We were shoved straight back into working locks today with a vengeance. These 23 are the Wigan flight and are extremely heavy and in some cases really awkward to work, poor D was shattered after that lot.
They are also not in the best condition either. At only sixty feet long they are quite short, leaving very little room for you to keep the bows far enough back to stop them filling with water. All very worrying sometimes as it would only take about thirty seconds to put the bows under with that amount of water pouring in.
There were even winches attached to the beams to close the gates on some of the locks,
vertical paddle gear
and no beams at all just winding gear on others. It felt that we were working through an obstacle course at times.
We made it through safely though and moored for the night just behind this poor old boat.
It is completely sunk and sitting on the bottom of the canal, it added to the foreboding look in the evening sky.
The next day was back to the pouring rain and blowing a gale again. No moving for us then!
So until tomorrow...................
No comments:
Post a Comment