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Ian Rambles
We reached our first lock, near Montreal, in the early
hours of the morning.
From the bow I could hear birdsong and distant traffic
and I realised how used we had all become to the noise
of the engine and the ventilation system running all
the time.
The jigsaw is showing more black sky than underlying
table.
Fiona's Journal
A day of locks/ecluses/sluizen/and whatever they are
called in Polish. Typically, I managed to sleep through
the first two, just past Montreal, in the early hours
of the morning but I was up and about for the third
one. As we approached the entrance it was absolutely
obvious to me that we were too wide for it. We weren't,
of course – they do think about these things when
building ships “fit for purpose” – but
it was an astonishingly tight squeeze! Looking down
from the Bridge Deck it looked like an inch to spare
on either side. In reality it may have been almost a
foot.
My appreciation of the pilots' skills increased no
end, watching them guide us into and out of these locks
throughout the day. They saunter from one side of the
bridge to the other eyeballing the gap and the angle
of approach and gauging the ships speed and momentum
and then adjust these subtly and continuously by shouting
instructions to the helmsman (port 5, midships, starboard
10, and so on) and to the officer controlling propeller
pitch (slow ahead, stop engine, dead slow astern etc).
Each man replies by repeating the instruction back to
the pilot so that it is immediately obvious if he has
misheard something. It's a low tech system but very
effective.
As the locks fill and the ship rises from the depths
you can hear the occasional, teeth-clenching screech
of metal against concrete but, as Ian says, paint is
cheaper than fenders and there really isn't room for
them anyway!
Between the lock canals the river is broad and beautiful
and dotted with tree-covered islands. The big ship channel
is clearly buoyed and outside of this are small fishing
boats and yachts having fun. Over the course of the
day we move from Canadian territory into USA (New York
State) territory and back into Canadian waters by the
evening.
Arthur's Log:
Endless sights to see today, I spent nearly the
whole day on the bridge. The seaway is now only one
hundred feet wide in places. We have a new pilot every
six hours who know the places so well they can answer
any question we ask. The pilot is basically the captain
of the ship through water the captain has no certificate
that says he knows how to do it (which requires a two
year course for each 6 hours of water and also learn
how to fit a 24m wide ship into a 25m wide lock!)
The Harry Report
We got into our first lock today which looked like it
wasn't wide enough for the cargo ship to go in.
George's Musings
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