What can I say about Hatton? It was hot, hard, work! We came down the 21 wide locks alone, having waited about half an hour at the top for a boat to appear. Half way down we could see a boat following us about 3 locks back, but, when Rog got the ‘nockers’ out to look, we discovered it was two boats sharing locks, so we continued on alone. The candlestick gear was stiff and needed a lot of winding before the water started to flow. We started at 10 am and finished the last lock at 1.40, so 3 hours 40 minutes – not bad as there were only the two of us. We checked out the mooring situation in the Saltisford Arm, but all they had was one right outside the office, and we didn’t fancy that so we continued on to the Cape of Good Hope pub, where we quenched our thirsts with a few pints of cider. The moorings here are not the most salubrious, so even if the weather is crap tomorrow, we will move on down to the Tesco the other side of Warwick and then go and find somewhere a bit nicer to spend the rest of the weekend.
Grill update – have spoken to the engineer who will probably come out to us on Monday to fix the grill, so Weetabix or cooked breakfast till then!
3.7 miles and 21 wide locks
I read somewhere (CWDF)? that the paddles on the GU were fully open after 19 turns and the next 7 turns made no difference.
ReplyDeleteIf true and you opened both paddles without having to set the lock and wound them to their full extent (26 turns)you had 1134 turns and if 19 turns is the optimum you would have saved 294 turns.
I was going to test this out but as we are now picking the boat up from Marple instead of Shardlow so our route back to Lapworth has changed.
Maybe when you get to the next flight you could give it a try and if anyone else is going that way we could have a scientific experiment.:-)
I don't know about that - the water doesn't seem to flow at all until about 15-17 turns, and does seem to increase in flow until the paddle gear is all the way up, so I would have to dispute that. Pip
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