Tobermory to Largs

[aquaplane]

We spent a night in the sea lock at Crinan this Easter and wished we had picked up a mooring at the boat yard.

It was noisy with the water thundering over the lock and the crew was disturbed by the street lights shining into the cabin so neither of us got a good nights rest.

I can't remember the exact forecast but SE 5 to 7 seemed to be the theme as we were sat in Tobers so that's why I went for the shelter of the lock.

 

[Quandary]

excellent! thanks for all the canal tips. do you get the sack now for giving away all the secrets? ;-)

PS hope your knee gets better soon[/QUOTE

No, we try to train everyone we encounter so that we can get a fast passage next time we are following them.
More tips for a quick transit.
When you get to 13 open the paddles (sluices) straight away, walk up to 12 open the paddles, while it is draining walk back and open the gate on 13, always close down the sluices as soon as the gates are open and take the handle up to the top pair. Bring the boat in, close up then open the paddle on the side the boat is on only about 1/3 of the way up. Walk forward and open 12 while lock 13 is filling and close the paddles. Saunter back down and open the sluices to complete filling and open the gates. Walk forward to take the lines in 12, close the gates and open the first paddle to fill. While it is filling go back to close 13 down. While this is happening the bridge keeper will be getting 11 ready. Wait to close 12 when the boat goes out as the bridge keeper will (normally) take the lines and do the gates on 11. Walk up to 11, offer to help, but you will be sent forward to 10 and 9 to repeat the process. Obviously if there is a second guy ashore to do the closing up behind it speeds things and reduces the walking. At Cairnbaan we try to get 8,7 and 6 ready at the beginning so that the boat can go straight in. If the boat is single or short handed we pick the lines up from the rail with a boat hook and place them there for lifting each time we let go. We do 3 and 2 as a pair as well. Obviously the process is simply reversed going east to west. There are two gates that will just open themselves without help if the pin is lifted, the NW gates on 8 and 3.
Sometimes, particularly in winter, if the reach above the lock is too full the water coming over the gates prevent them opening, to avoid a long wait, run the surplus off by opening the paddles at both ends for a while, this is best done before the boat goes in to the lock.

 

[ffiill]

Canal is very hard work and at height of season you can be queing for locks-took me two days all be it short handed.

 

[nathanglasgow]

A wee update.Trip now mostly completed.Tobermory to Oban marina on Sat 28th,Oban to Crinan Sun 29th,through the canal on Mon 30th(took 6 hours) to spend the night in the basin as quite bouncy outside on the pontoon.Ardrishaig to Portavaddie on Tues 31st where we had to leave her as the wind was on the nose the whole way and would have pontentially run out of daylight if continued on to Largs.Just have to do the last leg this weekend.Enjoyable trip apart from the walk to get diesel in Ardrishaig as none seems to available near the basin and new boat is all that we hoped for.

 

[Quandary]

Thanks for the feedback on your trip, nice when folks take the trouble to report back.
Saw you go past on Monday with Kerrera and would not blame you for not braving Loch Fyne until Tues. morning. Second boat to transit the canal this year.
For future info. --- There is no longer any red diesel in the Crinan Canal, the nearest red is at Crinan Harbour or Portavadie. You can get some road diesel in a container by scrambling down the bank to the filling station beside the landing near the overhead electricity cables between Cairnbaan and Oakfield bridge. If you have a mobo. with big tanks, Gleaner Oils will send a road tanker across the road to Ardrishaig basin and in real emergencies they may let you have some red from the Ardrishaig distribution depot beside lock 3 but do not count on it.

 

[nathanglasgow]

Yup that was the filling station we had to walk to from Ardrishaig basin and carry 3 cans of diesel back.About 5 miles we reckoned,hard going after the lock work and it was an extra slap in the face to walk by the oil storage yard on the way!Next time it would be nice to take more time and enjoy the canal a bit more.

 

[A1Sailor]

The Crinan canal route was developed to remove the problems of rounding the Mull of Kintyre in winter. A typical sheltered water route would be: -

Tobermory
Sound of Mull
Firth of Lorn
Sound of Luing to Crinan
Lower Loch Fyne
Inchmarnock Water
Kyles of Bute
Firth of Clyde
Largs

However, if you have a sound vessel and competent crew and with a passing low followed by a high, you could get Northerlies and lighter winds to take you down and round the Mull of Kintyre quite easily. As the next low tracks in or the high moves off eastwards, the southerlies can take you back up the Firth of Clyde. This route also has options to bail out back north. Time wise both are about equal time in my experience.

