A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the
canal lock
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water lev ...
.
It may be vertically moving, like the
Anderton boat lift
The Anderton Boat Lift is a two caisson lift lock near the village of Anderton, Cheshire, in North West England. It provides a vertical link between two navigable waterways: the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal. The structure is de ...
in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, rotational, like the
Falkirk Wheel
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in Tamfourhill, Falkirk, in central Scotland, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It reconnects the two canals for the first time since the 1930s. It opened in 2002 as part o ...
in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, or operate on an
inclined plane
An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six clas ...
, like the
Ronquières inclined plane
The Ronquières Inclined Plane is a Belgian canal inclined plane on the Brussels-Charleroi Canal in the province of Hainaut in Wallonia that opened in April 1968 after six years of construction. It is in the municipality of Braine-le-Comte and tak ...
in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
.
History
A precursor to the canal boat lift, able to move full-sized canal boats, was the
tub boat lift
A tub boat lift is a type of boat lift designed to lift tub boats between different elevations of a canal. Tub boats are small boats used to transport coal and other minerals, sometimes working singly, sometimes in long trains. A tub boat lift (g ...
used in mining, able to raise and lower the 2.5 ton
tub boat
A tub boat was a type of unpowered cargo boat used on a number of the early English and German canals. The English boats were typically long and wide and generally carried to of cargo, though some extra deep ones could carry up to . They a ...
s then in use. An experimental system was in use on the
Churprinz mining canal in
Halsbrücke
Halsbrücke is a municipality and village in the district of Mittelsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. It is situated just north of Freiberg, on the banks of the Freiberger Mulde river.
Geography
Halsbrücke lies 5 km north of Freiberg on the le ...
near
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...
. It lifted boats using a moveable hoist rather than
caissons. The lift operated between 1789 and 1868,
[Charles Hadfield ''World Canals: Inland Navigation Past and Present'', p. 71, ] and for a period of time after its opening engineer
James Green reporting that five had been built between 1796 and 1830. He credited the invention to
Dr James Anderson of Edinburgh.
[The Canals of Southwest England ''Charles Hadfield'', p. 104, ]
The idea of a boat lift for canals can be traced back to a design based on balanced water-filled caissons in
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor, and poet.
His poems ...
's Commonplace Book (pp. 58–59) dated 1777–1778
In 1796 an experimental
balance lock
The balance lock was a type of boat lift designed by James Fussell (1748-1832) to transport boats up and down a hillside on a canal. An experimental balance lock was built as part of the Dorset and Somerset Canal and work was started for four mor ...
was designed by
James Fussell and constructed at Mells on the
Dorset and Somerset Canal
The Dorset and Somerset Canal was a proposed canal in southwestern England. The main line was intended to link Poole, Dorset with the Kennet and Avon Canal near Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire. A branch was to go from the main line at Frome to the ...
, though this project was never completed.
A similar design was used for lifts on the
tub boat
A tub boat was a type of unpowered cargo boat used on a number of the early English and German canals. The English boats were typically long and wide and generally carried to of cargo, though some extra deep ones could carry up to . They a ...
section of the
Grand Western Canal
The Grand Western Canal ran between Taunton in Somerset and Tiverton in Devon in the United Kingdom. The canal had its origins in various plans, going back to 1796, to link the Bristol Channel and the English Channel by a canal, bypassing Land ...
entered into operation in 1835 becoming the first non-experimental boat lifts in Britain
[The Canals of Southwest England ''Charles Hadfield'', p. 109, ] and pre-dating the
Anderton Boat Lift
The Anderton Boat Lift is a two caisson lift lock near the village of Anderton, Cheshire, in North West England. It provides a vertical link between two navigable waterways: the River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal. The structure is de ...
by 40 years.
In 1904 the
Peterborough Lift Lock
The Peterborough Lift Lock is a boat lift located on the Trent Canal in the city of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, and is Lock 21 on the Trent-Severn Waterway.
For many years, the lock's dual lifts were the highest hydraulic boat lifts in t ...
designed by
Richard Birdsall Rogers
Richard Birdsall Rogers (15 January 1857 – 2 October 1927) was a Canadian civil engineer, civil and mechanical engineer whose most significant achievement was the design of the Peterborough Lift Lock, a boat lift at Peterborough, Ontario, Ca ...
opened in Canada. This high lift system is operated by gravity alone, with the upper bay of the two bay system loaded with an additional of water as to give it greater weight.
Before the construction of the Three Gorges Dam Ship Lift, the highest boat lift, with a height difference and European Class IV (1350 tonne) capacity, was the
Strépy-Thieu boat lift
The Strépy-Thieu boat lift (french: L'ascenseur funiculaire de Strépy-Thieu) lies on a branch of the Canal du Centre in the municipality of Le Rœulx, Hainaut, Belgium. With a height difference of between the upstream and downstream reache ...
in Belgium opened in 2002.
The ship lift at the
Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric gravity dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province, central China, downstream of the Three Gorges. The Three Gorges Dam has been the world ...
, completed in January 2016, is high and able to lift vessels of up to 3,000 tons displacement.
The boat lift at
Longtan is reported to be even higher in total with a maximum vertical lift of in two stages when completed.
Selected lift locks
See also
*
List of boat lifts
*
Lock (water transport)
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water lev ...
*
Balance lock
The balance lock was a type of boat lift designed by James Fussell (1748-1832) to transport boats up and down a hillside on a canal. An experimental balance lock was built as part of the Dorset and Somerset Canal and work was started for four mor ...
*
Canal inclined plane
An inclined plane is a type of cable railway used on some canals for raising boats between different water levels. Boats may be conveyed afloat, in caissons, or may be carried in cradles or slings.
History
Inclined planes have evolved over the ...
– another technique for lifting boats.
*
Caisson lock
The caisson lock is a type of canal lock in which a narrowboat is floated into a sealed watertight box and raised or lowered between two different canal water levels. It was invented in the late 18th century as a solution to the problem posed ...
: a submerged boat lift.
*
Shiplift
A shiplift is a modern alternative for a slipway, a dry dock, floating dry dock or a dry dock, graving dry dock. A shiplift is used to dry dock and launch ships. It consists of a structural platform that is lifted and lowered exactly vertically, ...
– used for raising vessels in shipyards
*
Marine railway
The patent slip or marine railway is an inclined plane extending from shoreline into water, featuring a "cradle" onto which a ship is first floated, and a mechanism to haul the ship, attached to the cradle, out of the water onto a slip. The m ...
inclined plane for shipyards
*
Water slope
A water slope (french: Pente d'eau) is a type of canal inclined plane built to carry boats from a canal or river at one elevation up or down to a canal or river at another elevation.
History
In 1885, German engineer Julius Greve published draf ...
*
Saint-Louis-Arzviller boat lift, France – which is actually a
canal inclined plane
An inclined plane is a type of cable railway used on some canals for raising boats between different water levels. Boats may be conveyed afloat, in caissons, or may be carried in cradles or slings.
History
Inclined planes have evolved over the ...
*
Portable boat lift
*
Patent slip
The patent slip or marine railway is an inclined plane extending from shoreline into water, featuring a "cradle" onto which a ship is first floated, and a mechanism to haul the ship, attached to the cradle, out of the water onto a slip. The m ...
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
Source mentions its own sources
The International Canal Monuments List*
– in fact an inclined plane
Twin Ship Elevator Lüneburg– Technical data of the
Scharnebeck twin ship lift near
Lüneburg
Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
Dutch boat lift page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boat Lift
Vertical transport devices