How to sink a boat

The Leigh arm was re-opened on the Saturday, but I decided to leave it until the Sunday and let the rush die down.  Sunday morning I came up Henhurst lock and turned right onto the Leigh branch.

At the first lock, I shared with nb Cwm-something welsh.  When we arrived at the second lock, there was an impatient boat coming up.  We had just got into the lock when they lifted the paddles fully.  My rudder hit the cill, and despite me putting full forward, I was stuck.  The conversation went a bit like

  "DROP THE PADDLES"
 "What ?"
 "IM ON THE CILL, DROP THE PADDLES" - at this point another boater opened the top sluices and gates to try to refill the lock)
 "We are in a hurry, we need to get to..."
 "DROP THE ****ING PADDLES!!"
 "But..."
 "IF I SINK YOU'RE GOING NOWHERE!"

At this point the other boater had rushed to the front, oushed the imbeciles out of the way and dropped the paddles.

The front of my boat started rising again.  I got to the front of the boat, and the well deck had flooded to just before the front door.

All of this happened so quickly I am not surprised that boats can get hung up and sunk, especialy when people rush.  I was lucky in that someone at the top gates was quick enough to open the top gates and close the bottom in the same time it had taken me to climb on the roof and reach the ladder on a rapidly tilting boat.

I left the lock, pulled over and put the kettle on!