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Old 03-02-2019, 10:39 PM   #17
Irish Rambler
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City: NARBONNE
Vessel Name: 'Snow Mouse.'
Vessel Model: BROOM FLYBRIDGE 42.
Join Date: Apr 2014
Posts: 1,733
Continuing our journey to the shipyard we reach to town of Agde, originally this was built as a Greek trading port and the quays were built of the local basalt rock and are still in use today by small pleasure boats
(I should add here that countries along this Mediterranean coastline changed hands in the past fairly frequently depending on whose army was the strongest and which politicians had grand ideas).
For us as boaters it has a significance because it has the only round lock in operation in France, there may be others in different countries but I'm not aware of them.
Here once again the canal builders had a conundrum of crossing a river with fluctuating levels.
Barges make money when they deliver the goods and delays became unacceptable so what to do ?
The engineers came up with a solution of building a weir in the river to maintain minimum depth and installing a lock at either side of the river so that boats could step up, cross the river, and step down to rejoin the canal.
Another ticklish problem then was how to get boats onto the downstream river and thence to sea.
The solution !
Build a 3 way lock.

1, Layout of the lock.

2, A hire boat passing through the round lock, all 3 exit/entrances can be seen, note the verdant plane trees.

3,In this photo of the Ecluse Rond note the plane trees are now bare, no its not winter. The plane trees developed a form of cancer which spread all along the canal du Midi banks and some 40,000 plane trees have been cut down and burnt in special pits to kill the disease.
The ground is disinfected regularly over a 2 year period before being replanted with a disease resistant variety.
Attached Thumbnails
2, Ecluse Rond..jpg   Agde ecluse rond.jpg   Ecluse rond.jpg  
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