After a day of squalls and heavy winds out of the southwest, we woke up early to get a jump on the day. Before us was about 35 nautical miles (nm) (6000 feet to a nm) across Lac St. Francis to the Valleyfield Bridge and the Canal leading to Beauharnois Locks #4 and #5. We had been told that we had a long day ahead of us and that we could wait an hour or longer for the several bridges to be raised and the locks to open for us. Along the way, we found new friends.
Of course, here's one reason we had to wait for the locks to clear.
Brio likes the name of this ship. It reminds her of Alice!
Look at how tight it is to squeeze this ship into and then, here, out of the lock.
Once inside the lock, the ships get held in place in the lock by pads on arms that swing over to contact the hull.
This is what the pads look like. There are three sets of these on each side of each lock. These would keep the ship in place so it wouldn't move and hit the lock walls.
And here's the arm that's attached to the pad. It appears that these arms and pads would move up or down, following the ship as it moves up or down.
Here's one of our new friends. Brad is the captain of "Sea Vous Play", a name which sort of makes Brio shudder. The fellow on the deck is from Louisiana. They are nice folks.
There were another five power boats, all from Montreal, and a sail boat. The Montrealers handled all of the VHF communications, thank goodness, because it was all in rapid-fire French. One of the power boats rafted up to Brio and her captain, Max, is a local contractor.
We met these partners in crime at the Valleyfield Bridge and established our convoy all the way to Montreal. We finally got through the final lock at St. Lambert and ran over to our basin, arriving at 7:30 p.m. We were exhausted and grateful that Brio performed like a champ!
Cheers,
Brio
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