Teena in Toronto: Liftlock cruise, Peterborough, ON

This morning Gord and I did a two hour liftlock cruise on the Otonabee River in Peterborough (about 1.5 hours NE of Toronto) on the Trent-Severn Waterway with Single Horizons. It was a fun experience!

Here's the marina ...

... where we caught our boat:

We went through two lifts, turned around and came back. Here's the first one (it was small):

Our boat sailed in as close to the gate as possible. A gate closed behind us (it's a manual process).

Then water was slowly let into the area we were in, which raised the boat to the level of the water on the other side, and the gate was opened.

Gord

Teena

Here's looking back at it.

The next one was really cool! The dual lifts are the highest hydraulic boat lifts in the world, rising 19.8 m (65 ft).

No external power is needed, the lift lock functions by gravity alone using a counterweight system. When one side reaches the top position it stops about 5 cm (2 inches) below the adjoining canal's water level. When the gates open, water flows into the ship basin until the water level rebalances. The weight of the extra water is enough to power the hydraulic lift. As the top level lowers to the bottom position it pushes the other side up to the top position where the cycle starts over again.