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Managed To Avoid A Nasty Accident Today


Alan de Enfield

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23 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

River Trent 14/10/17

Departed Cromwell Lock heading upstream for Newark.

Called the Lock keeper at Nether Lock when 10 minutes out and asked to pen-up when convenient, received the reply “Lock is in your favour, gates are open, lights are green come straight in”

Entered the lock-cut and as the bow passed the gates, the gates started to close, - immediately stuck both engines into full reverse and just managed to back out as the gates closed to leave about a 3-foot gap  - we are a 14 foot beam GRP cruiser, we would have been totally crushed.

Called the Lock Keeper on the VHF: “Nether Lock, what the  hell are you doing ?”

No reply but the gates opened and we entered.

No sign of the lock keeper – he only appeared after waiting about 10 minutes for another boat to arrive.

Asked him what had happened and he said: “I closed the gates because I thought you were already in the lock”

A real brown-trouser event that could have had disastrous consequences.

I’m all for volunteer lock keepers but they really should be taught the importance of looking out of the ‘hut window’ and awaiting the OK from the skipper before closing gates or raising paddles.

 

For those not familiar with the Trent locks, they are around 130 feet long, 25 feet wide with very high walls and huge hydraulically powered gates.

 

Nether Lock

Image result for nether lock newark dimensions

Hope you are sending an incident report in to CRT I just tried to find their incident report forms but they seem to have gone missing.

 

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9 hours ago, mark99 said:

BP = perhaps not the best example. One of the worlds biggest accidents if measured in costs to Company.

except that Deepwater Horizon was probably managed by ex-Amoco staff, and having worked for them in the UAE in 1982, I was singularly unimpressed and I encountered a complete absence of HSE awareness...............  did I mention cowboys?

I believe they even managed to install the topsides of an offshore platform onto the jacket in the North Sea 180 degrees out of alignment in the same year. 

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12 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Many years ago I had a 'near-miss' with a Vulcan bomber whilst flying South over the A1, it flipped me upside down and into a spin and I just managed to recover before hitting the ground, every day since then has been a bonus, I try to worry as little as possible about "what ifs" now.

As it so very nearly ended up as a 'death' I did report the air-miss but never heard any more about it.

I'll give consideration to calling C&RT next week as the hive seems to think it is the correct course of action.

Well it all rather begs the question as to why you posted on here if you actually had no intention of raising this with CRT. Presumably you now actually will.

On balance your time would have been better spent informing CRT if you genuinely believed you and your boat were put at risk.

Simply posting it in an internet forum makes it just a bit of a 'rant'.

 

Edited by MJG
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2 minutes ago, MJG said:

Well it all rather begs the question as to why you posted on here if you actually had no intention of raising this with CRT. Presumably you now actually will.

On balance your time would have been better spent informing CRT if you genuinely believed you and your boat were put at risk.

Simply posting it in an internet forum makes it just a bit of a 'rant'.

 

Whilst all this might be true it does help us far less experienced boaters appreciate some of the dangers/pitfalls that we otherwise might not be aware of.

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An all rubber flexi boat or rubber sponge sandwich boat would have survived a good squeezing, slid through the gap and reformed itself. An all rubber boat would not be effected by bashes and crashes. It wouldn't need fenders nor horrid rubber engine mounts as the engine would be mounted on rubber bearers. No anodes needed. No expensive insulation needed either, just rubber paint. Could be made from re-cycled old tyres, balloons, rubber gloves, trainer soles, condoms, football bladders, old inner tubes ect. Windows could be stick on polythene food bags, easy to replace. All indoor aerials, phones, dongles would work anywhere onboard, warmer to the touch than the cold steel boats brrrrr!. Lovely and soft to walk about in. Very little condensation. Could be completely unsinkable.

Edited by bizzard
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1 hour ago, JJPHG said:

Whilst all this might be true it does help us far less experienced boaters appreciate some of the dangers/pitfalls that we otherwise might not be aware of.

Il try again.

 

The thing is the likely hood of this happening is extremely remote (even assuming any sort of real risk existed in the first place),

Edited by MJG
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8 hours ago, Murflynn said:

except that Deepwater Horizon was probably managed by ex-Amoco staff, and having worked for them in the UAE in 1982, I was singularly unimpressed and I encountered a complete absence of HSE awareness...............  did I mention cowboys?

I believe they even managed to install the topsides of an offshore platform onto the jacket in the North Sea 180 degrees out of alignment in the same year. 

As was the Texas City Refinery.  A bit of a theme emerging here...

Chris G (ex-BP)

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Update:

I have just realised that a C&RT employee who moors in ‘our’ marina’ is the Manager who came out to fix Gunthorpe lock last week (when the hydraulic power pack failed on the bottom gate).

Whilst walking the dogs this morning I bumped into him and asked his advice on what to do.

He was a full time Lockie and is now responsible for 6 of the Trent Locks, he is involved in training of the Vollys  and knows ‘young Tommy’ (although he is not one of his trainees).

He is going to go down to Nether Lock this morning and fill out a near-miss report, and report the incident to his Manager, and Tommy, because of the potential seriousness of the  incident, will be put onto a re-training course.

 

I will try & locate the customer near-miss forms and make a report from my side.

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The C&RT 'Visitor Incident Report' forms are no longer available, all you now get is :

"The page you are looking for has either moved, no longer exists, or there is a typo in the url"

and, seeing as it was a C&RT link that took me there I doubt there is a typo I the url.

