Tag Archives: canal

Lock sizes on the Shannon Navigation

Some figures.

The Limerick Navigation: lock sizes

Here is a table showing the sizes of the locks on the (now abandoned) Limerick Navigation.

Neglect of lock repairs forces canal to close …

in Germany.

Sailing in the Lowtown high

WI & L&MK at Lowtown, with pics and map, here.

The last round-up

A press release from Waterways Ireland says:

Since November 2012 Waterways Ireland has offered Boaters on the Grand Canal, Barrow Navigation and Royal Canal a new Extended Mooring Permit which enables the boat to remain in a single location for more than five days. Extended Mooring Locations have been offered at two week intervals until the 4th March when the final 2013 locations will open. In total, 68 Extended Mooring Locations will have been offered across urban and rural locations on the three waterways. Each location has multiple moorings available; more than ample space for every boat currently on the system should all wish to apply. More locations are being prepared should demand increase.

Applications for the last set of locations begin on March 4th 2013. On the Barrow extended mooring locations will open at Moneybeg, Co Carlow and Lowtown, Co Kildare and on the Grand Canal at Derrymullen, Ticknevin and Allenwood Middle also in Co Kildare.

There follows the usual material about enforcement, which can be read here.

On wires and worked with steam*

Thanks again to Paul Quinn for another set of photographs, this time of the newly-installed wakeboarding system thingie in Grand Canal Dock, Dublin, which is to be opened on 9 March 2013.

Wakeboarding, as I understand it, involves dressing up in brightly coloured plastics, standing on a plank and being towed around behind a boat. I don’t myself see the appeal, being more the sedentary sort, but chacun a son gout, as the French don’t say, apparently, although why they’re supposed to know anything about it I don’t … but I digress. The wakeboarding system thingie seems to allow wakeboarding without a boat; it might also require less sea room.

A system was installed temporarily last year; there is information about it here. I don’t know whether that is the same system as has now been installed. You can read the environmental report here [PDF]. Waterways Ireland tells me that

Waterways Ireland has entered into a three year commercial operating licence agreement with Colin Harris T/A Wakedock Ltd., to place and operate a mobile wakeboarding system in Grand Canal Dock.

There seems to be an association between Wakedock and the Surfdock business in the Naomh Éanna, although Wakedock also has its own website.

I asked Waterways Ireland how much it was earning from this; it refused to tell me:

Waterways Ireland do not release license fees charged to individual commercial licence holders as this would be detrimental to our business interest in future license fee valuations.

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A tower tower

from grand canal theatre.

Looking from Grand Canal Theatre: note the white ramps

from hanover quay.

Seen from Hanover Quay

looking east towards ringsend

The ramps (looking east towards Ringsend)

looking south from hanover quay at ramps.

A close-up from Hanover Quay

looking south from hanover quay.approx.25 meters

The Naomh Éanna in the background

looking south from sea locks.aprox 50 meters

About 50m from the sea locks

looking west to gallery quay.

Looking west to Gallery Quay

ramp with dredger at charlotte quay.

Ramp in the foreground; excavator at Charlotte Quay in the background

ramps and far  line support

Ramps and western line support

ramps and new position of naomh eanna.

Naomh Éanne in its new position

Waterways Ireland tells me that:

When agreeing the location, consideration was given to maintaining access to the pump-out on Hanover Quay and also access to vessels wishing to enter via the lock gates. No detrimental impact on navigation for other users is anticipated.

WI kindly provided this map.

GCD wakeboarding map

GCD wakeboarding map

Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre, as my old grandmother used to say.

 

* see The Third Policeman

Working on the Royal

Waterways Ireland has temporary seasonal jobs for general operatives based at Thomastown.

Mystery solved

Nobody tried the Spot the canal I set the other day, so I must now reveal that the eel weir shown is at the upper end of the Cong Canal. There are many photos and maps on that page.

Spot the canal

People whom I’ve told where I was going today are barred from this quiz ….

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Upstream end

Of which Irish canal is this the upstream end? (The structure is a now-disused eel weir.)

 

The Dublin to Galway ship canal

Another h/t to Ewan Duffy for the link to this Galway Independent article about the proposed Dublin to Galway ship canal. I was impressed to note that it covers Edward Watkin‘s late nineteenth century for a Dublin to Galway ship canal, which would save transatlantic steamers from having to go north or south of Ireland when travelling between Britain and America. It was, of course, a completely insane proposal; as some folk pointed out at the time, only Liverpool steamers found Ireland an obstacle and, being capable of 20 knots or so, might actually lose time by having to travel at 3 knots and through locks on a canal instead of steaming north or south about.

Incidentally, the article mentions the Panama Canal, which joins the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. So which ocean is at its western end?