Having A Bad Day? (boats swept away on the Lot in France)

[RS2021]

I presume the pontoon was a floating one. We're the floods too high and it simply floated of the top of it's fixings? From what Vaughan said, the hard standing 30ft higher than normal levels is in danger - so a lot (pardon the pun) higher than expected.

[BroadAmbition]

Surely the yard staff knew high water  levels were forecast?

Griff

[RS2021]

Another video

https://www.ultimedia.com/deliver/generic/iframe/mdtk/01794313/src/q0sk03p/zone/1/showtitle/1/

[Vaughan]

11 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

Surely the yard staff knew high water  levels were forecast?

I am sure they did, but the yard staff have no say in the management nowadays. 

[Vaughan]

39 minutes ago, RS2021 said:

From what Vaughan said, the hard standing 30ft higher than normal levels is in danger - so a lot (pardon the pun) higher than expected.

The pontoon was built when the base was opened about 35 years ago.  It is a serious piece of engineering with long holding off poles on goosenecks and two substantial gangway bridges leading down from the bank above.  So it can rise right up as high as the bank or higher, if necessary. It is anchored by heavy cable moorings, as posts would be impractical in that location.

It was built, however, in the days when the base had less than 10 boats and those that weren't hauled out ashore on the gantry were moored for the winter on the other side of the river, on the town moorings, where there are stone bollards and iron rings, designed for the mooring of 400 ton barges.  There were never more than 2 boats on the pontoons in winter.

The new global tour operator owners have their own ideas though.  They now have around 30 boats on the base and presumably thought it was safe to leave 21 of them, moored three abreast on the pontoons over the winter, on the river Lot.

Maybe there wasn't an appropriate box to tick on their risk assessment forms?

[Happy]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

The pontoon was built when the base was opened about 35 years ago.  It is a serious piece of engineering with long holding off poles on goosenecks and two substantial gangway bridges leading down from the bank above.  So it can rise right up as high as the bank or higher, if necessary. It is anchored by heavy cable moorings, as posts would be impractical in that location.

It was built, however, in the days when the base had less than 10 boats and those that weren't hauled out ashore on the gantry were moored for the winter on the other side of the river, on the town moorings, where there are stone bollards and iron rings, designed for the mooring of 400 ton barges.  There were never more than 2 boats on the pontoons in winter.

The new global tour operator owners have their own ideas though.  They now have around 30 boats on the base and presumably thought it was safe to leave 21 of them, moored three abreast on the pontoons over the winter, on the river Lot.

Maybe there wasn't an appropriate box to tick on their risk assessment forms?

 I assume there is an ex boatyard manager looking for a new job now? 

[ExSurveyor]

Back in 2013 with the flooding in Yalding we came within 2" of this happening. The outer floating pontoon I was on was secured with goose neck arms and 12' vertical poles. The year before the marina had added 12" extentions with caps as a precaution as they feared the pontoon arms could, in extreme situations, slip off the top.

The river flooded higher than it had been known before and the pontoons floated to the very top of their limit. It then carried on rising and the whole lot nearly broke away, fortunately it held, just.

[oldgregg]

Just been sent another drone video, this one is quite good.

https://fb.watch/3qiFRyniQx/

Such a shame.

[webntweb]

The Broads built boats seem to have withstood their trips over the weirs better than the Polish built Horizons. Probably only a matter of time before most, if not all, succumb unfortunately.

When we were looking to hire in France I remember that the Connoisseur brochure said something on the lines of "boating experience necessary for this waterway - also if you book for spring or autumn your holiday may be moved to another waterway due to river conditions".

As Vaughan intimates why would anybody with any knowledge of hiring on that river moor so many boats to a floating finger pontoon especially as it floods regularly between autumn and spring.

 

[Vaughan]

I have just looked at Douelle on the google satellite and things have changed since I was there!  There used to be an extension to the pontoons on the downstream side, which was effectively just hanging there in the current but I see that has now been removed and a new length of narrow pontoon now extends off the upstream side from the base. What that is moored to I don't know - maybe just trees.

So I think it was this new length of pontoon which got swept away, and the original pontoon with the gangway stairs is probably still there.  I you look again at the first video on the thread, the boats in front of the picture are moored to a pontoon but the ones further back are just trailing along, still tied to the others.  These ones, I imagine, got pulled off the old pontoon when the new one gave way.

Perhaps the management accountants that Gregg refers to, should have spent a bit more precious capital on a better installation!

