Are you lot planning a new format? I mean, I love the adventures, hence me being here less than a minute after upload, but I do miss the lowbrow side of Tech Diff - massive amounts of dick jokes and bad puns in fart-filled rooms.
Gotta make them all historical transportation too Land (steam train) - check Water (narrowboat) - check Air (blimp) - easy option for S3 But what about S4? Underground, outer space?
We had trains, and canal boat. Steam ship, on the sea with a fisherman, maybe hot air Ballon (could be tricky). There are so many possible things. I think that would be a great idea.
@@LelouchVee well youve got earth, water and wind there, so i guess the final one is fire... Im struggling to think of a fire based form of historical transportation though. Maybe tom will finally get to see his lava and he can cook on it with a big frying pan
This is the kind of thing I'd never have thought to do myself but I'm grateful it's there on the internet for my consumption. Chris clearly knows how to enjoy himself doing something seemingly so mundane.
From Wikipedia: "The five-rise opened on 21 March 1774. The staircase underwent extensive restoration in 2004 and again in 2006, when the lock gates and paddles were replaced. In January 2012 the locks were drained to allow the installation of new lock gates. The new gates are made of English green oak and, taken together with the balance beam, weigh more than 5 tonnes."
A bit of clarification: the Bingley Five Rise is, along with its neighbour the Bingley Three Rise, an example of a lock staircase. As shown, one lock empties into the next one and you have to ensure the lower locks are empty so the water in the upper lock has somewhere to go when you open the paddles. There's an overflow channel but you really don't want to rely on it. Staircase locks are fairly rare on the canals (except in Bingley!) due to the extra hassle in ensuring everything is prepared correctly. Whenever there is a hill to climb canals will tend to utilise a 'flight' of locks. This is a number of individual locks in quick succession, separated by a short stretch of canal called a pound. This causes less of a bottleneck than a staircase as after one boat has descended, another can climb the same lock and boats can pass each other in the pound. The canal Chris was on was the Leeds and Liverpool. Over the Pennines in Wigan there is a flight of something like 23 locks and I believe there are others on different canals with more than that. As for where the water comes from, reservoirs were constructed above the canal's summit to supply the water year round.
Having Gary send out the season, and with the adventures they've gotten up to before... it makes me think he's got something unbelievable up his sleeve. We're going to tune in next week and Gary will just be on the Moon.
As a Seattle native who grew up with the Hiram Chittenden Locks, I was utterly charmed by this! The "Ballard Locks," as everyone calls them, have always been one of my favorite spots. It's just the one rise, but it's massive and mechanized and has two separate chambers. Years later, I started maritime school in Seattle, and I kid you not, despite how much I loved the Locks, it wasn't until I was in the training vessel, entering the locks, that I realized, oh, this is the very first time I've ever been through the Locks on a boat, and I'll be doing this every week for the next ten months... What a great feeling, and I had so many amazing experiences in the Locks, and got to see so many pleasure boaters make fools of themselves! This Yorkshire lock, though... it's absolutely AMAZING to have all that stuff be human-powered! Also, it must be nerve-racking not to be able to tie up and tend lines, to keep your boat in place... there are cleats and bitts everywhere in the Ballard locks, and you keep yourself in place by fastening onto one, then tending the boat end of that line. These canal boaters do it all with their rudder! It's so wonderful to see this canal boat infrastructure preserved. Most American historical canal locks are just archaeology, now.
As the person who caught up with Tom's boat after a trip on the Llangollen Railway, I can confirm they really hadn't made it far by the time I caught up with them. I still have the photo somewhere of Tom with his arms and legs waving over the 120 foot drop of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
From the moment on when Chris touched the first lock up till the very end I had the biggest smile across my face. This made me genuinely happy. No offense to Matt but once you step outside, the title of bounciest man is really up for debate between the two.
Bingley five rise isn't like normal locks. Each lock exits directly into the next lock, so they are very deep. Usually you would have a small pound (pond)that you travel through between each lock.
Years ago now I did a kayak tour down the intracoastal waterway in the US and I spent about three days on the Great Dismal Swamp canal. I was nervous about the lock to enter the canal. I thought they'd tell me I wasn't allowed to use it, so I spent most of a night portaging around it. There was no way around the exit lock though and the lock keeper was super friendly. He was tickled pink to see a kayak in his lock. I was the only boat at that time and he just sent me right through. Was really cool.
@@ragnkja It's just a feature of the landscape, the Great Dismal Swamp. Named during colonial times. The historical plaques said that the canal had been dug by George Washington's company. I found it exceedingly boring to kayak down.
...I somehow hadn't realized until just now that it's not just Tom and Matt that are color coded (red and blue), Chris and Gary is too (green and yellow respectively)
15:30 Nice to hear Chirk mentioned, especially given that I moved there 6 days ago and am currently watching the video about half a mile from the aqua duct
As an American who's never lived near a canal, that title was a real moment of "Wait, what? How's that work?" I genuinely was trying to imagine a motorboat being sent down a flight of stairs, and I'm so glad to have learned this is a thing! Definitely going to look a bit more into this at some point. Loving the content, very excited to see what's coming!
