EAT
YOUR HEART OUT ANDERTON
Simon
Jenkins is back from the boat buying
trip of a lifetime, bringing his first historic barge from the
Mediterranean to Belgium, and now onto the Channel coast.
Last time
Ambiorix went back in the water but had to be taken out again. Now
the problem – a couple of popped rivets – is fixed and Simon and
Amanda are on their way again
This is his story, in his own words.
The
next day and yet another canal. This one I was especially looking
forward too, and it was Sunday - no commercials move on a Sunday.
More importantly it was what we were about to experience that really
excited me.
I
have been boating virtually all of my life and have seen some pretty
impressive engineering feats, but never have I experienced anything
like what we had in store for us shortly.
This
canal is called the Canal du Centre - it’s 24km long and only has 3
locks. We cruised along this waterway with its arms off here and
there with boats being loaded and unloaded-it was like a giant scene
from the BCN, back in the working days, with arms everywhere - going
into warehouses, recycling plants and factories with boats being
loaded.
Here
it is on a massive scale. We passed scrap yards, recycling yards,
steel works, glass works and aggregate works, then the scene started
to change and so did the landscape, things becoming more rural again
but we seemed to be very high up and getting higher. Then we came to
it - the Strephy-Tieu boat lift.
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| Ambiorix waiting for the lift |
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| The side view gives an idea of the massive size |
The
boat lift was designed during the Canal du Centre's modernisation
programme to replace a system of two locks and
four 16-metre lifts dating
from 1888 to 1919, not long after the canal was built in 1879. Those
locks and lifts were able to accommodate vessels of up to 300 tonnes,
but by the 1960s, this was no longer adequate for the new European
standard of 1, 350 tonnes.
Work
started in 1982 and was not completed until 2002 costing
€ 160 million
and, once operational, permitted river traffic of up to the new
1350-tonne standard to pass between the waterways of
the Meuse and Schelde rivers.
The lift increased river traffic from 256 kT in 2001 to 2,295 kT
in 2006.
The four
older lifts on the Canal du Centre,
which became bypassed by the new Canal
du Centre,
are on the UNESCO
World Heritage list,
because of their architectural and historical value
The
structure at Strépy-Thieu consists of two
independent counterweighted caissons which
travel vertically between the upstream and downstream sections. The
caissons weigh the same whether they are laden with a boat or simply
contain water.
The
caissons measure 112 m by 12 m and a water depth of between
3.35 and 4.15 m. Each caisson is supported by 112 suspension
cables (for counterbalance) and 32 control cables (for
lifting/lowering), each of 85 mm diameter.
 |
| The massive caissons |
 |
| The way down |
Four electric
motors power
eight winches per caisson via speed-reduction gearboxes and the
73.15-metre lift is completed in seven minutes. The structure is
massively reinforced and has a mass of approximately
200,000 tonnes. The vertically moving watertight gates are
designed to withstand a 5 km/h impact from a 2000 tonne vessel,
so it’s not just narrowboats that occasionally hit the gates.
All
those numbers don’t help expressing the experience of taking a boat
in to the caisson and then lowering 73m in just seven
minutes. They had planned a boat lift at Norbury when
exploring the restoration of the Shrewsbury
and Newport canal, but I don't think it would have
been as grand as this.
It
was a spooky place, we spoke to the L’ascenseur
(lift operator) and announced our intention to travel down in the
lift. The lights changed to green and we approached along a long
wide concrete channel leading to the lift, with the gate
open we entered this vast mechanical structure -not another person in
sight.
The
gate soon closed behind us, we tied our little boat up to the
bollards and stepped off on to the walkway around the boat, No
restrictions, we could lean over the sides and see the ground over
70m below. Some whirring sounds, a few clunks and then the motors
started whining as the giant, open-topped coffin started its descent.
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| Ambiorix at the top of the lift |
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| Ambiorix at the bottom of the lift |
We
both stood quite quiet as we went down, admiring the views over
an impressive landscape, but still we saw no people. At the
bottom, the gate the other end of this giant coffin lifted we had a
green light and off we went.
All
quite surreal, really!
We
were soon leaving the lift behind us and on our way again with the
canal to ourselves. It is wide and deep and not very
exciting, the odd wharf or arm, the odd bit of
industry, a few motorway bridges, but nothing notable and a bit of an
anticlimax after the boat lift.
 |
| Leaving the lift behind |
We
were now on the Nimy
Blatton
canal heading for the river Schelde, we stopped for the night at the
junction with the canal Blatton-Ath/Dender, which we
were tempted to travel. However, it was 86km with 34 narrow
manual locks that needed a mobile team of lock keepers with
you to work the locks, and we wanted to push on. So we took the
decision to keep to the commercial routes as they should be quicker.
 |
| Tied where the old canal line had been severed |
We
had tied up at an interesting little place where the old line of the
canal had been severed and the junction of the Blatton Ath went off.
These were tiny canals in comparison to to the main line that we were
on and we tucked ourselves in to the entrance of the old canal, which
meant we are safely out of the way of any early commercials
on Monday morning. We then went for a walk to see the first
lock on this interesting little waterway. As we approached the lock a
sign said that you needed to book passage and have lock keepers with
you, you could see it didn’t get a lot of use. The pound above the
lock was reminiscent of the locks and pounds and canal around
Christleton
on the Shropshire Union canal on the way to Chester, all very pretty,
but not for us as we wanted to push on.
In
the next episode: Another stoppage, and glorious Ghent