Personally I prefer the MOK route.

+1. Crinan Canal, but if the weather is set fair with winds from "northish" consider MoK.

Edit:
Just read the rest and discovered that you are nearly done - brilliant!

 

[A1Sailor]

run the surplus off by opening the paddles at both ends for a while, this is best done before the boat goes in to the lock.

The advice above is all very well - but you need to know what you are doing. It can be almost impossible to close a paddle on a sluice if there is water running through it. If you open paddles on the top and bottom sluices you may end up emptying the entire reach full of water above - and will not be popular!
If you can't open a gate you might consider calling for help from a member of staff instead. Opening top and bottom paddles at the same time is not in the user guide.

(Just a word of caution - from somebody who used to work on the Crinan Canal as a lock keeper. Lots of moons ago!)

 

[Quandary]

Crinan Canal

The Crinan canal sluices are now all hydraulic and while sometimes a bit hard ( but not impossible) to open are easy to shut. However with the amount of rain we get up here these days (refer to Webby for a detailed explanation of this) it is often impossible to open some of the gates without running some water off, particularly if you are second lift in the morning.

BTW The new Scottish operators of the Crinan canal have indicated that they intend to help all shorthanded (two or less) boats through this season but some of us pilots are a wee bit sceptical about how they will manage that at busy times.

 

[iain789]

BTW The new Scottish operators of the Crinan canal have indicated that they intend to help all shorthanded (two or less) boats through this season but some of us pilots are a wee bit sceptical about how they will manage that at busy times.

That sounds good. Went through the canal last May for the first time as a skipper, and there were only two of us on board. I wasn't looking forward to it, but the winds last May made the Mull an even worse idea. After a night in Ardrishaig, we set off in a convoy of four boats in the morning. One of the four boats was a rather nice MOBO with an elderly couple on board who had hired a pilot (apparently they always do). He made the passage an absolute dream, giving advice and encouragement all the way, and organising the gate and paddle operators at all of the locks. He gave my crew a lift in his car from lock to lock.

We had intended to pay him for his troubles, or at least offer him a bottle of malt, but by the time we got to Crinan he had disappeared. For future reference, Mr Q what is the usual etiquette for such a situation, where one boat in a convoy has hired a pilot? We would have been happy to share the costs, even though we had not planned to take a pilot, but the elderly couple disappeared as well at Crinan.

 

[A1Sailor]

!

(Just a word of caution - from somebody who used to work on the Crinan Canal as a lock keeper. Lots of moons ago!)

It was 1978 and 1979. Everything is, of course, securely locked-up overnight. I could have told you back then which slate, stone, flowerpot etc all the keys were hidden under!
The saddest thing that happened during the two summers I was there was when two people drowned after their car left the road and ended up in the canal between 11&10 at Dunardry. Lots of happier memories, though. (Sorry for the thread drift!)
I've been through lots of times since, as a yachtie:

An A1sailor cannot have too many fenders... Two more "roving fenders" spare in the cockpit! Note the genoa sheets led direct from the clew to the mast above head height. Reduces the clutter.
Being "organised" is the key to a swift passage - as Quandary says ensuring that the next lock is filled/drained and the gates open so that you don't waste time "jilling around" between locks is good.

 

[Quandary]

That sounds good. Went through the canal last May for the first time as a skipper, and there were only two of us on board. I wasn't looking forward to it, but the winds last May made the Mull an even worse idea. After a night in Ardrishaig, we set off in a convoy of four boats in the morning. One of the four boats was a rather nice MOBO with an elderly couple on board who had hired a pilot (apparently they always do). He made the passage an absolute dream, giving advice and encouragement all the way, and organising the gate and paddle operators at all of the locks. He gave my crew a lift in his car from lock to lock.

