This is St.Helens Canal,down at Spike Island in Widnes. It is not tidal, but if you look closely you will notice that the larger sailing vessels are leaning over. This is because the water levels have dropped and the boats with large keels underneath them have hit the bottom and have not got enough depth of water to float normally.
So whats caused this lack of water ? Certainly not lack of rain.
Just out of shot, at the bottom of the photo is a set of locks leading out into the River Mersey. Correct usage is open inside gates, put boat in the lock.
Close inside gates. Open the little sluice gates in the outer gates which allows the water to flow out of the lock in to the river. When the levels equalise then you open the outer lock gates and sail your boat out into the Mersey. Coming back into the canal is a reverse of this.
So that is the right way to do it.
This week, contractors working for the council, opened the sluice gates in the outer gates while the inner gates were still open. The water poured out extremely fast and because they were basically emptying the canal there was so much pressure of water, once they realised their mistake they could not get the sluice gates shut again.
Fortunately they eventually managed to get them shut before the canal turned into a muddy puddle.
At the moment it has about half the depth it should have.
I believe when the Council Official in charge of the job turned up there was a lot of shouting.
@milaniet Thank you Milanie, there are quite a few further back leaning over too. There are also a couple of boats designed for use in tidal estuaries, to cope with the water disappearing twice a day they have two keels, one on each side rather than one in the middle.
These boats were sat up straight and totally unaffected, apart from being rather high in the water and not going anywhere in a hurry.
January 17th, 2016
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These boats were sat up straight and totally unaffected, apart from being rather high in the water and not going anywhere in a hurry.