Today we were booked out to depart Liverpool. The instructions were to be at Mann Island Lock at 9:00am. It took us 7 minutes from the mooring to reach the lock entrance, but with other boats waiting we had to hover in the middle of the dock. No boats had come in yesterday which was a bit strange and when we reached the lock we found out why. One of the bridges had broken down and the boats due yesterday were waiting below Stanley Locks for our batch to pass. There were at least 10 boats departing. We were 5th in line and shared the locks with a beautifully restored traditional boat, Rose. On the main canal, he two of us soon caught up with the previous lockings and found the queue moored up by Netherton Bridge.
The queue got longer as more boats joined. The hydraulics had failed on the bridge and had been removed. The bridge had now to be swung by hand and it took 45 minutes of hammering and co-oercing to get it open. Not a busy road, unlike the next swing bridge, the last to be worked by the Canal Trust for us. This is a very busy road and worked one way with traffic lights, so there is always a pile of traffic waiting without having to let 10 narrowboats through. By now our schedule was broken and rather than continue on to our intended mooring for the night, we stopped short along with 4 others. An early start tomorrow.
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