Ducketts Day Two

Today was mostly a day of looking after boats coming back from Cavalcade.

When I arrived at the locks, all pounds were looking good. The first, troublesome, pound was full. This was largely (I think) down to the top lock's head gates being left open overnight, so that the flow from the leaking tail gates of the top lock outpaced the leak of the head gates of the second lock.

N & M, volunteer lock keepers staffing Old Ford Lock No. 8 on the Regents came past on their regular Tuesday morning litter pick, and N arranged to text me whenever they had a boat headed in my direction. Alex, the East of London Mooring Ranger, also paused on his way up to Broxbourne, and we all compared notes about the progress on Old Ford Locks No. 19 on the Lee.

Second lock, tail gates. Leaking and spurting.

P & T arrived soon after, Trust operatives on the workboat The Ducketts. T told me that they might be looking at the damaged paddle of the second lock, but this didn't happen in the end.

T&P on The Ducketts.

Scraping the head cill free of debris.

Instead they first scraped by hand and then by crane the head cill of the second lock, clearing any debris that might hang up a boat exiting the lock when the pound above is low. Then they went down the locks to pick up the trash by the head of the third (lower) lock.

I spent most of my time helping lock through pairs of narrowboats that were returning from Cavalcade. Every time I thought I was done, I got another text from N telling me that a boat or two was coming down. Eventually I had enough time for lunch and a chance to dash across the Park for a comfort break.

I said I'd list another culprit for the low levels on this first pound.

This time it's the design of the lock flight: the second lock falls about two feet more than the first (top) lock. This means that every time the locks are operated about 81,500 litres (2880 cubic feet) of water are lost from this pound, and it drops three or four inches. You can clearly see this loss as the water dips below the lock weir.

There is, of course, nothing to be done about this; except to let down an extra lock full of water from the top lock after every three or four lockings. I talked with a few older boaters who remembered the time when there was a lock keeper at the top lock, and apparently he would often fuss with the water levels to maintain the flight. Of course, we don't have those luxuries these days.

I spoke with a local manager about the damaged mitre on the second lock's tail gates. The chances of repair anytime soon look slim, as replacing the mitre would involve a stoppage on the flight, which is something the Trust isn't going to want as we head into Summer.

I also heard that a repair of these gates had been attempted back in British Waterways days, but there'd been some snafu about this, and that the current mitres were the result of a temporary repair - all this is hearsay of course!

The 'living wall' by the middle lock.

I also chatted with the lovely proprietors of 'Growing Concerns', the garden centre based by lock No. 2. They were responsible for the living wall of plants that was placed alongside the head of the lock.

The wall's not looking very good now, a lot of the hessian that held soil in place has perished and the whole thing is suffering from a lack of care and watering. I'm going to get onto the volunteer manager for the East of London to see if we can't get a team of volunteer horticulturalists to work to make this a little better.

RE, signage and his (t)rusty steed.

Later in the day my volunteer friend, RE turned up to keep me company for a bit. He was replacing some old, damaged Share the Space signage on the towpath (signs that say 'Thank you for slowing down' and 'Pedestrian Priority'). Like me he uses a bike to cover as much towpath as possible. We sat for a while and chatted. The passage of boats had slowed a lot, so I cleared the last bits of rubbish from the lock into the boater bin on Wick Lane, and headed home.

6 hours (3 VTR related.)