is much simpler as you should empty the water, as you go, into the empty locks below!

The experience this time was great "fun" - Nb Shadow was coming down and another boat was going up so they did the Northgate shuffle in the middle lock. John waited at the bottom and I wandered up to see what was happening. Shadow came out of the bottom lock.

Now see if you can get your head around this!

The boat going up opened the paddles between the top and middle locks to bring them up in the middle lock.

The lock filled, but the water was pouring over the gates behind them. The top lock was not emptying much so the levels were not equalising! Someone had left the top paddles of the top lock open - duh! About three quarters of a lock full went through before they realised what was happening. Once the paddle was closed the top lock emptied, but the water flowed over the bottom gates of the middle lock in a cascade still!

Meanwhile John stayed out of the empty bottom lock and eventually the boat above went out into the top lock and I was able to open the paddle in the middle lock to get the level below the gates - it was dangerous to bring Epiphany in until the waterfall over the gates had ceased! Finally we were able to come up the  three locks with no problem! I hope you can all follow this saga!

In bottom lock

In middle lock

Top lock at last

We went up the remaining five Chester locks with a very friendly and laid back couple. John walked between most of them and I made a pretty good job of steering the boat! [modest, isn't she? But she did do a very good job - Ed]

Waverton and Egg Bridge

We eventually moored away from it all, and in blessed isolation, after Waverton. It had seemed a very long day - an hour to get through Northgate locks had really slowed us down. We actually moored much later that we have for years - it was just after 6pm!

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