"I'm a professional idiot, and they're watching me make a fool of myself." That's it. That's the channel description right there 😂 We don't have water voles here in the States, so I had to Wikipedia them to see what they were, and... they're so cute! 😍 I need to figure out how to both get a water vole to America, and also how to domesticate one to keep as a pet 😂
Way back when I watched the first season of Citation Needed, one of the guys made a comment that led to Tom making a dumb joke about the fictitious Queen song "Too Much Cheese Will Kill You". Gary brought it to life, and that is what hooked me on the TDs. Weirdly resonant to have several years later, Tom spinning a comment from one of the guys into another fictitious Queen song.
11:51 Nice to see one of the TechDiff having a normal human reaction to dogs. Because Tom is only endearing to birds, Matt doesn't like animals, dunno about Gary, but Chris is lovely with dogs
Yup, noticed that as it's pretty much my reaction to any dog.* *Most terriers** don't count, they're yappits or woofits depending on size and annoyance level. Yes, this is size-ism about dogs. **Westies DO count, as might _some_ Jack Russels. Staffies too, I never think of them as terriers.
@@DerekMacColl I’m the same, because while people who have big dogs know they have to teach their dog proper manners, far too many people with small dogs tend to be far too lenient. I know one small dog that I’m completely comfortable with, and it’s not just because I’ve known him since he was a puppy, it’s because he’s been taught manners. Sure, he can be a bit barky, but that’s what you get when getting a guard dog breed, and he’s generally a happy dog who knows that biting is for toys and food, not people.
@@ragnkja That's part of it for me, certainly. I suspect another bit is growing up around dogs trained for retrieving rabbits and ducks, meaning that the smallest one I came across - not counting the Westie - was a whippet. All very well trained, and all friendly as all get go as long as you weren't a dead rabbit or duck (or stupid enough to get too near the ones they were looking after for their owner - people need training as much as dogs in some cases!).
They replaced the gates on the locks a few years ago and had to build a temporary dam to keep the water out. They had scaffolding up and visitors could climb down right into the locks themselves (obviously completely empty of water!) The gates are HUGE. Even bigger than they look from above or even in a boat. There’s a considerable amount of gate below even the lowest water level that you don’t normally get to see.
Been fascinated by the concept of canal locks since I was a kid, but I think this is actually the first time actually seeing some in action, very cool!
As someone who is not from UK and had no idea what were you talking about, I was really happy when Tom said "explain it to me". And then Chris proceeded to give a explanation that didn't help me at all. I love you guys, always coming back to your films.
Have gone for a number of walks down the towpath alongside the Caen Hill Locks (29 locks, but spread over about 2 miles - it's not nearly as steep as those!) but sadly never tried to go up/down them in a boat. One day! And yeah, locks usually have a back pump at the bottom of the flight to take water round to the top again (the one at Foxhangers can apparently move 7 million gallons a day) to keep the whole system flowing. Did manage to go on a narrowboat once as a kid, but that was in Wales, I think, and it was probably on a heritage bit of canal because it had a barge horse instead of an engine.
I'm subscribed to a rather ridiculous number of narrowboat vloggers, and also live very close to a canal (the Grand Canal in Ireland), so watching this was somewhat surreal.
the two boats thing is because it's so deep and the flow pulls you under, normally it doesn't matter but at 5 rise it's so steep its difficult to rescue you if you fall in, both because of the current and because it takes so long to fill and empty, so where normally if you where pulled to the door you could probably wait it out at 5 rise you might have drowned by the time the pressure equalizes and it's safe to open again if there's two boats and you fall off, not only chances are you can't actually fall all the way in, but the person on'tuther boat can help
i had actually just watched watched the Citation Needed episode that the "boxes of knives" bit was from earlier today. love that you all remember bits from old episodes, god knows how many years later
That was actually really cool to watch! I've been to the Soo Locks in Michigan and they were absolutely mammoth! These small guys looked quite tiny in comparison but a lot more height to deal with. It was also cool knowing these ones are volunteer run and how absolutely manual they are. Loved this video! Edit: Because I was sick and forgot the easy spelling of Sault. xD
The five-rise is the steepest flight of locks in the UK, with a gradient of about 1:5 (a rise of 59 ft 2 in (18.03 m) over a distance of 320 ft (98 m))
I've been to the Soo locks as well, saw some absolutely massive boats going through, huge ocean-going cargo ships travelling to Duluth or Thunder Bay. It was truly amazing to 11-year old me (and no less amazing now, 30 years later!).
I used to lock-keep during the school holidays. Was always good fun. Hard work, but very good fun. You can actually send boats in both directions at the same time if you know how to lock-keep efficiently. Also, as a north Welshman and a Welsh speaker, I’d like to commend Tom’a pronunciation of Llangollen, but slate Gary’s pronunciation of Pontcysyllte.
As American adolescents at RAF Upper Heyford, we used to help the narrow-boats at the locks on the Oxford Canal all the time. It was loads of fun, and we learned a lot about the history of the canal system.
