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As I was travelling upstream, the lock was empty , so my first operation was to open the gate, secure the boat in the lock, close the gate and move onto the upstream gate, open sluices etc.

As we were the only boat in the lock, I'd even remebered to leave plenty of space from the upstream gate so I could open the sluices fully. Water rushed in, everything seemingly going well, piece of cake. As it was a deep lock (Temple), I was expecting a short wait, but 25 minutes on and the lock level still being too low, seemed a bit excessive. At this point, lock keeper (off duty) passed by and with big grin, indicated the down stream sluices were still open.

After closing said sluice, amazing how quickly the lock filled

Lesson learnt: check sluice is closed before opening gate, even if the lock appears to be "ready".

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2) make sure the sluices at the other end are FULLY closed before you try to empty / fill the lock. On most locks lower controls will not work while the upper sluices are open and vice verse but on those where they do work, it will take a very long time to fill / empty with both sets of sluices open at the same time!

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It is very easy to forget, especially if you come up into an empty lock. With the leave lock empty rule, people (myself included) tend to leave the lower sluices open rather than wait for the lock to empty.

Bet you wont forget to check them next time though!

Darren.

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