Yangtze River Cruise: Through the Lock

Tuesday, 16th April, 2013.

 

Pat and I found it very interesting going through the five-level ship lock – I would go so far as to say it was exciting, but Pat would probably stop at interesting.

Diagram from www.TravelChinaGuide.com

 

Here, our ship has just gone into the first lock, and everyone has rushed to the back of the boat to watch the lock gates closing.

 

Going through the lock with us was a barge in front of us, a barge behind us, and a barge beside us. 

Here, you can see the barge in front of us.  The dark mark you can see along the side of the lock wall shows the level the water will rise to, to be equal to the level of the water in the next lock. 

In each lock, once all the boats are in and the gates are closed, water is pumped in to raise the level by about 20 metres.  This happens very quickly and very smoothly – the only way you realise you are rising is to watch the lock wall beside you.  It only takes about 20 minutes for the water level in each lock to be raised to equal that of the next.

 

Comparing this picture to the one above, you can see that the water level has risen almost to the black line, so the water in the lock is almost at the same level as the water in the next lock.

 

Now that the water level in locks 1 and 2 is the same, the gate between the two locks is opened, and we all head into Lock #2, to repeat the same process.

 

Now I’m standing on the left (port!) side of our ship, looking at the barge beside us as we all move from lock 1 into lock 2.  You can see how close the barge is to us, and also to the lock wall.  Our ship is just as close to the lock wall on the other side.

I was amazed at the accuracy of the steerage of all of these boats.  When our ship is going at its cruising speed on the river, it takes about 2km to stop, yet here within the lock, all the boats could manoeuvre accurately within inches.

 

Here we are in our cosy cabin, while the ship is in lock 2, with the water level being raised.  Standing on our balcony, you could literally put your hand out and touch the lock wall, which you can see is still wet from the batch of boats in the lock before us.

 

Lock 2 is now nearly full.  About halfway up the window you can see a dark line which shows where the water level will rise to.

 

Lock 2 has now filled, and we are passing into Lock 3.  Behind Pat, you can see the heavy gate, opened back against the wall to let us through.  His elbow is almost touching it.

It took us about four hours to pass through the five locks, and we stayed up for the whole process.  Finally, at around 1am, we emerged into the top level of the river beside the dam, and continued through the night on our journey.