Boat lift

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.

This article is about machines transporting boats between different bodies of water. For shipyard device to replace a dry dock, or Boat Lifts for pleasure craft storage, see Ship lift. For other uses, see Boat lift (disambiguation).
Strépy-Thieu boat lift (Belgium, Wallonia)
The Falkirk Wheel (Scotland)
Peterborough Lift Lock (Canada)

It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, like the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland, or operate on an inclined plane, like the Ronquières inclined plane in Belgium.

History

A precursor to the canal boat lift, able to move full-sized canal boats, was the tub boat lift used in mining, able to raise and lower the 2.5 ton tub boats then in use. An experimental system was in use on the Churprinz mining canal in Halsbrücke near Dresden. It lifted boats 7 m (23 ft) using a moveable hoist rather than caissons. The lift operated between 1789 and 1868,[1] and for a period of time after its opening engineer James Green reporting that five had been built between 1796 and 1830. He credited the invention to Dr James Anderson of Edinburgh.[2]

The idea of a boat lift for canals can be traced back to a design based on balanced water-filled caissons in Erasmus Darwin's Commonplace Book (pp. 58–59) dated 1777–1778[3]

In 1796 an experimental balance lock was designed by James Fussell and constructed at Mells on the Dorset and Somerset Canal, though this project was never completed.[2] A similar design was used for 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] and pre-dating the Anderton Boat Lift by 40 years.

In 1904 the Peterborough Lift Lock designed by Richard Birdsall Rogers opened in Canada. This 19.8-metre (65 ft) high lift system is operated by gravity alone, with the upper bay of the two bay system loaded with an additional 30 cm (12 in) of water as to give it greater weight.

Before the construction of the Three Gorges Dam Ship Lift, the highest boat lift, with a 73.15-metre (240.0 ft) height difference and European Class IV (1350 tonne) capacity, was the Strépy-Thieu boat lift in Belgium opened in 2002.

The ship lift at the Three Gorges Dam, completed in January 2016, is 113 m (371 ft) high and able to lift vessels of up to 3,000 tons displacement.

The boat lift at Longtan is reported to be even higher in total with a maximum vertical lift of 179 m (587 ft) in two stages when completed.[5]

