Low Bridge, Everybody Down…
Traveling Back in Time on the Erie Canal
Low bridge, everybody down,
Low bridge, yeah we’re coming to a town
Ya always know your neighbors
And ya always know your pals
When you’re navigatin’ on the Erie Canal — 1905 Folk Song
Every lock is different. Some rise 40 feet, others 12. Those with pipes and cables for attaching are the easiest. Slimy 60 foot ropes… not so much.
“Lock 2, Lock 2, this is motor vessel Star Dust, requesting westbound passage,” Glen said into the radio handset, nudging the engines to keep us in place. Five other boats were doing the same, trying to avoid collision in the small holding area below the lock.
Scanning the deck, I felt as ready as possible; there would be no time to correct anything once in the lock. White fenders hung at various lengths, and from the side resembled the pipes of an organ. Planning to transit on the port side of the lock, I stood at the center cleat to quickly shift fenders if we were told to move to the starboard side of the chamber. It would be a scramble, but…I smiled nervously at Glen up on the flybridge helm, and took a deep breath. This was a big day for Star Dust.
So far we had transited 8 locks on Star Dust, and understood there would be a total of 149 locks on the Great Loop. To read that number back at our cabin in the woods before we purchased Star Dust was one thing. To really understand what it means through experience is widely different. On the plus side, the coming weeks would lop off a large percentage of that total number; 36 locks lay between Star Dust and the Great Lakes. But to think about that number was overwhelming. I needed to focus on getting through the lock ahead. Star Dust confided that she, too, had a bit of performance anxiety at this first and most famous section of the Erie Canal; the Waterford Flight.
It was a shock to have to maneuver among so many large boats in the narrow confines. Wind gusting from the side made Star Dust and crew nervous.
A Long Way Up
Waterford Flight is a “combined lift”. Five separate locks within 1.5 miles of each other raise boats just over 169 feet. A dizzying height by any measure. Anxiety shifted to reality as the radio crackled, “Star Dust, Star Dust, Lock 2. An eastbound vessel is exiting the gate now. When you see the green light signal, enter and tie up any side.”
‘Roger, Lock 2,” Glen responded, then slowly powered Star Dust toward what is basically a water elevator. Boats enter the lock at one floor and get out at another a few floors up or down depending on which direction they are traveling. Manhole sized openings beneath the water surface let water in or out, letting gravity do all the work. To get an idea of the forces at play, it takes around 110,000 gallons to raise or lower water in the chamber one foot. So the 169 feet lift within the first five locks would be… a LOT of water.
“Get ready,” said Glen, giving me a thumbs up. In turn I patted Star Dust, telling her, “You got this.”
A sailboat with its mast unstepped and tied on deck exited past us from the lock. When the light turned green, we pulled into the narrow chute with five larger boats crowding around us. Before we were even settled, two 60 ft. tall gates shut behind us with a metallic clang. Making room along the chamber wall, Glen jockeyed the throttles of the twin engines, inching us down the lock. There was a fine line between making room for the other, bigger boats and keeping clear of gates holding back massive amounts of water. Now to grab a line.
Once in the lock each boat must secure themselves to the lock wall. A few pipes or taut steel cables are sometimes set into recesses in the walls. Most have only fixed ropes, weighted at the end, intended to hold you in position as the lock lifts or lowers. As I quickly learned, a single, slimy rope tied some 40' above your head does not do much to keep a boat from moving away from the wall or pivoting toward other boats as eddies swirl in the filling lock.
Hang on Star Dust
It seemed to take forever for gravity to fill the chamber with water from the high side. My arms throbbed trying to manhandle the green, algae covered ropes, then finally figured out the cleat could do most of the work. I would like to say that having transited the mighty Panama and Suez Canals that Glen and I were models of excellence during all five locks of the Waterford Flight. But that would be incorrect. Tension was high and it took the full force of my energy to keep from crashing us into other boats. There was plenty of shouting on other boats as well, and the gusting wind upped the challenge of keeping clear.
My shoulders finally relaxed as Star Dust rose above the bollards and the water calmed. Gravity and the lock had done its job. As Glen motored Star Dust toward the next lock, I sat on deck, leaned back and pondered the many locks ahead on the Erie Canal—and 149 total on the Great Loop.
What cheered me from that thought was history. Exiting the first lock I looked to the side and saw the 40 foot wide chamber of the narrower historic lock from 1825, now a cascade of water.
The original, historic locks built in the early 1800s were only 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. Notice the towpath used by mules to tow barges 363 miles from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.
The towpaths have been turned into bike paths and parks. Afternoons we tie up for the night on the concrete walls next to the locks, joined by cyclists camping along the paved tow path trail.
“If we had a mule pulling us on that towpath this would be a lot easier,” I told Glen.
“Star Dust can’t carry enough hay for the trip,” he answered.
“I Got a Mule Her Name is Sal, Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal.”— Erie Canal Song
Mules are making a comeback along the Canal!
If only we could travel briefly back in time to 1825 when the canal was completed. Mule drivers got their steps in, leading teams of sure-footed, sturdy mules hauling barges with long ropes. That would have been more fun than cooped up on a crowded passenger barge. Passenger barges were 60-80 feet long and 14 feet wide, with central cabins that served as dining room, kitchen, and sleeping room. Passengers often sat on the roof of the boat, ducking their heads when they traveled beneath low bridges. Either way—driving mules or riding on top of a barge—would have been way better than doing the digging.
Appreciating the backbreaking project that was started in 1817 and completed in1825 by the State of New York. Fun fact: 80% of the population of the state of New York lives within 25 miles of the Erie Canal.
Stretching 363 miles from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie, the Canal was dug by hand through fields, forests, and swamps. The back breaking part of things was easy to forget while Star Dust slipped past lawns and docks, past oversize summer homes and camping trailers at water’s edge.
Right then I decided to feel grateful rather than anxious. Instead of looking at the Erie Canal as a series of challenges on which to grade our boating skills, I would remember the men who carved it out through the sweat of their backs and the unsung women who cooked, cleaned and washed their clothes. As we glide by farms, woods and marshes, watch herons wade in the shallows and explore the small towns that line the canal, I will search for traces of its past. And I hope you will come along!
“You always know your neighbors and you always know your pals, when your navigatin’ on the Erie Canal. Low bridge, everybody down! Low bridge, yeah we’re comin’ to a town…”
WARNING: This video and song will make you want to join us on the Canal!