We had intended to pay him for his troubles, or at least offer him a bottle of malt, but by the time we got to Crinan he had disappeared. For future reference, Mr Q what is the usual etiquette for such a situation, where one boat in a convoy has hired a pilot? We would have been happy to share the costs, even though we had not planned to take a pilot, but the elderly couple disappeared as well at Crinan.

Pilots usually operate between Lock 2 and Lock 13 as 1,14 and 15 are automated. The convention is that if a boat does not want to put any crew ashore to help they pay for the pilot, normally if there are two such boats locking through together the pilot will get an assistant and both boats are charged. However if we are employed by just one boat and some others join us we are happy, as it speeds the passage as long as each boat not paying has one person willing and able to help. It means we can travel twice as fast as we have someone extra to go ahead to prepare or stay behind to close up. Quite often we get boats tagging along for free without helping and that does cause some irritation but we have to thole it because if we send them on they just hold everyone else up. Some of the French and Germans will pretend not to understand English and generally act dumb, strangely Scots for all the reputation for tightness are among the most generous. Settling up is normally done at 2 or 13, that is why you did not see him or her (one of our team is female) in Crinan but as you had crew working ashore we would not have been expecting anything.

 

[andrewbartlett]

If you pass down the Kyles of Bute via Burnt Islands you could visit the recently constructed marina in Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute .

 

[A1Sailor]

Do Pilots on the canal have 3rd Party liability insurance?

 

[Quandary]

Do Pilots on the canal have 3rd Party liability insurance?

No. I am not sure why it might be considered necessary; on the very rare occasion when a pilot goes on board a boat as a line handler we operate under the owners instructions, we are all penniless as well which makes us not worth suing.
Recently though there have been a few habitual scammers who have managed to screw BW for free transit or a bit of compo, usually for claiming to have hit 'something' much to the disgust of the canal staff who know what they are up to. With the new arrangement of offering assistance I suspect there may be a few more claims next season, as soon as that happens the help will be withdrawn.
I seriously injured my knee operating a lock gate last September and I am still awaiting surgery with very limited mobility and putting on weight big time, it had not occurred to me to sue even though the cause was one of the unmaintained gates. However I knew about the fault though a visitor could have a stronger case.
Out here, while the elfin safety culture seriously curtailed BW operations (that is why the lighthouse is streaked brown with rust and the posts for the leading lamps are not painted above head height) it has not spread to the locals who just snigger at their ban on even short ladders etc. and just get on with life.

 

[mick]

If you pass down the Kyles of Bute via Burnt Islands you could visit the recently constructed marina in Port Bannatyne on the Isle of Bute .

A superb wee marina, with a very good boatyard.

 

[iain789]

Pilots usually operate between Lock 2 and Lock 13 as 1,14 and 15 are automated. The convention is that if a boat does not want to put any crew ashore to help they pay for the pilot, normally if there are two such boats locking through together the pilot will get an assistant and both boats are charged. However if we are employed by just one boat and some others join us we are happy, as it speeds the passage as long as each boat not paying has one person willing and able to help. It means we can travel twice as fast as we have someone extra to go ahead to prepare or stay behind to close up. Quite often we get boats tagging along for free without helping and that does cause some irritation but we have to thole it because if we send them on they just hold everyone else up. Some of the French and Germans will pretend not to understand English and generally act dumb, strangely Scots for all the reputation for tightness are among the most generous. Settling up is normally done at 2 or 13, that is why you did not see him or her (one of our team is female) in Crinan but as you had crew working ashore we would not have been expecting anything.

Thanks for those reassuring words Mr Q. Kind of thought that might be the case, but we still felt that we wanted to show our appreciation. My crewman is nearer 70 than 60 but I'm sure the exercise did him good.

 

[A1Sailor]

No. I am not sure why it might be considered necessary; on the very rare occasion when a pilot goes on board a boat as a line handler we operate under the owners instructions, we are all penniless as well which makes us not worth suing.

OK - thanks. I was simply wondering out of curiosity who would happen to you if you screwed up and caused £x,000s worth of damage to a yacht. But I suppose if you are simply assisting/advising the owner, without accepting any responsibility for your actions, you'll be able just to walk (or at present hobble!) away. If you were doing it out of the goodness of your heart I'm sure you are correct - but if you are charging a fee it might be different. Even though you end up penniless...
Hope the knee gets better soon.

A1