Riqueval Tunnel

[DBA Forum (B) - Jeremy May]

A quick update....
Thanks for the advice.
We went through south to north at 7.30am having overnighted at the southern portal.
I'd prepared all out lines - measuring 30+ by marching up and down the quay at St. Quentin. Proved unnecessary as we were the only ones in the tow we used theirs.
This was a single line from their rear, split to our left and right bolders.
We didn't touch either side once and were through just after 9.00am.
Biggest problem we had was the thick weed between the two tunnels which at one point was, frankly, dangerous.

[DBA Forum (B) - Balliol Fowden]

Our trip through Riqueval in the spring was without incident: We followed a trente-huit, and had a small motor cruiser behind us. We passed two good lnes to the trente-huit skipper who dropped our eyes on his wheelhouse bollards. Lines were crossed as I personally believe is best. We made our lines off in normal fashion on our forward bollards, three round turns and half a clove hitch. On entering the tunnel it became apparent that we were pulling slightly to starboard so we simply eased off the line on our port bollards, by rotating the knot slightly, to equalise the lengths or the loads. With a couple of adjustment we were absolutely fine and touched nothing all the way through.

The point to me is that you must retain control of your lines to be able to make fine adjustments, which will be "outward only" for obvious reasons so you need a little bit of spare line. By tieing off in proper fashion you can adjust the length minutely without releasing the load.

To digress lightly we came through Ham tunnel above Dinant today. Our ship has been through a few times before but not with me on it so I was unsure of the clearance but had heard about the rough hewn rock interior and the annotations in my navvicarte said "wheelhouse down" underlined. The student keeper at the lock south of the tunnel informed us that they were lowering the level (we hadn'r asked them to) and IMPLIED, having ascertained our tirant d'eau & tirant aire, that we need not lower the wheelhouse since they had lowered the level.

I lowered the wheelhouse and was mighty glad that I did!!

The moral of that one : take "local" advice with a pinch of salt, especially from a student.

For the record I reckon that Ham tunnel is the most awkward French tunnel I have seen. Do not be fooled by the brick arched portals, it is much worse inside!

Balliol.