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| Special web charter feature in
support of PBO’s editorial in the February 2003 issue |
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The Alsace: Lock Technique
Before going on the Crown Blue Line charter, I read up on the various
types of locks to expect and the techniques available to negotiate
them. The books are numerous on the subject, but I generally found
that the Alsace Guide and the Manuel du Capitaine, both supplied by
CBL, broadly summarised exactly what all the books advised.
To negotiate a lock downstream seemed to require a team of three people.
Two crew members man the bow and stern lines whilst the third member
leaps ashore to receive slip the lines around the nearest bollards
and then operate the lock mechanism. Once the lock is empty, the crew
member thats ashore, releases the lines and climbs down the wall ladder
to board the boat again.
Going upstream through a lock is the inverse of the above. A crew
member climbs the wall ladder to receive and slip the bow and stern
lines from the two crew left on board. The lock is activated and flooded
by the shore crew member who then simply hops on board when the boat
leaves the flooded lock.
What troubled me in this research, was that we were a family of four
with two very young children and the eldest of 7 couldn’t be
relied upon to be an affective member of the crew- not safely any
way. This meant there was only my wife and myself to do the work of
supposedly three people.
The first half of the cruise was a descent through the locks and naturally
things didn’t go well through the first few locks - it was a
mess, and not really helped by the fact that between the two of us
we had to keep half an eye on Edward, William (3) was not a problem
since he was harnessed on.
We had just entered a flooded lock starboard side on, and whilst struggling
with the bow and stern warps, our saviour came from a French lock
keeper who instantly understood our difficulty. He could see that
the boat was properly warped up at every quarter and so quickly grabbed
the aft starboard warp, led it up to the midship kleat, put a hitch
around it and slipped the remaining tail of the warp around a bollard.
Within a brief few moments, he had simply thrown away all that was
said in the manuals and text books. "No need for bow and stern
lines", he said, and the boat was simply held to the wall by
a single slip amidships. What was written in the manuals for a crew
of three, could now be done by one. From then onwards descending the
canal locks was a singe.
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| The conventional technique using a crew
of 3 |
The single handed technique |
Going upstream and ascending the locks presented a new problem for
us. This time we were entering empty locks with 3m high walls, sometimes
higher, making the bollards well out of reach. Sending Louise ashore
up the wall ladder was out of the question for I daren’t leave
the con to handle the warps. From the corner of our eyes we could
see some very skilled crews from other boats, throw up a coil of line
towards a selected bollard where it would specularly loop itself around
the bollard and form a slip. We tried to imitate this to no avail
and quickly got ourselves no where. Alas! the French showed us the
solution again. Still maintaining the midship warp arrangement, Louise
stood at the flybridge and placed this warp in the crook of the boat
hook and carefully extended out the pole of the boat hook whilst still
holding the tail end of the warp in her other hand. The warp is then
simply placed over the bollard and the boat hook is then withdrawn.
Louise then passed the slip for me to hold whilst remaining at the
con and she did the same procedure with the bow line, but this time
holding on to the bow slip herself. This arrangement meant that every
bollard was within reach and without the need for a single crew member
to go ashore. Unlike a descending lock, we were slipped fore and midships
which is necessary in a flooding lock for the inrush of water is very
turbulent and can knock the boat about a bit. The more boats in a
flooding lock the better and easier it is. Once the lock is flooded,
then the warps are simply flicked off the bollards and away you go.
This technique showed that a team of two can negotiate the canals
very easily.
Using the boathook as a means of placing the warps around the bollards
which are kept out of reach- typical when entering an empty lock. |
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