Selected lift locks
Notable lift locks — ordered by size
NameLocationOpened TypeDisplacementDimensionsVertical liftCycle timeNotes
Goupitan ship-lifting system (second[6] lift)Guizhou, China2021[7] Vertical caisson 500 tons 280 by 35 by 5 metres
919 by 115 by 16 feet		 127 metres
417 feet		Tallest boat lift in the world.
Goupitan ship-lifting system (first[6] lift) Guizhou, China 2021[7] Vertical caisson 500 tons 72–79 metres
236–259 feet
Three Gorges Dam ship liftYichang, Hubei, China2016 Vertical caisson 3000 tons 280 by 35 by 5 metres
919 by 115 by 16 feet		 113 metres
371 feet		30–40 minutes
Krasnoyarsk Dam ship liftDivnogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia1982 Inclined plane1500 tons 90 m × 18 m × 2.2 m
295 ft × 59 ft × 7 ft		 104 m
341 ft		90 minutes
Ronquières inclined plane liftBraine-le-Comte, Hainaut, Belgium1968 Inclined plane1350 tons 91 m × 12 m × 3.7 m
299 ft × 39 ft × 12 ft		 67.73 m
222 ft		22 minutes[8]
Strépy-Thieu boat liftLe Rœulx, Hainaut, Belgium2002 Vertical caisson1350 tons 112 m × 12 m × 3.35 m
367 ft × 39 ft × 11 ft		 73.15 m
240 ft		7 minutesTallest boat lift in Europe.
Scharnebeck twin ship liftLüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany1974 Vertical caisson1350 tons 105.4 m × 15.8 m × 3.4 m
346 ft × 52 ft × 11 ft		 38 m
125 ft		3 minutes
Niederfinow boat liftBrandenburg, Germany1934 Vertical caisson 85 m × 12 m × 2.5 m
279 ft × 39 ft × 8 ft		 36 m
118 ft		20 minutes
Niederfinow north boat liftBrandenburg, Germany2022 Vertical caisson2100 tonnes 115 m × 12.5 m × 4.0 m
377 ft × 41 ft × 13 ft		 36 m
118 ft
Peterborough lift lockOntario, Canada1904 Vertical caisson1300 tons 42.7 m × 10.1 m × 2.1 m
140 ft × 33 ft × 7 ft		 19.8 m
65 ft		10 minutes
Kirkfield Lift LockOntario, Canada1907 Vertical caisson1300 tons 42.7 m × 10.1 m × 2.1 m
140 ft × 33 ft × 7 ft		 14.9 m
49 ft		10 minutes
Rothensee boat liftSaxony-Anhalt, Germany1938 Vertical caisson1000 tons 85 m × 12.2 m
279 ft × 40 ft		 16 m
52 ft		20 minutes
Falkirk WheelFalkirk, Scotland, United Kingdom2002 Rotating caisson600 tons 21.33 m × 6 m × 1.37 m
70 ft × 20 ft × 4 ft		 24 m
79 fts		4 minutesThe only rotating boat lift in the world.
Henrichenburg boat liftNorth Rhine-Westphalia, Germany1962 Vertical caisson600 tons 67 m × 8.2 m × 2 m
220 ft × 27 ft × 7 ft		 14 m
46 ft		25 minutes
Geheyan Dam ship liftHubei, China1987 Vertical caisson300 tons
Longtan Dam ship lift (first lift)Hechi, Guangxi Autonomous Region, China2020 Vertical caisson500 tons 73.0 m × 12.2 m × 3.5 m
240 ft × 40 ft × 11 ft		 62.4 m
205 ft[9]
Longtan Dam ship lift (fsecond lift) Hechi, Guangxi Autonmous Region, China 2020 Vertical caisson 500 tons 73.0 m × 12.2 m × 3.5 m
240 ft × 40 ft × 11 ft		 93.6 m
307 ft[9]
Canal du Centre boat liftsHainaut, Belgium1888–1917 Vertical caisson360 tons/350 tons 40.1 m × 5.06 m × 2 m
132 ft × 17 ft × 7 ft		 16.93–15.4 m
56–51 ft		Three lifts each 16.93 m high plus one 15.4 m high.
Fontinettes boat liftArques, Pas-de-Calais, France1881–88 Vertical caisson300 tons 39 m × 5.2 m × 2 m
128 ft × 17 ft × 7 ft		 13.13 m
43 ft		5 minutesReplaced by a single lock in 1967.
Anderton boat liftCheshire, England, United Kingdom1875 Vertical caisson250 tons 22.9 m × 4.7 m × 2.9 m
75 ft × 15 ft × 10 ft		 15.25 m
50 ft
Montech water slope Montech, Tarn-et-Garonne, France 1974 Water slope 443 m × 13.3 m × 6 m
1,453 ft × 44 ft × 20 ft		 13.3 m
44 ft		 6 minutes Oldest water slope.
Fonserannes Water Slope Hérault, France 1980–83 Water slope 272 m × 13.6 m
892 ft × 45 ft		 13.6 m
45 ft
Big Chute Marine Railway Ontario, Canada 1917–78 Patent slip 30.4 m × 18 m × 7.9 m
100 ft × 59 ft × 26 ft		 18 m
59 ft

See also

References
  1. Charles Hadfield World Canals: Inland Navigation Past and Present, p. 71, ISBN 0-7153-8555-0
  2. The Canals of Southwest England Charles Hadfield, p. 104, ISBN 0-7153-8645-X
  3. "revolutionaryplayers.org.uk". Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  4. The Canals of Southwest England Charles Hadfield, p. 109, ISBN 0-7153-8645-X
  5. "Long Tan Hydroelectric Dam". 2007. Retrieved 2010-05-20.
  6. Yaan Hu, Gensheng Zhao, Claus Kunz, Zhonghua Li, Jan Akkermann, Marc Michaux, Fabrice Daly, Jim Stirling, Weili Zheng, Jean-Michel Hiver, Michael Thorogood, Jianfeng An, Xin Wang, Shu Xue, and Chao Guo. "Innovations in Shiplift Navigation Concepts". pp. 41–42. doi:10.1007/978-981-19-6138-0_4.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. "View of Goupitan hydropower station in Yuqing County, Guizhou - Xinhua | English.news.cn". Archived from the original on July 5, 2020.
  8. "The inclined plane of Ronquières". Archived from the original on 11 June 2008. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  9. Chen, Yingying; Hu, Yaan; Li, Zhonghua (2023). "Research on Influence from Ship Navigating in the Intermediate Channel Between Ship Lifts on Hydraulic Characteristics". In Li, Yun; Hu, Yaan; Rigo, Philippe; Lefler, Francisco Esteban; Zhao, Gensheng (eds.). Proceedings of PIANC Smart Rivers 2022. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering. Vol. 264. Singapore: Springer Nature. pp. 599–610. doi:10.1007/978-981-19-6138-0_52. ISBN 978-981-19-6138-0.

Further reading
  • Tew, David (1984). Canal Inclines and Lifts. Sutton Books. ISBN 0-86299-031-9.
  • Uhlemann, Hans-Joachim (2002). Canal lifts and inclines of the world (English Translation ed.). Internat. ISBN 0-9543181-1-0.
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