I made a boat tour on the Göta canal in sweden this summer, locks are indimitadting at first, then interesting, then boring. There was also one where the gates were still operated manully, and I got to run around in circles to open/close it.
Looks like the new tradition for this series is cooking bacon sandwiches on forms of transportation. I predict that next time 'round, Matt's gonna be grilling some rashers on a Piper Cub engine.
West Yorkshire canal story: I was going up the Huddersfield Narrow canal around 2013, just after the canals had gone from being managed by British Waterways to the Canal & River Trust. Some prat had left a bunch of the lock paddles open on both sides of a lock, and massively drained one section of the canal. We were aground for about a day and a half before enough water had been pumped in at the top and fed through the system to raise the water level enough to refloat us.
If you like locks, try Foxton Locks, 10 locks in a row Also, you can't actually mess up locks, unless you're able to overcome pushing against a huge amount of water, which you can't. Water will rise or fall and you lean against the lock lever in the direction you're going until the difference in water is 0 and the lock can open, boat passes through, close it, open the water gate (on the lock going down, on the ground going up, if you do the wrong one it doesn't matter, you can't mess it up), repeat. My dad is a huge canal fan and I've been on far too many canal boat holidays, I've lost a total of 5 lock keys. Most of my memories of it is waking up each day to my dad crashing after he had set off really early, I remember waking up to such a violent bang I fell out of my bed and the cupboards in the kitchen opened and spilled contents everywhere
Greetings from Wellington NZ. Brilliant as usual. Took me back to a nice summer's evening in 1973 when I rode my bike along the towpath from Rodley to the 5 Rise Locks. For some daft reason we rode back by road up to Guiseley and home to Horsforth. I was knackered by the end of it as I remember.
I grew up living next to the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. There are eight locks there between Lake Ontario and Lake Eric, in order to bypass Niagara Falls! Locks 4,5, and 6 are twin flight locks, where ships can go up and down at the same time. Every Saturday I'd go to watch them with my father and Grandfather. I even got to tour one of the ships as it was travelling up two of the locks! It was amazing! Each of those locks is over 200 feet in length, and 80 feet deep. The water moving from lock to lock is frightening but amazing! The eight locks at the Welland Canal, look and function in exactly the same way as these, however, they are three times the size, and all computer PLC controlled, under automation.
I rented a boat from Silsden Boats last Spring (sadly not Rose's drum, a different drum), can highly recommend a week on a canal boat as a very chill holiday. Especially in baby duck season! We queued for the 5 (and 3) rise locks but didn't actually take them (it was a very long queue that day and we decided to just head back the other way instead, for fear of not getting the boat returned on time if we went down and up again) Chris was nervous of steering it in the locks, imagine 4 25yos responsible for the boat for a few days... Disappointed he didn't take the chance to live on it for a weekend tbh.
In fairness, they said "Chirk", a town in Wales, not "chert", a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz. But I appreciate the effort and the knowledge.
It's lovely to see this kind of thing, people operating machinery that makes simple but important things happen, it's all so human. Canals are some of humanity's finest work, and the volunteers that makes ones like this work are some of humanity's finest.
That bacon roll looks like it sprouted bacon legs and a wee bacon arm, raised in triumph, as it tries to leap away to freedom...right back onto the grill! 😂😂😂
If any of you want to try sailing for the next series, get in touch. You will have to travel down to West Sussex though and it may not be one for Matt as we have a dog 🤣🤣
Never seen him so happy and animated 😄 They were all so excited. Made me smile too. Where I live boats have these things they throw over the edge of the boat to shield it from pounding on the sides of a canal or a pier.
Germany still has one coal power station that's only accessible by canal boat. Which became quite a problem this summer when the Rhine dropped low enough to have a negative depth at some stream gauges.
Im in awe with the amount of plants on the walls. Here in the Netherlands the canal walls dont have that many plants, lots of maintenance happens here, and that offcourse are old canal walls. But still. I love wall plants! btw 18% of Dutch cargo gets transported by inland canals and rivers.
I love this series! Many years ago, I took a Rhine cruise with what was then KD cruises (now Viking) and we went through some locks to reach the Moselle. It was fascinating and even a little terrifying since the boat filled the lock almost completely. Sadly, we didn't get see it from the top, but you were very aware of being at the bottom of a deep canyon on the boat.
If a boat does get hung up on a cill, the correct procedure is to shut all paddles, call the Canal and River Trust (CRT) to let them know that the lock is blocked, and call the fire brigade if there is anyone on the boat. You don't attempt to re-float your own boat. Depending on how badly you've messed up, the CRT may need to hire a crane.
So I've never heard of locks in a canal before, so this is something totally new to me. I live in Arizona, an area not really known for its water, so the craziest my local canal gets is "full", or "somewhat full". It's so interesting to see how proper canals work, and how much it involves people.
brilliant show. I love the idea of Canals and narrow boats but their just not a thing where I'm from. Too many mountains and people aren't as organized as they are here to maintain something that wonderful.
