Glen-L.com

Some fellow boaters own this place on the TN river.

We are at Florence Harbor Marina. Megan & Justin are running the "Barge Inn" at the marina. I still live in Indiana, I was just the money to help get the restaurant up and going this spring.

Barge Inn can be found on Facebook for viewing and menu.

Megan's phone cell phone is 812 453 5765 if you need special arrangements or want to be sure of seating for a group all together.

I spent a night there (Oct 5th) on my trip, got gas and had a great pizza at the Barge Inn. The marina is very nice and has laundry and shower, gas and diesel, courtesy car and book exchange too I believe. The Barge Inn has pizza and sandwiches and a bar...its a nice little place...here is a pic of the bar and the marina...there is a huge park and campground right next door.

It is right below the Wilson Lock and Dam at Mile 256.2 on the Tennessee. Hales Bar is at Mile 431.1, so it is 175 miles downriver from the Gatherings.

Bob

Bob, did you lock thru Wilson main lock?

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God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

Yup, actually all of the locks I went thru both on the Tennessee and the Cumberland were locking pleasure boats through the main locks...none used the auxiliary locks...pretty impressive 93 foot lift on this one!

Was in there with a brand new 42' Grand-Craft woody. Quite the boat, powered with 2 Volvo diesels and IPS drives...they were going up to Knoxville for a football game that weekend, I could hardly keep up with them between Wilson and Wheeler locks. They stayed at Wheeler State Park marina the night I did and I chatted with them after dinner a bit. They had left already by the time I got up in the morning.

Found this on it, the guy said he'd just taken delivery in the spring so I'm guessing it is no longer for sale. Cruise speed 34 knots...wow...

http://www.showmanagement.com/miami_boat_show_2011/event/boat_listing/9520

I can tell you this! I can't stand the thought of filling those tanks! Well, maybe the water tank.

Bill

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Mini -Tug, KH Tahoe 19 & Bartender 24 - There can be no miracle recoveries without first screwing up.
Tahoe 19 Build

Grrr, with all those locks it's no wonder TVA starts lowering our lake in August. Rain falls in GA and NC, water bubbles up from springs on top of a mountain in GA, then flows into the Hiawassee River. From there to Lake Chatuge and then through the dam in NC and on to TN. Same thing happens with Lake Lanier except their water winds up in AL and FL. It's no wonder we have the most expensive municipal water in the country (some months our water bill is $300 or more). Sorry, I should save my water rants for the Miscellaneous Forum

BTW, that Grand Craft was beautiful. I think they went out of business this year.

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2011 MALAHINI - KICKED IN THE HEAD

I wake up with a 16ft woody every morning
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=534DBtp1Cnc
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/2011malahini/

Seldom with TVA locks are the auxiliaries used. One lockmaster told me it was because they don't have staffing to man both at the same time. BUT a couple years ago I came through Wilson Lock when the main chamber was down and they did run me through the auxiliary. The chambers are about half the size of the main and it is in two steps where one chamber opens into another chamber. Only time I have been through this type of setup.

And yea Bob, Wilson's main chamber is huge! I think I mentioned before when it is down and you are sitting at the bottom you definitely feel like a cockroach in the bathtub!

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So Many Rivers,
So Little Time....

I want to lock thru Wilson sometime, I got to see that. Geez, the dam has to be that high also that must be an impressive site.
Lets see if I remember correctly from scuba diving. 33ft water depth = 1 atmosphere = 14.7psi. So, 3 atmospheres = 99ft= 45psi.
That would be 45psi water pushing at the bottom of the upper lock doors when you at the bottom.
Same pressure is acting on the full width of the dam as well.
How do they accomplish that? without something breaking loose? leaking/eroding? if so, how do you fix it?

Sometimes engineering accomplishments just fascinate me.
Hoover dam is another one, how did they do that?

_________________
God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

The giant gates are only at the lower end.In reality, the upper end only needs to be about 10' deep to maintain the 9' channel. On this shot of the upper as we were going up, it is all concrete up to where they need to maintain the draft depth of the tows. In the pic, instead of gates, you see cables on either side of the wall. There is a center "gate" section that actually lowers down into the wall. Note the handrail on the top of the "gate". On this last pic if you look close you can see the handrail is now about halfway down...kind of hard to see with the barges waiting to enter. That "gate" lowers down and everything passes over, then comes back up to close it off. Click on the pics to get a larger and clearer view. I've never seen one that works like that, and I think in Ray's article he said he'd never seen one like it either.

Bob

Upper end? Lower end?
That is an tremendous pressure on those giant gates. no doubt an awesome sight looking 100' up to a wall of water when you at the bottom of it.

_________________
God Bless our Troops; especially our Snipers

Although these photos are now about 10 years old and were taken at low resolution by today's standards, they are still my favorites of Wilson Lock. Even in good photos the sheer size of this thing is hard to comprehend but these shots help.

Here are several workers on top the lock -




In the next photo the arrows points to the same group of workers. Kind of puts it all in prospective! -

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So Many Rivers,
So Little Time....

Something I hadn't noticed before, but in light of your observations, Ken, take a look at the vertical spacing of the horizontal cross members of the gate structure (in Ray's photo above), and how much closer together they are at the bottom to withstand that pressure...

When I was younger I worked on the M/V Nita Vickers, a 5600 HP, 140' Tow Boat. We locked into one of these locks somewhere up yonder. It seemed wild looking in and going up, but is was WAY more wild when we pushed in!!! I remember standing on teh head of the tow, talking Capt Pappy in, and looking over the gates at fishermen in a bass boat below the dam!!!! DAMN! is sactly what went through my mind!!! One heck of a surfboard I would have been ride'n if the gates would have broke!!!! lol

Impressive it is to be locked in at these depths.