Don’t believe I can take my boat solo through locks? This video not only proves it, but tells you exactly how you can do it, too.
This Facebook post sent to me by a friend explains exactly what those big barges are all about. How cool to actually see one!
About two weeks ago, in Whitehall, NY, I was approached by another Looper in a Ranger Tug who grilled me for at least 5 minutes about how I could travel solo through locks without assistance. I honestly think that he didn’t believe I could do it.
This got me thinking a little more about how I do it. It really isn’t that difficult, and this video will prove it. In it, I explain exactly how I set up my boat, get into locks, secure the boat, ride up or down in the lock, and continue on my way. I do this by showing two types of lock wall securing methods: the provided rope from the top of the lock chamber wall and the pipe (or cable) sometimes mounted in alcoves in the chamber walls.
This is a long video — aren’t they all? — and, believe it or not, I cut out a lot of non-essential material. But it does include a special treat: passing one of the many large barges that literally just fit inside the locks on the Champlain Canal. There’s also lots of radio communications between me, lockmasters, tugboat captains, and a sailboat operator with a bad receiver.
We’ve gone thru a few of the Canadian locks with stronger currents that severely pushed the stern away from the wall. It was difficult for the two of us to keep the boat from swinging out toward a boat that was on our port side. How do you handle that single handed? Thanks
Well, after losing my stern thruster in Lock 3 of the Trent Severn, I had to come up with another way to handle stern drift. I wrote about it in another blog post: How to Single-Hand a Boat Through a Lock, Take 2. The short version is that after tying off on the cable out my helm window, I also tied off on another cable at my stern. Read the post for more detailed info.