I've lived in Birmingham for a few years as a student now and there's a canal almost right next door, I never really thought much about them until recently but there's a lot of heritage and interest there.
When i was canoeing with the scouts we had the opportunity to hitch along a boat through the locks instead of carrying the canoes past them. It's quite impressive sitting at the bottom of that big stone chasm. Göta canal has these old school gates as well, but the operation is all motorized these days.
If you're wondering why Tom's so frustrated by that interruption, that's because you didn't see the other ten false starts.
You should bring back the extras like in Citation Needed
i do miss the bonus footage
i feel like this series would give some killer bonus videos
It lines up perfectly with some of the Citation Needed bonus clips so I believe it 100%.
Are you lot planning a new format?
I mean, I love the adventures, hence me being here less than a minute after upload, but I do miss the lowbrow side of Tech Diff - massive amounts of dick jokes and bad puns in fart-filled rooms.
Why not?
"The main problem is, where's the butter?"
-Norwegians during the Butter Crisis of 2011.
A much more serious question if it really were the Buttock Crisis of 2011.
We have driven out of the lubrication
@@topsyturvy1097 Beat me to it!
Did it cause panic? Yes... Smorpanic
wait there was an norwegian butter crisis of 2011?
"Sorry, I'm a professional idiot and they're watching me making a fool out of myself." "Champion!"
Best part of the video haha
They really should do four sets of these so they all have the opportunity to cook a sandwich on a form of transportation
Gotta make them all historical transportation too
Land (steam train) - check
Water (narrowboat) - check
Air (blimp) - easy option for S3
But what about S4? Underground, outer space?
We had trains, and canal boat.
Steam ship, on the sea with a fisherman, maybe hot air Ballon (could be tricky).
There are so many possible things.
I think that would be a great idea.
@@LelouchVee well youve got earth, water and wind there, so i guess the final one is fire... Im struggling to think of a fire based form of historical transportation though. Maybe tom will finally get to see his lava and he can cook on it with a big frying pan
@@amyshaw893
I mean, the steam train could count as Fire, in which case you’ve got to find something that definitely counts as Earth.
@@LelouchVee Submarine obviously
At the end of this series I want to see a compilation of every false start and just how vigorously Tom gets interrupted each time
Yes that would be hilarious
That's Gary's video!
They did say “every Thursday this December”, and there are five Thursdays and only four of them. Blooper bonus video on the fifth day of Christmas?
Only problem is, that video would be an hour long
@@nickwood8826
That’s a problem?
As someone who periodically listens to every season of Citation Needed, let me just say that "boxes of knives" brought a smile to my day.
I was so happy to hear them reference citations needed. And the joke at the Wikipedia article being for a different format. Top notch tech dif
YOU RAISE ME A SHIP SO I CAN MAKE ACCURATE METERS
I knew I wasnt the only one who does that
It rang in my ears as being awfully familiar, but I can't for the life of me remember the context for the box of knives.
Which one is it from?
Good thing Gary was there to explain what was going on, because Chris had no idea.
Knowing Garry (which I don't) he could have just bullshitted that whole thing 😋
I watched the whole thing and I also have no idea 😅😅
@@gummihu I can hear Tom saying, "No! That's a different format!"
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 But fact checking behold ~!
Gary Brannan, Citation Needed
This is the kind of thing I'd never have thought to do myself but I'm grateful it's there on the internet for my consumption. Chris clearly knows how to enjoy himself doing something seemingly so mundane.
“This one’s better; YORKSHIRE”
“I blame you for this West Yorkshire man”
“Not my part of West Yorkshire”
The Yorkshire alliance broke down quickly.
Matt has conquered the sky.
Tom has conquered the earth.
Chris has conquered the sea.
I'm gonna be seriously disappointed if Gary doesn't go to space.
hasn’t Tom already shown off the suit of Space Armor?
Finally we'll see Gary's Balloon to The Moon
Nah, i think he is gonna do food again
Maybe cook bacon with space radiation?
Isn't Gary supposed to conquer fire to complete the aristotelian elements? Or does volcano count as fire by that reckoning?
@@ArifRWinandar there's gas in there innit?
Chris’s explanation to the lovely lady who exclaimed, “champion” really made the episode for me.
And also Chris taking time out to pet someone else's dogs.
TONIGHT on the Technical Difficulties:
- Matt hovers a helicopter!
- I take a walk up a hill
- And Chris moves a boat... down some steps!
Oh, no! Anyway...
I love how the video links in the post-vid create a very surreal sentence.
"This is not a simulator, It's a really angry hill"
Wow, Gary mentioned Norfolk Broads without making the obvious joke. I'm proud of our boy. He's growing.
It was so good to hear a vintage *BRANDY* from Matt. Takes me back.
From Wikipedia:
"The five-rise opened on 21 March 1774.
The staircase underwent extensive restoration in 2004 and again in 2006, when the lock gates and paddles were replaced.