 

The link posted earlier (many thanks) is solely for C&RT employees to report  "A set of circumstances which could result in human injury, property damage or other loss but didn't".

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I wonder if the lock in question has a written procedure and risk assessment?  I'm glad that you have been able to raise it with CaRT, albeit informally at this stage.  I think the incident warrants a full investigation as the consequences could have been disastrous.  It's always better to over-react than feel terrible later when there is another accident and you feel you should have done more.  There should be CCTV or a large mirror so that the operator can see the gates when he operates them or, preferably, the controls should be moved to the lockside.  This would have been the obvious thing if an effective RA had been done.  

I was impressed by the French system where the boater pulled a rod in the lock chamber to initiate the sequence.

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The C&RT 'Visitor Incident Report' forms are no longer available, all you now get is :

"The page you are looking for has either moved, no longer exists, or there is a typo in the url"

and, seeing as it was a C&RT link that took me there I doubt there is a typo I the url.

 

The link posted earlier (many thanks) is solely for C&RT employees to report  "A set of circumstances which could result in human injury, property damage or other loss but didn't".

Hi Alan

It appears that this form is the one to use https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/contact-us/ways-to-contact-us

Ask customer services to pass this onto the waterway manager and the local health & safety advisor.

Rob

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2 minutes ago, Rob@BSSOffice said:

Hi Alan

It appears that this form is the one to use https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/contact-us/ways-to-contact-us

Ask customer services to pass this onto the waterway manager and the local health & safety advisor.

Rob

Thanks Rob

It looks as if the specific forms for reporting an incident have been removed and you can now only send a message.

We will see what happens.

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Reply from  C&RT

Thank you for your email and bringing this to our attention, I have copied in the local office for this area, to make them aware and look into the matter in further detail.

Please let us know if you require any further assistance.
Kind regards

Alison Franks

Customer Service Advisor

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14 hours ago, bizzard said:

An all rubber flexi boat or rubber sponge sandwich boat would have survived a good squeezing, slid through the gap and reformed itself. An all rubber boat would not be effected by bashes and crashes. It wouldn't need fenders nor horrid rubber engine mounts as the engine would be mounted on rubber bearers. No anodes needed. No expensive insulation needed either, just rubber paint. Could be made from re-cycled old tyres, balloons, rubber gloves, trainer soles, condoms, football bladders, old inner tubes ect. Windows could be stick on polythene food bags, easy to replace. All indoor aerials, phones, dongles would work anywhere onboard, warmer to the touch than the cold steel boats brrrrr!. Lovely and soft to walk about in. Very little condensation. Could be completely unsinkable.

Your on to something here!

 

Bod

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Report direct to the HSE

the incident plus the difficulty in reporting makes me think CRT need a kick up the proverbial 

and im not a fan of elf n safety taken to silly levels but don't think it should be ignored all together. 

Your clearly an experienced and sensible fella ( at least based on your posts on here ) and CRT should at least treat the incident as a near miss to be reviewed 

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2 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

Report direct to the HSE

the incident plus the difficulty in reporting makes me think CRT need a kick up the proverbial 

and im not a fan of elf n safety taken to silly levels but don't think it should be ignored all together. 

Your clearly an experienced and sensible fella ( at least based on your posts on here ) and CRT should at least treat the incident as a near miss to be reviewed 

Up until a couple of weeks ago CRT had a proper incident reporting form on their web site. The problem was it was a PDF and you had to print it out, fill it in and post it back. They were criticised for this and the fact it couldn't be filled in on line. The result looks like they have taken the old one down before (or not bothering) to produce a new one.

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22 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It looks as if the specific forms for reporting an incident have been removed and you can now only send a message.

 

Your best method for reporting this would be direct contact with the Waterway Manager at Newark, Alan.

If you call C&RT's switchboard and ask to be put through to Sean McGinley you will find yourself talking to a real rarity amongst C&RT management, . .  an intelligent, conscientious, helpful and thoroughly decent man who will deal with the matter in the best possible and positive manner, including appropriate and fair treatment for the lad who was on duty at the time.

This is not the first time a pleasure boat has just escaped being 'nipped' in the bottom gates at Nether Lock. I recall in late Summer of 1962 a relief lock keeper called Billy Barker in a hurry to turn the lock round for the next downgate traffic (BWB's 'Frank Rayner' with two dumbs on), forgetting that there was a pleasure boat sharing the lock with 'Bilsdale, one of Harker's petrol boats returning light from Colwick to Hull, and closing the gates on the pleasure boat as it followed the tanker out of the lock.

 

Edited by TonyDunkley
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Thanks Tony, and nice to see you back and posting again. Your engineering knowledge, and experience of the Trent has been missed. (Has the stamp collector now left the building ?)

The information (my report) has been passed to Newark by both the central office, and by the person who is responsible for managing the 6-locks (he completed the 'employees near miss' form and took it into Mather Rd yesterday - I saw him in the marina last night)

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37 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Thanks Tony, and nice to see you back and posting again. Your engineering knowledge, and experience of the Trent has been missed. (Has the stamp collector now left the building ?)

The information (my report) has been passed to Newark by both the central office, and by the person who is responsible for managing the 6-locks (he completed the 'employees near miss' form and took it into Mather Rd yesterday - I saw him in the marina last night)

Thanks, Alan, but it might turn out to be only a very brief and illusory return !

Tony Dunkley - with a space separating christian and surname - is in fact still ''banned'' from posting on, or even viewing, this Forum. The new member who replied to your thread earlier is a completely different TonyDunkley - with no space separating christian name and surname.

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