Dror Bar-Natan: Album: 2023.10.07_Trent-Severn_Waterway-_The_Kirkfield_Lift

<< 2023.10.07_Trent-Severn_Waterway-_The_Kirkfield_Lift_Locks >>

Jump to: Mathematica Notebooks | Images | Other Files

Along the Trent-Severn Waterway: About 19km on my kayak carrying my bike and the kayak cart, and then about 16.6km going back on my bike pulling the cart with the kayak on it. All on a beautiful fall day! The highlights were Lock 37 (my first time ever in a lock!) and the bigger highlight, Lock 36, the Kirkfield Lift Lock, the biggest elevator I've ever been on/in.

But there were mishaps! The Kirkfield Lift Lock is a pair of moving water basins connected by hydraulics, so that one is the counterweight of the other, and the extra energy needed to move the pair and counter the weight of the boats comes from a clever arrangement involving the normal flow of the water in the canal. But one of the two basins is in repair, and the one that was working has no counterweight. Instead it is lifted by electric pumps that push water into the hydraulic system. But these pumps have to push against 2,000 tons, and it takes a whole hour to go up about 15 meters! Would have been much faster and much greener to simply portage... But I only realized that when I was already in.

And then at the switchover from kayaking to biking I found that my brand new kayak cart had a flat tire. I tried fixing it but the flat was due to a manufacturing defect and it was hopeless. I ended up riding back with a flat on one of the cart's wheels. No danger here, only extra friction and possible damage to the wheel (none occurred).