In January 2012 the locks were drained to allow the installation of new lock gates. The new gates are made of English green oak and, taken together with the balance beam, weigh more than 5 tonnes."
That's a different format
Ah, so it opened when Gary was in his adolescence.
I like how so far all of these have been titled something mundane... except for Matt hovering a helicopter in an hour.
"Matt doesn't go anywhere in a helicopter"
Old Top Gear opening titles vibes
@@mattlander9119 "Tonight: Matt attempts to hover a helicopter, Tom walks up an angry hill and Chris gets sweaty while canal boating"
Well, there's no way to make that sound boring. It's just awesome.
A bit of clarification: the Bingley Five Rise is, along with its neighbour the Bingley Three Rise, an example of a lock staircase. As shown, one lock empties into the next one and you have to ensure the lower locks are empty so the water in the upper lock has somewhere to go when you open the paddles. There's an overflow channel but you really don't want to rely on it. Staircase locks are fairly rare on the canals (except in Bingley!) due to the extra hassle in ensuring everything is prepared correctly. Whenever there is a hill to climb canals will tend to utilise a 'flight' of locks. This is a number of individual locks in quick succession, separated by a short stretch of canal called a pound. This causes less of a bottleneck than a staircase as after one boat has descended, another can climb the same lock and boats can pass each other in the pound. The canal Chris was on was the Leeds and Liverpool. Over the Pennines in Wigan there is a flight of something like 23 locks and I believe there are others on different canals with more than that. As for where the water comes from, reservoirs were constructed above the canal's summit to supply the water year round.
The lesser-known neighbor, the Bingley One Rise, is just a normal river.
I now want to see Tech Diff going on a canal boat holiday together
4 Men in a boat. (To say nothing of the biscuits)
@@bagpipemcgee7621 On the bummel. Or maybe the poop deck
Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Tom)
The slowest adventure... in the world.
@@bagpipemcgee7621 12 Men in a boat, and thats my final offer! :P
Having Gary send out the season, and with the adventures they've gotten up to before... it makes me think he's got something unbelievable up his sleeve. We're going to tune in next week and Gary will just be on the Moon.
...cooking a bacon sandwich. ;)
There's part of me that reallllly hopes Gary did the lava thing just to troll Tom
@@lakie2042 That would be perfect. Smash cut to Tom's footage and there's just Garry in the background unseen waving.
As a Seattle native who grew up with the Hiram Chittenden Locks, I was utterly charmed by this! The "Ballard Locks," as everyone calls them, have always been one of my favorite spots. It's just the one rise, but it's massive and mechanized and has two separate chambers.
Years later, I started maritime school in Seattle, and I kid you not, despite how much I loved the Locks, it wasn't until I was in the training vessel, entering the locks, that I realized, oh, this is the very first time I've ever been through the Locks on a boat, and I'll be doing this every week for the next ten months... What a great feeling, and I had so many amazing experiences in the Locks, and got to see so many pleasure boaters make fools of themselves!
This Yorkshire lock, though... it's absolutely AMAZING to have all that stuff be human-powered! Also, it must be nerve-racking not to be able to tie up and tend lines, to keep your boat in place... there are cleats and bitts everywhere in the Ballard locks, and you keep yourself in place by fastening onto one, then tending the boat end of that line. These canal boaters do it all with their rudder!
It's so wonderful to see this canal boat infrastructure preserved. Most American historical canal locks are just archaeology, now.
As the person who caught up with Tom's boat after a trip on the Llangollen Railway, I can confirm they really hadn't made it far by the time I caught up with them.
I still have the photo somewhere of Tom with his arms and legs waving over the 120 foot drop of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
From the moment on when Chris touched the first lock up till the very end I had the biggest smile across my face. This made me genuinely happy. No offense to Matt but once you step outside, the title of bounciest man is really up for debate between the two.
I love the fact that Tom actually did use that shot as the thumbnail like he said at 10:20. 😂😂😂
Chris in particular seems like the kind of guy I would love to hang out with or go on adventures with
Yeh.
Bingley five rise isn't like normal locks. Each lock exits directly into the next lock, so they are very deep. Usually you would have a small pound (pond)that you travel through between each lock.
Chris: Can we get a flashback?
Editor Tom: No.
No need; the viewers’ brains provided it.
@@ragnkja it was provided to the viewers brain vie telepathy
@@ragnkja “And now you know the wisdom of the metal-making.”
@@teipeu9033 WITH THE BOX AND THE KNIVES!
@@bananawieldingorenji And now you move onto the next mountain of Rotherham, where the Chuckle Brothers will teach you.
Tom has BY FAR the best captions crew I've ever seen on TH-cam. I'm not counting Primitive Technologies there, but that's only tangentially related.
I sure did not need a flashback for the "Boxes of knives" thing as I by pure chance rewatched that episode only a few hours ago.
Years ago now I did a kayak tour down the intracoastal waterway in the US and I spent about three days on the Great Dismal Swamp canal. I was nervous about the lock to enter the canal. I thought they'd tell me I wasn't allowed to use it, so I spent most of a night portaging around it. There was no way around the exit lock though and the lock keeper was super friendly. He was tickled pink to see a kayak in his lock. I was the only boat at that time and he just sent me right through. Was really cool.
