Northwich Dry Dock

Day : Saturday
Date : 30 March 2019
Start : 0930
Finish : 0955 Northwich Dry Dock

About 8 this morning we walked over to the dry dock to watch the Duke of Normandy being refloated and leave the dock. I also shot a bit video of the dock gate being lifted.
We had already watched the drydock being refilled via a sluice it the top gate.
Once The Duke was out, she could only go as far as the mouth of the dry dock as CRT have to open the footbridge across the weir stream and unlike us she is to tall to get under it, Matt and Mike

came and worked us up the lock, they have been trained by CRT to do this. Once clear of the lock its hard left and down the weir stream passed the rowing club, luckily they were all up the river today. If you look at the map at the bottom of this post you can see how we doubled back on ourselves. The entrance to the dry dock is just to the left of the sluices, thankfully the flow today was quite gentle.

Once in the dock Harnser was positioned with three ropes and the lock drained down into the river,

leaving her high and dry on the bostocks. Once the mud was flushed away Matt set to with the high

pressure water jet to clean the hull off. I was surprised just

how little black came off, once he had finished the sides he was on his cradle to do the base plate. Harnser's base plate was painted a

few years ago when we were on the Fens so it wasn't to bad.
For some reason the boat always feels much colder when out of the water, it must be the wind chill under the base plate.

Today's Journey

1/3 Mile 1 Lock in 25 minutes