Pump Out

The southern end of the aqueduct works. This pump maintains the water levels in the canal south of the aqueduct.

(Northern end of damned section)

Water level dropping fast. The pump will drain 18 million litres of water at 250 litres per second so total pump running time will be about 20hrs. Tomorrow they will begin moving the fish out of the partly drained section.

(Southern end of damned section)

 (Sun & Shadow)

 (Across the aqueduct at about 3.45pm today)

Boatdate: 04112019
Canal: Lancaster
Location: Beaumont Hall Bridge (Br109)

Today the draining of the 300 metre section of the canal begins. Rock damns have been built either side of the works and huge pipes run along the canal bank to maintain water flow between the north and south sides of the works. At the northern end mobile generators have been installed to provide power to the pumps.

 (Rigging the pumping pipes)

The canal's main water supply comes from Killington Reservoir, about 8km north of the current end of the navigation. It supplies 77,300 cubic metres of water per day into the Canal via Peasey Beck. It seems an awful lot but then there are no locks on the canal so I guess the flow of water is greater than a lot of other canals. Next job will be to take out all the fish and move them out of harms way!

 (Pipework across the aqueduct)

From the turning point at Belmont Bridge (Br114) to the end of the navigable part of the canal at Tewitfield that limits our winter time movements to roughly an 8.5 mile section of the canal. Not a lot to play with, but enough.

Boatdate: 08112019
Locations: Garstang, Galgate, Lancaster, Hest Bank, Bolton le Sands
Canal: Lancaster
Heading: N

A series of day long hops take us into central Lancaster where we moor up outside the Waterwitch pub and load the car with stuff we can store at home or dispose of. Our next deadline is to move Pan north of the Lune aqueduct before the canal is closed on 4th November for repairs to the aqueduct and embankments. These are major works which will run through to the middle of March 2020 and our preference is to be in the northern reaches of the canal during this time. Necessarily this means our movements over the winter months will be limited but on the plus side the canal is in beautiful countryside from north of Carnforth up to its termination at Tewitfield. Maybe the CRT won't be that fussed about continuous cruise requirements during this time and it's not going to be difficult to get to it along any of that section.

(Tidy up Time)