Why on earth would anyone want to visit a place called Great Dismal Swamp?
@@ragnkja It's just a feature of the landscape, the Great Dismal Swamp. Named during colonial times. The historical plaques said that the canal had been dug by George Washington's company. I found it exceedingly boring to kayak down.
Chris is slowly becoming gandalf with his long, wise man beard and becoming ever more worldly.
...I somehow hadn't realized until just now that it's not just Tom and Matt that are color coded (red and blue), Chris and Gary is too (green and yellow respectively)
15:30 Nice to hear Chirk mentioned, especially given that I moved there 6 days ago and am currently watching the video about half a mile from the aqua duct
“It’s like an Airlock!”
Actually, an Airlock is like it.
A water-lock and an air-lock operate on similar principles.
As Matt didn't open the wikipedia article, opened in 1774. Two years older than America.
As an American who's never lived near a canal, that title was a real moment of "Wait, what? How's that work?" I genuinely was trying to imagine a motorboat being sent down a flight of stairs, and I'm so glad to have learned this is a thing! Definitely going to look a bit more into this at some point. Loving the content, very excited to see what's coming!
"I'm a professional idiot, and they're watching me make a fool of myself." That's it. That's the channel description right there 😂
We don't have water voles here in the States, so I had to Wikipedia them to see what they were, and... they're so cute! 😍 I need to figure out how to both get a water vole to America, and also how to domesticate one to keep as a pet 😂
Something something invasive species.
There are water voles from British Columbia to Utah.
Somerhing something ecosystem destruction
@@panda4247 Little bit late on that one. Oopsie
@@SamAronow so am I???
Cannot wait for the highly anticipated followup series "Tech Dif Go Gongoozling"!
(I'm actually shocked the word didn't come up to be honest)
Way back when I watched the first season of Citation Needed, one of the guys made a comment that led to Tom making a dumb joke about the fictitious Queen song "Too Much Cheese Will Kill You". Gary brought it to life, and that is what hooked me on the TDs.
Weirdly resonant to have several years later, Tom spinning a comment from one of the guys into another fictitious Queen song.
11:51 Nice to see one of the TechDiff having a normal human reaction to dogs. Because Tom is only endearing to birds, Matt doesn't like animals, dunno about Gary, but Chris is lovely with dogs
Only birds? Cats too, afaik. And Gary used to have a cat, but she’s sadly passed away.
Yup, noticed that as it's pretty much my reaction to any dog.*
*Most terriers** don't count, they're yappits or woofits depending on size and annoyance level. Yes, this is size-ism about dogs.
**Westies DO count, as might _some_ Jack Russels. Staffies too, I never think of them as terriers.
@@DerekMacColl
I’m the same, because while people who have big dogs know they have to teach their dog proper manners, far too many people with small dogs tend to be far too lenient. I know one small dog that I’m completely comfortable with, and it’s not just because I’ve known him since he was a puppy, it’s because he’s been taught manners. Sure, he can be a bit barky, but that’s what you get when getting a guard dog breed, and he’s generally a happy dog who knows that biting is for toys and food, not people.
@@ragnkja That's part of it for me, certainly. I suspect another bit is growing up around dogs trained for retrieving rabbits and ducks, meaning that the smallest one I came across - not counting the Westie - was a whippet. All very well trained, and all friendly as all get go as long as you weren't a dead rabbit or duck (or stupid enough to get too near the ones they were looking after for their owner - people need training as much as dogs in some cases!).
Didn't Chris work in a ZOO for a while, or am I mistaken?
There is nothing more English than some West Yorkshire canal boating. Great stuff
They replaced the gates on the locks a few years ago and had to build a temporary dam to keep the water out.
They had scaffolding up and visitors could climb down right into the locks themselves (obviously completely empty of water!)
The gates are HUGE. Even bigger than they look from above or even in a boat. There’s a considerable amount of gate below even the lowest water level that you don’t normally get to see.
Been fascinated by the concept of canal locks since I was a kid, but I think this is actually the first time actually seeing some in action, very cool!
Flat Bottomed Boats, you make the rocking world go round!
Locking world*
@@DukeofScott Y E S
As someone who is not from UK and had no idea what were you talking about, I was really happy when Tom said "explain it to me".
And then Chris proceeded to give a explanation that didn't help me at all.
I love you guys, always coming back to your films.
"enthusiastic dog petting vocalisations" is an incredible subtitle!
Anything Technical Difficulties genuinely makes me beyond happy, I love watching you all on your little adventures!
I would love more of this random adventure series. It's very enjoyable.
I have to express a sincere appreciation for the color-coded captions, both in-video and in the optional closed captioning.
