Lifting cradle.

Homeward bound.  Blips on travelling days are always difficult.  I take a few "just in case shots" of the marina but they are always similar to the last.  Today I noticed the lifting cradle so I thought that's different.

I had better explain.  Narrowboats need to come out of the water every year or two.  The bottoms need "blacking" to prevent corrosion and the anodes need checked and sometimes replaced.  There are two ways of doing this, a crane or a lifting cradle.  Narrowboats weight 25 tonnes and above so a crane needs to be pretty substantial.  The lifting cradle requires a slipway.  The tractor reverses the cradle down the slipway (concrete slope into and under the water) uses hydraulics to lower it.  The boat then drives into the cradle, the hydraulics lift it off the bottom and out she comes dragged by the tractor.

The blip looks as if there is a boat in the cradle but that is an illusion.  Boats in the cradle are reversed into the position where the work will be done.  Stacks of "sleepers" are placed along underneath and the boat lowered onto them (being flat bottomed makes this safe and easy).  The cradle then is driven away.  The workshop has space for about three boats at a time.