It’s spring, and boaters new and old are again facing the prospect of passing through the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks to get from freshwater moorages on Lake Union and Lake Washington to the saltwater cruising grounds of Puget Sound. A recent trip through with some friends reminded me how glad I am not to have to pass the locks every time we go out, but also made me a little nostalgic.
Well-meaning boating guides and magazines put out the same articles every year on how to transit the locks, all covering basically the same information: have at least two fifty foot lines aboard, fender up on both sides, watch the currents, don’t cast off until instructed. It’s good information, but it doesn’t calm the nerves, and the locks still provide plenty of opportunity to look really dumb in front of a large audience.
I’ve been there, and I’ve looked pretty dumb sometimes, so I thought I would tell you what I learned that the guidebooks never mentioned.
- Be there when no one else is; weekdays and early hours. The locks run 24/7 but overnight the staffing is low and commercial vessels (which have priority over you) are more likely to be there, which can make for long waits. But if you get up before the tourists and other recreational boaters, you can get through quickly and without an audience. This is good for early, confidence-building trips.
- Pay attention before you get there. The gentleman’s rule is first come, first served, and on days when only the small locks are available for recreational vessels this can result in a long wait. Be polite and keep track of your place in line. Be patient when others fail to do so… as much as we might prefer otherwise, few of our vessels are currently equipped with torpedos, so there’s not much you can do about it anyway.
- You can tie up at the concrete piers on the freshwater side or at the wooden breakwaters near the rail bridge if you’re waiting. Be ready to fend off the breakwaters or you’ll have to clean a lot of sticky creosote off your hull or fenders. If you’re a sailor approaching from the Sound, you have another factor to consider: whether or not the Burlington Northern rail bridge is up (or the tide low enough that you can clear it; a tide gauge on the southern breakwater can help you calculate clearance). It’s permissible to jump the line if the bridge is up so that you can wait on the eastern side, but when the locks actually open, hold back and don’t enter until the boats there before you have done so. Hand signals and a little yelling as you pass them on the way in helps keep the situation clear to everyone.
- If there’s no room to tie up, you may have to circle or hover in the current. Stay out of the traffic lanes as you do so; every moment you delay a vessel exiting the locks is a moment longer before you can go in.
- Watch the lights. Signal lights on either end will tell you when to hold or proceed and which lock to enter. There are also loud hailers toward the end of the concrete piers, but they can be very difficult to hear.
- Put a crewmember on the bow. Further from the engine noise, they’re more likely to hear instructions, and without the stick in the way, they can see hand signals from the attendants atop the walls more clearly. I like to have the crewperson mirror the hand signals and repeat any instructions they hear, both to confirm to the attendants that the message was received, and to relay the information back along to whoever is at the helm.
- If you’re directed into the large locks, as the guides all say, larger vessels enter first. You will continue to have to pay careful attention as subsequent vessels may be directed to almost any position as the attendants try to build a secure jigsaw puzzle from many different shapes and sizes of boats. Just as in the small locks, the rule is to double your lines back to your own vessel. If someone comes in outboard of you, you’ll have to take their lines and pass them back after going around something solid aboard your vessel. It’s your job to make sure the leads are all fair and they can clear off of you quickly when given the okay by the attendants to do so.
As you enter, the attendant will usually give additional instructions… which boat to tie up with in the large lock, or what bollard to catch in the small locks. The bollards are all numbered in the small lock, and the attendants are amazingly good at estimating how to position the lines for your length. If it’s a slow day, they may well take the lines with boat hooks and slip them on themselves, saving much trouble and potential embarrassment. You can use the same trick if you have a boat hook handy; loop the bight of the line over the end of the hook and reach out and drop it on the bollard, keeping both ends led back to cleats aboard.
Attendants may also reach out and snag your vessel directly with boat hooks or toss down messenger lines to help pull you into place. Be prepared to go with the flow if this happens, and enjoy… it’s much easier than doing it all yourself.
Most commonly (and common-sensically) you’ll be told to catch your stern line first, but not always; again, it’s vital to pay attention to instructions… but also be ready to ignore them if necessary. Literal adherence to sometimes confused shouting from above can get you into as much trouble as failing to heed it. We’ve wound up sideways in the small lock due to contradictory instructions from attendants at the bow and stern.
You may have noticed that the common thread to all these observations has been pay attention. I can’t emphasize that enough. Every time I’ve gotten in trouble in the locks or seen someone else get in trouble, it’s been because someone wasn’t paying attention. Watch the attendants but don’t over-focus. You’re still the one driving the boat.
Finally, have fun! Once that last line is secured, grab a seat near the rail and have a chat with your neighbor. As we all know, by and large boaters are just great folks to be around. Some of the best parts of the trip are the impromptu conversations in the locks. I mentioned at the start of this post that going through the locks is a prime opportunity to look like an idiot in front of a large audience. The flip side to that is that it’s also an opportunity to look like a pro to a lot of tourists and fellow boaters alike. One of my most cherished memories of years going back and forth through the locks is of a crowded summer day coming back into Lake Union through the large locks. As one of the smaller vessels coming in that day, and one of the last, the attendants directed us into a very tight slot deeply nested in the middle of the crowd already there. Heart in mouth, I fought the currents, jockeyed the rudder, and slid right up to our neighbor with inches to spare. After taking our lines, the other skipper looked up and nodded at me. “You made that look easy,” he said.
Every time you hit the locks, you have an opportunity to make it look easy to someone. Go impress them!
Thanks for the great info!