Chris munchin on some ice cream at the end was the perfect cherry on top 😊
i demand gary wears a yellow shirt to be thematically appropriate
Have gone for a number of walks down the towpath alongside the Caen Hill Locks (29 locks, but spread over about 2 miles - it's not nearly as steep as those!) but sadly never tried to go up/down them in a boat. One day! And yeah, locks usually have a back pump at the bottom of the flight to take water round to the top again (the one at Foxhangers can apparently move 7 million gallons a day) to keep the whole system flowing. Did manage to go on a narrowboat once as a kid, but that was in Wales, I think, and it was probably on a heritage bit of canal because it had a barge horse instead of an engine.
**Reads Title**
"If it's exactly what I think it is, I want to do that too"
Matt: flies a helicopter
Tom: climbs up a kind of angry hill
Chris: moves a boat
Gary: lands a Cessna outside York Megabowl at one in the morning
@@dominateeye Proceeds to break into the Wimpy's and make himself a 10000p hamburger.
I'm subscribed to a rather ridiculous number of narrowboat vloggers, and also live very close to a canal (the Grand Canal in Ireland), so watching this was somewhat surreal.
the two boats thing is because it's so deep and the flow pulls you under, normally it doesn't matter but at 5 rise it's so steep its difficult to rescue you if you fall in, both because of the current and because it takes so long to fill and empty, so where normally if you where pulled to the door you could probably wait it out at 5 rise you might have drowned by the time the pressure equalizes and it's safe to open again
if there's two boats and you fall off, not only chances are you can't actually fall all the way in, but the person on'tuther boat can help
i had actually just watched watched the Citation Needed episode that the "boxes of knives" bit was from earlier today. love that you all remember bits from old episodes, god knows how many years later
That was actually really cool to watch! I've been to the Soo Locks in Michigan and they were absolutely mammoth! These small guys looked quite tiny in comparison but a lot more height to deal with.
It was also cool knowing these ones are volunteer run and how absolutely manual they are. Loved this video!
Edit: Because I was sick and forgot the easy spelling of Sault. xD
The five-rise is the steepest flight of locks in the UK, with a gradient of about 1:5 (a rise of 59 ft 2 in (18.03 m) over a distance of 320 ft (98 m))
I've been to the Soo locks as well, saw some absolutely massive boats going through, huge ocean-going cargo ships travelling to Duluth or Thunder Bay. It was truly amazing to 11-year old me (and no less amazing now, 30 years later!).
"That's another format Matt!"
And it is a format that I sorely miss!
I used to lock-keep during the school holidays. Was always good fun. Hard work, but very good fun.
You can actually send boats in both directions at the same time if you know how to lock-keep efficiently.
Also, as a north Welshman and a Welsh speaker, I’d like to commend Tom’a pronunciation of Llangollen, but slate Gary’s pronunciation of Pontcysyllte.
As American adolescents at RAF Upper Heyford, we used to help the narrow-boats at the locks on the Oxford Canal all the time. It was loads of fun, and we learned a lot about the history of the canal system.
I made a boat tour on the Göta canal in sweden this summer, locks are indimitadting at first, then interesting, then boring. There was also one where the gates were still operated manully, and I got to run around in circles to open/close it.
All I was thinking in the bit where they were going up the steps was: did Chris drive the Ever Given? 😂
Chris, because of the money involved, you technically are a professional doing this.
He did describe himself as a professional-a “professional idiot”, that is.
This has been an absolutely fantastic series
We haven't seen garys adventure yet
Chris's adventures are my favorite so far.
Looks like the new tradition for this series is cooking bacon sandwiches on forms of transportation. I predict that next time 'round, Matt's gonna be grilling some rashers on a Piper Cub engine.
And then what? Tom has a cook-up on the ISS?
West Yorkshire canal story: I was going up the Huddersfield Narrow canal around 2013, just after the canals had gone from being managed by British Waterways to the Canal & River Trust. Some prat had left a bunch of the lock paddles open on both sides of a lock, and massively drained one section of the canal.
We were aground for about a day and a half before enough water had been pumped in at the top and fed through the system to raise the water level enough to refloat us.
10:20 At least Tom kept his word 😂
If you like locks, try Foxton Locks, 10 locks in a row
Also, you can't actually mess up locks, unless you're able to overcome pushing against a huge amount of water, which you can't. Water will rise or fall and you lean against the lock lever in the direction you're going until the difference in water is 0 and the lock can open, boat passes through, close it, open the water gate (on the lock going down, on the ground going up, if you do the wrong one it doesn't matter, you can't mess it up), repeat.
My dad is a huge canal fan and I've been on far too many canal boat holidays, I've lost a total of 5 lock keys. Most of my memories of it is waking up each day to my dad crashing after he had set off really early, I remember waking up to such a violent bang I fell out of my bed and the cupboards in the kitchen opened and spilled contents everywhere
Greetings from Wellington NZ. Brilliant as usual. Took me back to a nice summer's evening in 1973 when I rode my bike along the towpath from Rodley to the 5 Rise Locks. For some daft reason we rode back by road up to Guiseley and home to Horsforth. I was knackered by the end of it as I remember.
I grew up living next to the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. There are eight locks there between Lake Ontario and Lake Eric, in order to bypass Niagara Falls!
