Boat lift

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This article is about machines transporting boats between water. For device on a shipyard to dry dock and launch ships for repair and/or newbuilding, see Ship lift.

Strépy-Thieu boat lift (Belgium).

The Falkirk Wheel.

Peterborough (Canada) Lift Lock.

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.

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.

1 History
2 Sources
3 See also
- 3.1 Examples
4 External links

[edit] History

The first known boat lift was a 2.5 ton lift on the Churprinz canal near Dresden. It lifted boats 7 meters without the use of caissons. The lift operated between 1789 and 1868.^[1] For a period of time after the opening of the Churprinz lift boat lifts were of an experimental nature with the engineer James Green reporting that 5 had been built between 1796 and 1830. He credited the invention to Dr James Anderson of Edinburgh.^[2] Erasmus Darwin's Commonplace Book dated 1777–1778 includes a design for a canal lift based on balanced water filled caissons on page 58-59^[3]

An example of these early lifts were the ones constructed at Mells on the Dorset and Somerset Canal.^[2] 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]

1904 the Peterborough Lift Lock designed by Richard Birdsall Rogers opened in Canada. The lift system is operated by gravity alone, with the upper bay of the two bay system loaded with an additional 30 cm of water as to give it greater weight.

The world's still highest boat lift, with a 73.15 metre height difference and European Class IV (1350 tonne) capacity, is the Strépy-Thieu boat lift in Belgium.

As projected, the new ship lift at the Three Gorges Dam will be even higher and able to lift vessels of up to 3,000 tons displacement.^[5] However, as yet engineers have been unable to design a mechanism with the lifting power called for in the lift specifications.^{[citation needed]}

**Notable lift locks — ordered by size**
location	displacement	dimensions	vertical lift	cycle time
Three Gorges dam, China	3000 tons	280 x 35 meters x 5 metres	113 metres	30-40 minutes (under construction)
Strépy-Thieu, Le Rœulx, Belgium	1350 tons	112 x 12 metres x 3.35 metres	73.15 metres	7 minutes
Scharnebeck, Lüneburg, Germany	1350 tons	105.4 x 15.8 x 3.4 metres	38 metres	3 minutes
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada	1300 tons	42.7 x 10.1 x 2.1 metres	19.8 metres	10 minutes
Kirkfield, Ontario, Canada	1300 tons	42.7 x 10.1 x 2.1 metres	14.9 metres	10 minutes
Falkirk Wheel, Scotland, UK	600 tons	–	35 metres	4 minutes
Danjiangkou dam, China	450 tons
Geheyan dam, China	300 tons
Longtan dam, China	250 tons	40 x 10.8 x 1.8 metres	68.5 metres	claimed to be the "fastest ship-lift in the world"
Anderton boat lift	250 tons	22.9 x 4.7 x 2.9 metres	15.25 metres

[edit] Sources

^ Charles Hadfield World Canals: Inland Navigation Past and Present Page 71 ISBN 0-7153-8555-0
^ ^a ^b The Canals of Southwest England Charles Hadfield Page 104 ISBN 0-7153-8645-X
^ revolutionaryplayers.org.uk
^ The Canals of Southwest England Charles Hadfield Page 109 ISBN 0-7153-8645-X
^ Three Gorges Dam. Missouri Chapter Of The American Fisheries Society (April 2002). Retrieved on 2008-03-11. “Ship lift will be a one-stage vertical lift capable of carrying a 3,000-ton passenger or cargo vessel.”