[RS2021]

4 hours ago, oldgregg said:

Just been sent another drone video, this one is quite good.

https://fb.watch/3qiFRyniQx/

Such a shame.

This video says Fumel. I've just looked where that is on Google Earth. Its not even on the same navigable section of the Lot as Douelle. These boats must have gone over many weirs and through a Hydro dam to get there. Terrible to see, just glad no one is on them.

[Vaughan]

I read an article this morning from the Mairie of Villeneuve sur Lot and they said they were all waiting at the barrage de Pontous for the boats to get there, but only one has turned up.  A Magnifique which had the whole of the top ripped off when it dived into one of the sluices of the hydro electric station.  So at the moment it seems as though the rest of them have come to grief somewhere along the line.  RS2021 is quite right that the Lot is no longer navigable in this area although it used to be.  The water is so high that they are drifting straight over the top of the weirs.

[oldgregg]

Looking at the various videos it does seem that there were quite a lot of boats being dragged along underwater.

That last video at around 2:55 shows what I think must be an upturned Horizon following the Caprice over the weir at the hydroelectric plant. And I guess the Magnifique at the end could be the one Vaughan was referring to?

Just having a quick look on a French canal journey planner, I see Villeneuve Sur Lot is at least 43km from Douelle!

[oldgregg]

Ouch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edufilter=NULL&v=f1sua2OL__Y

[Vaughan]

45 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?edufilter=NULL&v=f1sua2OL__Y

Yes that's the one.  I have seen another clip of it on Youtube, taken from the top inside the sluice as it goes through.  It hit the forward cabin top first, and took the whole of the rest of the cabin off from the windscreen back, as it went through.

[JennyMorgan]

It would seem that Breydon is child's play in comparison!

[oldgregg]

19 hours ago, Vaughan said:

Yes that's the one.  I have seen another clip of it on Youtube, taken from the top inside the sluice as it goes through.  It hit the forward cabin top first, and took the whole of the rest of the cabin off from the windscreen back, as it went through.

That'd be this one, at around 20 seconds in...

https://www.facebook.com/mairie.villeneuvesurlot/videos/534048967529114/

[BroadAmbition]

It’s all frightening and so sad

Griff

[TeamElla]

https://www.leparisien.fr/video/video-inondations-des-bateaux-dune-societe-de-croisiere-fluviale-emportes-par-la-crue-du-lot-03-02-2021-UCQRFZV4RZDKBDMA4ZFJFEAJ3M.php

[TeamElla]

Pontoon carried away in floods carrying 21 of Le Boat's hire fleet with it

Some sunk, some smashed up, some stuck under bridges

Spectacle of boats scattered along the river moving at speed in the flood waters

[TeamElla]

Moderators - I think I should have put this in "Hire Boats Discussion"

[BroadAmbition]

TeamElla - Have you not looked at the 

'Having a Bad Day'

Thread?

Griff

[TeamElla]

Hello Griff

Already seen it thanks, too late though (That makes three of us that have separately posted about the same topic)

I would have found it sooner if the OP had used a more descriptive title

Enjoyed a holiday from that base back in 2008.  I know that Vaughan knows the base well.

Rgds,

Steve

 

 

[grendel]

Topics merged

 

[Vaughan]

9 hours ago, BroadAmbition said:

It’s all frightening and so sad

It also demonstrates a lamentable lack of basic seamanship.

The manager of that base in "my day" was the best seaman in the company, who came from a family of barge owners in north east France.  I can truly say that Crown Blue Line only kept that base open because he was running it, and he gave every trial run personally.  The Lot is a river which is right on the borderline of safety for hiring boats.  I don't even know how they manage to hire so many boats there now, as there are only 23 km of navigable cruising and most of it is marked channel, where you can't even approach the bank because of the shallow, rocky bottom.  Moorings are very few and mainly in towns.

But they got rid of him, and myself and the rest of the "old school" because we knew much more than they did and we cost too much in salary.  Much cheaper to promote some ex Sunsail yacht skipper or another, who looks good in uniform, chats up the customers but otherwise shuts up and does what he is told.

Well, the wonderful new owners may think they know all about crunching numbers on a spread sheet : now they know about crunching boats as well.  I bet that mess has certainly had an "impact on the bottom line"!

The next thing now will be what to do when the water starts going down again. It rose to at least 6 M higher than usual, so any boats that eventually ran around somewhere (if there are any left) will be high and dry, a long way from the river and with no road access whatever. There are no tow paths on the Lot.