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| Berliber tug and pan carrying a field winding |
Hot and sunny. Afternoon temperature reached
37°C, too hot. Set off at 9.40 am picking a slot in a queue consisting of two
commercials, two cruisers and another commercial, between the two cruisers. The
rest of the queue all overtook us within minutes. Had trouble with all the
slosh from passing traffic and the magnetic effect of the piling – the boat
wouldn’t easily reverse away from the bank. It did when Mike spoke to it!
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| Heavy traffic MLK |
Took
photos of an old Berliner tug pushing a pan containing an outer field winding
(stator) from a power generating plant that looked as if it was going somewhere
for repair, which overtook us at KP144. The canal winds its way through the
city for the next 20kms or so.
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| Continental tyre factoey in Hanover |
It was sizzling hot eating lunch in the stern.
Mike’s straw (paper) hat decide to go for a swim. It had been sitting
peacefully on the roof since we set off, as he’d put the sunshade up, and a
sudden gust of wind swept it overboard. Rather than swamp it trying to reverse
to it Mike asked Oll on the radio if he could fish it out as he went past it,
which he did. Snail then went past us to deposit the soggy hat and went on to
find a spot for a brief doggy rest stop.
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| Anderten lock's huge empty chamber, one of a pair. |
There were masses of Sunday afternoon
cruisers about and the towpaths were thronged with cyclists and walkers, all
gongoozling like mad and taking phone photos of the funny boats. A large Danish
cruiser overtook us and turned left into the Misburg arm, where there was a
large yacht haven belonging to the Hanoverscher Motorboot Club.
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| Bottom end shaft lock guillotine gate |
We pushed on to
the locks. Yes, 175kms and this was the one and only lock up on to the summit.
Called Hindenburgschleuse at Anderten, the twinned locks are each 220m long by
12m wide and lift boats 14.7m up to the summit level using several economiser
pounds. The summit level is 61kms long and Sülfeld lock then drops boats down
9m to the last pound which finishes at KP325 where the new aqueduct takes boats
over the river Elbe and a new lock takes boats down onto the Elbe-Havel kanal
or another new lock takes boats down on to the Elbe (not sure if the ship lift at
Rothensee still works).
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| Keeper oversees both chamber from the long dark building above the lock |
No one else in sight, just a WSA boat moored between
the two lock chambers, so we moored on the left in the area for spoort boots
waiting for the lock and Mike called the lock keeper on VHF. Didn’t understand
the answer, but we’ll wait until we get a green light. A German cruiser came
and tied on the wall behind us.
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| Buildings housing working mechanisms of the lock. Note original name of lock - Hindenburgschleuse |
Both chambers emptied. Two 80m loaded boats
came out of the right hand chamber and we got a green light as the keeper
shouted over the tannoy system “spoort booten in der schleuse”, or something
like that, and we followed the cruiser into the vast empty chamber. A trip boat
came out of the left hand chamber as we went into the right. The cruiser went
right up the front end of the empty chamber.
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| Moored above Anderten and glad to stop. HOT Note this photo was taken later when in shade |
I took photos as we went in and more when the lock was
full. The bollards set in the wall were the right distance apart for us to do
fore and aft ropes. The incoming water blew our bows off the wall to start off
with, temporarily, and then settled down to do the express lift – filling so
fast that I only just had time to lift the ropes from one bollard to the next.
There were crowds of gongoozlers behind railings on the lockside. Waved to the
keeper, who must be somewhere in the smoked glass cabin above the lock chamber,
as we left the lock. There was a mooring above the lock on the left (couldn’t
have been on the right hand side in the shade) in full glare of the afternoon
sun. It was a blistering 37.2°C at 4.20 pm
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