From gaileymarine.galadriel@btinternet.com Sat May 1 11:24:09 1999 Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 09:59:00 +0200 From: Peter Lawson Reply-To: canals@blacksheep.org To: canals@blacksheep.org Subject: The Peregrinations of Galadriel (10) Diesel at HoneyStreet 20p per litre. Since being taught by Ragdoll, I have been a staunch advocate of the double entry system (not an accounting procedure, but 2 narrowboats entering a wide lock at the same time). Boaters do it side-by-side. But I did discover one drawback to the method at Cadley Lock where a twisted gate caused the boats to jam in the lock entrance. Our partner boat was somewhat under-powered and it took flushing plus hearty reverse to extract us. Passed Twoflower heading West on the K&A - was that you aboard David? I made a complete hash of the approach to Ham Lock, nearly ending up going backwards down towards the weir in the strong current. Recovery was made more difficult by the fact that the aprons are constructed of Frodingham steel piles - the boat's nose got stuck in the recesses and could not be slid in the right direction. There are about 4 locks on the K&A whose chambers are made of Frodingham or Larssen piles. Due to the intricacies of trying to form the rebates for the doors they are constructed over-wide and the lower gates when open are protected by projecting nibs. This presents a minor hazard on leaving downwards and also means that a pair of boats will bounce around somewhat. We had the misfortune to spend Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning following the wide boat Rebecca of the Bruce Trust. They operate locks on the 'leave it as you leave it' principle, which I would think is 40 years out-of-date. So every time we arrived at a lock we had to close the bottom gates and lower the paddles before we could begin to fill it, especially tedious in the rain. I quote from BW's Navigation Notes: "When using the locks, please close the bottom gates after use and lower all paddles fully, unless a notice on the locks tells you to leave the lock empty and therefore leave one bottom paddle up and the top paddles firmly down. (As part of the lottery project we will be installing lock byweirs - this will remove the need to keep locks empty)". The skipper of the boat denied the existence of the foregoing instruction. Could someone please explain the part in brackets - I could understand it if the tops of the lower gates were higher than the upper ones but this did not appear to be the case. So we are back at Reading and half-way through our voyage - the probable itinerary is London, Grand Union, Leicester, Loughborough, .... Peter & Jill 0403 207042