French canal locks

Grehan

Grehan

Well-Known Member
Joined
11 Jun 2001
Messages
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Location
Inland France + Oxon.
www.french-waterways.com
Paul and Sheryl Shard, of the Distant Shores sailing adventure travel TV series that is broadcast in 24 languages worldwide, have released a preview from their forthcoming 'Through the French Canals' video. (They used french-waterways.com info. during their transit). It's a really excellent taster of what the canals are like and what going through locks is like:


Distant Shores info - www.distantshores.ca/aboutus/thecrew/thecrew.html
Locks (ecluses) - guidance - www.french-waterways.com/practicalities/locks.html
Fenders - guidance - www.french-waterways.com/practicalities/fenders.html
 
Nicely produced but, as the text in the 'Locks Ecluses) Guidance' link points out, not applicable to the Canal du Midi. We found many locks with no bollards at all, only loops, staples and other devices set well back, that make it essential to land the crew before the lock. This was by far our biggest problem on the canals, shallow edges and deep keel presenting many difficulties. The fender board instruction is good though, unfortunately for my topsides, one that we did not follow. Throughout the whole trip not once did anyone take our lines.
 
Bit of a dilemma when it comes to lines. On occasion we would really like there to be someone 'up top' to throw a line to, sometimes eclusiers will do it, sometimes not. Most times we far prefer to make our own damnfool mistakes with lines than have some other half-wit make them for us! :)
 
Sounds like the Midi Canal is busier than the main routes North-South. And we wouldn't have done the trip with a deep keel. The shallow edges are a problem but our Southerly 49 has no issue drawing less than 1 meter. We set the keel to just 1.5 meters and used it as a safety valve to protect us if we strayed into shallow water.
 
distant shores said:
Sounds like the Midi Canal is busier than the main routes North-South. And we wouldn't have done the trip with a deep keel. The shallow edges are a problem but our Southerly 49 has no issue drawing less than 1 meter. We set the keel to just 1.5 meters and used it as a safety valve to protect us if we strayed into shallow water.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum, Paul and Sheryl!
 
distant shores said:
Sounds like the Midi Canal is busier than the main routes North-South. And we wouldn't have done the trip with a deep keel. The shallow edges are a problem but our Southerly 49 has no issue drawing less than 1 meter. We set the keel to just 1.5 meters and used it as a safety valve to protect us if we strayed into shallow water.
Click to expand...

Yes, surprisingly useful even in non-tidal situations. Many years ago, we had to wait for a bridge to open near Goes in Holland. It was blowing F6, pouring down and only free spot was a concrete wall with nothing to tie up to. Fortunately, it was very shallow an we just popped the keel down in lieu of any lines.

The bridge opened an hour later. We started the engine, lifted the keel, drifted away from the wall and went on deck just as the sun came out. Guys on a nearby yacht looked amazed and said they were considering giving us a hand as we were obviously aground. They asked why we hadn't moved and we just told them that the handbrake was on. That was what we called the keel for the next 20 odd years until we sold our Southerly.

+1 On a welcome to the forum

Etiquette dictates that you start regular threads on anchors and um .... well really just anchors. You might throw in the odd comment about red deisel or carrying guns but these don't really seem to catch the imagination of members. Sod, just realised that my story above was about using my keel as an anchor. Ooops, sorry guys can we let that one slide. :D
 
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We are at anchor in the British Virgin Islands editing the "final cut" of the first of our films on the small canals. We filmed 5 half-hour programs on the trip across France. The first 2 are done and have been shown on television in the USA already. They show the trip up the Seine from Le Havre to Paris. The ones we are working on now cover the Bourbonnais Route (via Briare and Canal du Centre). The fifth program will be the Saone and Rhone Rivers to Port St Louis where we put the mast back up in preparation to cross the Atlantic with ARC 2012. Its been a big year!

Paul Shard
SV Distant Shores II - British Virgin Islands
www.distantshores.ca
 
Great Video and welcome to the Forum Paul and Sheryl!
I wondered how you got the aerial shots of the boat entering one of the locks.Then it dawned that there must have been a road bridge crossing over the canal!
Otherwise please send details of your blimp or helicopter!
As Vic says, great plank shots, ropes chewed through on mine at intervals, easily sorted though, groove the plank to hide the cordage, or drill through from the sides if its a thick enough plank.
Some Dutch folk had long thin fenders like frankfurters partially filled with water, which tended to stay put.
 
Filming the French Canals

paulclan,

Yes, we drilled through the planks so the line was never rubbing on the walls.

Shooting the sequences was a lot of work (and fun)! We sometimes used 3 cameras simultaneously, and we had a carbon fiber camera boom to get some of the high angles. You should see the stuff we shot when we crossed the Briare Aqueduct!! I am editing those segments now for the television show.

Cheers,

Paul
 
We are just finishing up the "post-production" on the second of our half-hour Distant Shores programs featuring the small locks. In this one we travel from Briare through the Lateral and Canal du Centre to Chalon sur Saone. The shows are looking great!! We did a preview with some fans of the show who happened to be here in the British Virgin Islands on a bareboat holiday. Its always good to preview the shows before they go out to make sure everything works! Altogether it takes more than 2 weeks to complete on episodes to the high standards of television. I will try to post a trailer of the second one when we get a faster internet connection :-)
 
I have posted the two most recent episodes of Distant Shores on the Vimeo site as downloadable hidef files. They are about our trip across the French Canals via the Bourbonais Route (from Moret, Briare, Canal du Centre). It is an experiment to see if downloadable files are of interest. Currently we offer our programs through our website as DVDs. But many people have asked about downloadable and HD. So here they are. There is a free preview up for our two most recent series of episodes here... and complete episodes are also available for download at $2.99 each.

Here is a link to see a free trailer (press "Watch Trailer") on Vimeo...

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/distantshorestv9 <-- Season 9 Seine River to Paris, French Canals, Morocco, ARC, Caribbean (not yet complete)
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/distantshorestv8 <-- Season 8 Ireland, Scotland, Crinan & Caledonian Canals, Shetland, Norway etc
 
We did feature an upscale barge (Absoluut2) and a bicycle barge (Fleur)... neat options...

Your barge looks very elegant and like a fun holiday!

best regards

Paul
 
Just spent the day watching the 3 available episodes through Vimeo.

As we plan on doing the same trip next year it is very,very informative.

Many thanks
 
I can confirm - you are right! Our barge is very elegant and is a fun holiday. We have been called the "Queen of the Garonne"!
We remain very enthusiastic about our route - the Garonne Valley is rural, unspoiled, peaceful, genuine France with few tourists.
I will certainly get hold of your Distant Shores - in addition to the French canals your Season 8 sounds very interesting - I expect many places to be familiar to me!
All best,
Alasdair
 
You mention 3 eps - Just to confirm... there are 4 episodes up on Vimeo -
1) Mast down and up Seine
2) Paris
3) Moret to Briare (via Bourbonais)
4) Briare to Chalon Sur Saone (via Bourbonais)

Glad they were informative!

Paul
 
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