Stuck at a broken Tottenham Lock

Sorry about the pause in posting - I have been rather busy at the festival. Now we are stuck waiting to go down a lock which won't play ball.

I'll try to come back to the IWA festival in my blog at a later date, perhaps when there isn't so much other stuff to write about. Meanwhile … we went down Waltham Town Lock at precisely 0915, the time we'd said we would. A short distance below the lock there is a new set of facilities so we watered up and attended to the Elsan. This took some time as our water tank was low after a week of no top-ups. At the next lock, Rammey Marsh, I found the previous boat through had left their BW key in the control panel (and with the hydraulic pumps running). While we were at the services the CRT boat Jena had passed us going in our direction; the key had a BW badge attached so I deduced that Jena had left it behind. I therefore phoned CRT to tell them. This was painful. First you have to endure the message suggesting using the website for renewing your licence, etc. etc. Then, eventually, you get to speak to a human being, but she is in north Wales and doesn't know anything about Jena or the Lee Navigation. She puts you through to London, but first there's a minute or two of muzak. At last, someone who might be able to help … except, hang on, I'm trying to help them! They say they will phone Jena and call me back. By this time we're through the lock and on our way to Enfield. I get a phone call from CRT, but it is the person who will operate Carpenter's Road Lock tomorrow morning checking that I'm going to be there. At Enfield Lock I get the promised call back from CRT about the key. Only they seem to have only the vaguest idea of what to do. Perhaps I could drop it in to the Enfield office. OK, where is it? Oh, I don't know. I could email you the address … No! Just tell me where it is in relation to the lock I'm trying to operate! At this point a CRT volunteer appears and picks up the key, but I didn't hear a "thank you". Maybe he said it, but quietly. He did, at least, stay to work us through the lock, just below which was the Enfield yard and Jena tied up! I could have saved myself a load of telephone stress and just lobbed the key at the boat as we went past. Oh well.

While we were descending the lock Jan went to the Tesco Express nearby for provisions. I didn't have to wait long before she reappeared with two large bags of shopping.

The next excitement, after stopping for lunch and then picking up my brother and his bike at Alfie's Lock, was to arrive at Tottenham Lock to be greeted by the crew of a widebeam opposite the official lock landing calling out to us that the lock was broken. We tied up alongside them; David and I went to see what the problem was. On the hydraulically powered lock one of the top gates wouldn't move from the fully open position, neither would the associated sluice do anything. CRT had been called an hour and a half previously, so all we could do was wait. I phoned CRT for an update of when someone might attend - they didn't know. They did know about the problem, though. By the time when, at last, a CRT van drove down the access road, there were six boats waiting to go down the lock and one waiting to come up. The time was now 5pm.

Another few minutes passed before two CRT employees walked up to the lock, carrying a long-handled shovel, a rope and a grappling hook. They proceeded to drag the shovel along the bottom by the recalcitrant gate but found nothing which would prevent the gate closing. When we pointed out that the sluice didn't work either the CRT people came to the conclusion we'd reached hours ago. Oh, it must be a hydraulic problem. They opened the box of tricks on the lock island and peered inside.

One of them, Joe, was on the phone to another CRT person talking about the problem for a while, then they pronounced that, because of the weather, the hydraulic fluid was too hot. It might work when it's cooled down a bit.

In the meantime, let's see if we can get you through the manual lock.

This lock clearly hasn't seen much action for a considerable time.

We got the bottom gates closed - I was helping with a windlass (CRT hadn't brought any windlasses) and filled the lock. This was successful - and the weed stayed on the surface of the water. The next operation failed, however. We could not open the gates. These are hydraulic like the gates on the parallel powered lock but operated by winding a windlass. So the team tried their dredging tactic again, but said that it felt like there was a load of bricks down there which were probably stopping the gates opening.

They left us to it, promising a hydraulic engineer in the morning. If he/she comes from Enfield then we could be on our way before too long. We were to feel free to try the gate when the hydraulics had cooled down. We did, and nothing happened. And now it is dark.

One good thing was that Joe was to be the person I was to see at Carpenter's Road Lock. It was he who phoned me this morning. He will know not to bother going if the lock isn't fixed in time.

The morning started with excitement too. A boat behind us on the festival moorings had broken down; I was asked if I could tow the boat - Wandering Whimbrel - to a space on the bank a few boat-lengths in front. I decided breasting up would be the easiest option, so that's what we did.

Now I must go to bed as I have to be up early to try the gate after a night of cooling down (we hope). Unfortunately it's going to be a warm and sticky night. We'll see what happens in the morning.