Locks 4,5, and 6 are twin flight locks, where ships can go up and down at the same time. Every Saturday I'd go to watch them with my father and Grandfather. I even got to tour one of the ships as it was travelling up two of the locks! It was amazing! Each of those locks is over 200 feet in length, and 80 feet deep. The water moving from lock to lock is frightening but amazing!
The eight locks at the Welland Canal, look and function in exactly the same way as these, however, they are three times the size, and all computer PLC controlled, under automation.
I've now binged every episode, this show is so much fun to watch, and very, VERY wholesome on so many levels. Love it!
I rented a boat from Silsden Boats last Spring (sadly not Rose's drum, a different drum), can highly recommend a week on a canal boat as a very chill holiday. Especially in baby duck season!
We queued for the 5 (and 3) rise locks but didn't actually take them (it was a very long queue that day and we decided to just head back the other way instead, for fear of not getting the boat returned on time if we went down and up again)
Chris was nervous of steering it in the locks, imagine 4 25yos responsible for the boat for a few days... Disappointed he didn't take the chance to live on it for a weekend tbh.
Kate Bush? Boxes of knives? Chert? It's all callbacks today!
In fairness, they said "Chirk", a town in Wales, not "chert", a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz. But I appreciate the effort and the knowledge.
@@dominateeye though I will say that this lives up to the catchphrase: "chert: it's distracting"
It's lovely to see this kind of thing, people operating machinery that makes simple but important things happen, it's all so human. Canals are some of humanity's finest work, and the volunteers that makes ones like this work are some of humanity's finest.
That bacon roll looks like it sprouted bacon legs and a wee bacon arm, raised in triumph, as it tries to leap away to freedom...right back onto the grill! 😂😂😂
If any of you want to try sailing for the next series, get in touch. You will have to travel down to West Sussex though and it may not be one for Matt as we have a dog 🤣🤣
Never seen him so happy and animated 😄 They were all so excited.
Made me smile too.
Where I live boats have these things they throw over the edge of the boat to shield it from pounding on the sides of a canal or a pier.
I've done a couple of canal boat holidays with my family, and this video brings back a lot of memories.
Colored captions, very nice. Thank you for making the effort.
I'd genuinely love to meet Chris some day, he seems like such a delightful person
Whoa, Chris' beard is again in danger!
If he loses his beard his face loses 20 years in age!
@@ailaG If he loses his beard he loses his powers!
Really loved this! Especially the boxes of knives reference by Matt
Germany still has one coal power station that's only accessible by canal boat. Which became quite a problem this summer when the Rhine dropped low enough to have a negative depth at some stream gauges.
Im in awe with the amount of plants on the walls. Here in the Netherlands the canal walls dont have that many plants, lots of maintenance happens here, and that offcourse are old canal walls. But still. I love wall plants! btw 18% of Dutch cargo gets transported by inland canals and rivers.
I love this series! Many years ago, I took a Rhine cruise with what was then KD cruises (now Viking) and we went through some locks to reach the Moselle. It was fascinating and even a little terrifying since the boat filled the lock almost completely. Sadly, we didn't get see it from the top, but you were very aware of being at the bottom of a deep canyon on the boat.
If a boat does get hung up on a cill, the correct procedure is to shut all paddles, call the Canal and River Trust (CRT) to let them know that the lock is blocked, and call the fire brigade if there is anyone on the boat. You don't attempt to re-float your own boat. Depending on how badly you've messed up, the CRT may need to hire a crane.
So I've never heard of locks in a canal before, so this is something totally new to me. I live in Arizona, an area not really known for its water, so the craziest my local canal gets is "full", or "somewhat full". It's so interesting to see how proper canals work, and how much it involves people.
Like the green t-shirt continuity. A doff to Tom's red one? I wonder how long this had been happening...
This was a really cool and interesting video. Showed a good bit about how locks and canals work!
the only way to describe this is "Wholesome Entertainment". Looks like a blast, I only wish you guys would do more stuff.
Being a massive canal nerd, I was kind of hoping Chris would be doing Standedge tunnel, but this was really well done!
brilliant show. I love the idea of Canals and narrow boats but their just not a thing where I'm from.
Too many mountains and people aren't as organized as they are here to maintain something that wonderful.
I've lived in Birmingham for a few years as a student now and there's a canal almost right next door, I never really thought much about them until recently but there's a lot of heritage and interest there.
Loved this. Having operated locks as a 10 year old kid (without giving a second thought Chris) , it brings back memories.
I'm reminded of the quote "Henry Bessemer's Giant Mechanical Arse crossing the channel".
When i was canoeing with the scouts we had the opportunity to hitch along a boat through the locks instead of carrying the canoes past them. It's quite impressive sitting at the bottom of that big stone chasm. Göta canal has these old school gates as well, but the operation is all motorized these days.
This is such a good series idea, and it works so well for you!
I cant believe more people have done a show like this
I'm enjoying all these callbacks to previous shows!
the genuine awe in the voice of the lady who called Chris a champion 😂