"Shaken but not stirred"
Well, we got through the Pouilly Tunnel yesterday. Some said Anja could not make it and they were right if the water level was at the "standard" level. If it was, we would not fit by 10cm and would be "wedged" in the tunnel.
We had received a profile of the tunnel from a German couple and from this, thought there was a chance of fitting. But they had scaled it incorrectly (by 10% which was not in our favour). Anja allegedly had an air draft of 3.1M which was the clearance at the edges of the aft end of the Wheelhouse roof.
The real air draft turned out to be 3.18M on one side and 3.20M on the other. Not much different but higher not shorter. So, it certainly looked as if we were not going to make it.
The good news from the Eclusier was that the water level is down 30cm from the defined height. Indeed, it seems that it is always down by this amount exxcept, perhaps, in times of flood. As we are on the top of a mountain, this is not very common.
So, we could fit (just) but there were some sweaty problems. We had to keep the stern exactly in the centre of the tunnel. If we deviated by more than +-28cm, then the roof would hit the tunnel and who knows what would happen. I (Dave) woke in the middle of the night before rather worried about what we were about to attempt.
Anyway, we signed in and were given an emergency radio and sheet of paper to hand in at the other end. We had 1.5Km of channel to negotiate before the tunnel and this proved very useful as practice.
We kept to about 4Km/hr which is the minimum for steerage and also slowest for the engine and also likely to cause less damage if hitting the roof with our roof.
It proved to be a challenge. Penny constantgly monitored our distance from the walls while Dave steered. If you are too far to the left, you have to steer left to swing the stern right- but then the boat starts to go left so it is easiest to correct that with a blip on the bow thruster (a propellor which pulls/pushes the bow one way or the other). You could also hit the throttle with the rudder to one side but that is a bit dangerous in a restricted tunnel with no room to move.
Well, it was indeed nerve wracking and the "prop walk"continually moved the stern to the port (left) side. (Prop walk is sideways movement of the boat caused by the propellor spinning in a constant direction). We hit gently twice- once on port and once on starboard. Fortunately, all that happened was that we shaved about 10mm off the top of the gutter on the back edge of the roof on either side. In each case, for some reason, the bow thruster/rudder just did not work- I think the bow thruster battery was getting rather depleted.
So, we made it! Then (as seen in this photo) we gently scraped the fenders on the bigh left turn out of the tunnel. The attention was not as good after almost an hour underground.
The Pouilly tunnel goes through the top of a small mountain and was built in 1820. It is amazing and goes under the town (or part of it). It used to be used for freight and commercial traffic. What an engineering masterpiece which still works and is in great shape.
All the best,
Dave & Penny
Herman: Hi Dave & Penelope, Here is an up to date weather/River report from some friends of mine currently on the Danube cruise. You might have been just in time with your tunnel experience. '8 degrees and raining sideways….could have that for free at home! They have just recorded the wettest first day of Summer on record. We are lucky to have made it so far as the Danube is so high that no more ships can get under some of the bridges. We were the 2nd last one through Passau and Stephen touched the bridge it was that close. The others must stay there and will be coached to their final destination.' (06/04/10)