Boat lift

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 and the canal inclined plane.

Strépy-Thieu boat lift (Belgium, Wallonia)

The Falkirk Wheel (Scotland)

Peterborough Lift Lock (Canada)

It may be either vertically moving, like the ship lifts in Germany, Belgium, the lift at "Les Fontinettes" in France or the Anderton boat lift in England, or rotational, like the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland.

History

A precursor to the canal boat lift, able to move full-sized canal boats, was the tub boat lift used in mining, able to raise and lower the 2.5 ton tub boats then in use. An experimental system was in use on the Churprinz mining canal in Halsbrücke near Dresden. It lifted boats 7 m (23 ft) using a moveable hoist rather than caissons. The lift operated between 1789 and 1868,[1] 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.[2]

The idea of a boat lift for canals can be traced back to a design based on balanced water-filled caissons in Erasmus Darwin's Commonplace Book (page 58-59) dated 1777–1778[3]

In 1796 an experimental balance lock was designed by James Fussell and constructed at Mells on the Dorset and Somerset Canal, though this project was never completed.[2] A similar design was used for lifts on the tub boat section of the Grand Western Canal entered into operation in 1835 becoming the first non experimental boat lifts in Britain.[4] and pre-dating the Anderton Boat Lift by 40 years.

In 1904 the Peterborough Lift Lock designed by Richard Birdsall Rogers opened in Canada. This 19.8-metre (65 ft) high lift system is operated by gravity alone, with the upper bay of the two bay system loaded with an additional 30 cm (12 in) of water as to give it greater weight.

Before the construction of the Three Gorges Dam Ship Lift, the highest boat lift, with a 73.15-metre (240.0 ft) height difference and European Class IV (1350 tonne) capacity, was the Strépy-Thieu boat lift in Belgium opened in 2002.

The ship lift at the Three Gorges Dam, completed in January 2016, is 113 m (371 ft) 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 179 m (587 ft) in two stages when completed.[5]

Selected lift locks

Notable lift locks — ordered by size

Name	Location	Opened	Displacement	Dimensions	Vertical lift	Cycle time	Notes
Three Gorges dam ship lift	China	2016	3000 tons	280 by 35 by 5 metres 919 by 115 by 16 feet	113 metres 371 feet	30–40 minutes
Krasnoyarsk Dam ship lift	Russia	1982	1500 tons	90 m × 18 m × 2.2 m 295 ft × 59 ft × 7 ft	104 m 341 ft	90 minutes
Ronquières inclined plane lift	Belgium	1968	1350 tons	91 m × 12 m × 3.7 m 299 ft × 39 ft × 12 ft	67.73 m 222 ft	22 minutes[6]
Strépy-Thieu boat lift	Belgium	2002	1350 tons	112 m × 12 m × 3.35 m 367 ft × 39 ft × 11 ft	73.15 m 240 ft	7 minutes
Scharnebeck twin ship lift	Germany	1974	1350 tons	105.4 m × 15.8 m × 3.4 m 346 ft × 52 ft × 11 ft	38 m 125 ft	3 minutes
Niederfinow boat lift	Germany	1934		85 m × 12 m × 2.5 m 279 ft × 39 ft × 8 ft	36 m 118 ft	20 minutes
Peterborough lift lock	Canada	1904	1300 tons	42.7 m × 10.1 m × 2.1 m 140 ft × 33 ft × 7 ft	19.8 m 65 ft	10 minutes
Kirkfield Lift Lock	Canada	1907	1300 tons	42.7 m × 10.1 m × 2.1 m 140 ft × 33 ft × 7 ft	14.9 m 49 ft	10 minutes
Rothensee boat lift	Germany	1938	1000 tons	85 m × 12.2 m 279 ft × 40 ft	16 m 52 ft	20 minutes
Falkirk Wheel	Scotland	2002	600 tons	21.33 m × 6 m × 1.37 m 70 ft × 20 ft × 4 ft	24 m 79 fts	4 minutes
Henrichenburg boat lift	Germany	1962	600 tons	67 m × 8.2 m × 2 m 220 ft × 27 ft × 7 ft	14 m 46 ft	25 minutes
Danjiangkou Dam	China	1973	450 tons
Geheyan Dam ship lift	China	1987	300 tons
Longtan Dam ship lift	China	2009?	250 tons	40 m × 10.8 m × 1.8 m 131 ft × 35 ft × 6 ft	68.5 m 225 ft		claimed to be the "fastest ship-lift in the world"
Canal du Centre boat lifts	Belgium	1888–1917	360 tons/350 tons	40.1 m × 5.06 m × 2 m 132 ft × 17 ft × 7 ft	16.93–15.4 m 56–51 ft		three lifts each 16.93 m high plus one 15.4 m high
Fontinettes boat lift	France	1881–88	300 tons	39 m × 5.2 m × 2 m 128 ft × 17 ft × 7 ft	13.13 m 43 ft	5 minutes
Anderton boat lift	UK	1875	250 tons	22.9 m × 4.7 m × 2.9 m 75 ft × 15 ft × 10 ft	15.25 m 50 ft

See also

• List of boat lifts
• Lock (water transport)
• Balance lock
• Canal inclined plane – another technique for lifting boats.
• Caisson lock: a submerged boat lift.
• Shiplift – used for raising vessels in shipyards
• Marine railway inclined plane for shipyards
• Water slope
• Saint-Louis-Arzviller boat lift, France – which is actually a canal inclined plane
• Portable boat lift
• Patent slip

References

1. Charles Hadfield World Canals: Inland Navigation Past and Present Page 71 ISBN 0-7153-8555-0
2. The Canals of Southwest England Charles Hadfield Page 104 ISBN 0-7153-8645-X
3. "revolutionaryplayers.org.uk". Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
4. The Canals of Southwest England Charles Hadfield Page 109 ISBN 0-7153-8645-X
5. "Long Tan Hydroelectric Dam". 2007. Retrieved 2010-05-20.
6. "The inclined plane of Ronquières". Archived from the original on 11 June 2008. Retrieved 1 September 2016.

Further reading

• Tew, David (1984). Canal Inclines and Lifts. Sutton Books. ISBN 0-86299-031-9.
• Uhlemann, Hans-Joachim (2002). Canal lifts and inclines of the world (English Translation ed.). Internat. ISBN 0-9543181-1-0.

External links

• "The lift-locks on the Canal du Centre, at Houdeng and Strépy-Thieu, Belgium". 2005-05-14. Archived from the original on 2007-08-25. Retrieved 2007-09-14. Source mentions its own sources
• The International Canal Monuments List
• ^ Three Gorges Dam
• Big Chute, Ontario – in fact an inclined plane
• Twin Ship Elevator Lüneburg - Technical data of the Scharnebeck twin ship lift near Lüneburg, Germany
• Dutch boat lift page