Boats do cause damage

INTERESTING to read the comments about locks being damaged by boats. I can assure your correspondents that boats can and do cause a tremendous amount of damage to locks,  writes Richard Swan.

I've seen brand new parts of lock gates wrecked by badly navigated boats within 24 hours of being put in place, damage that I wouldn't have believed possible by a narrowboat. I think that it is not unknown for gates to be hit by boats travelling at speed having seen the damage caused. There is a limit to how robust gates can be made to withstand such mistreatment.

More careful

As for the old working boats, has Rick Helston not heard of strapping posts (or stumps)? The boatman would have been more careful with the locks than people are today as their livelihood depended on having working locks available and the canal companies didn't take kindly to having their locks damaged by the users.