Upside-down gates 2: it continues…
- Trespassers won’t be prosecuted: do you have a right of access to the beach? - 25th March, 2024
- Why do boomers like minions? - 6th November, 2022
- Are you a true Isle of Wight local? - 30th October, 2022
Well, it didn’t take long for the Ranger’s first case to come to light – and now he’s going to make an example of it. Look at this picture:
It was taken aboard the Red Funnel car ferry from East Cowes to Southampton. That’s Cowes you can see in the background. Do you notice anything about the gate? Oh, go on, you do, don’t you? See this recent post if none of this makes sense to you. Yes, the gate’s upside-down. Well spotted. And what’s worse, it’s a massive, heavy gate, and so liable to drop that the engineers have had to weld a triangular plate onto the top of it to hold it up. You can see it at the far left-hand end on the top of the main beam. How daft is that? They recognised that the gate was not going to hold up, and yet still managed not to spot why not. There are two ships, each with two such gates, and they are all the same – so it was designed like that, not just wrongly installed. Sigh. Black mark for Red Funnel, then. Ok, next!
Dammit, you’re right! Well, that shows that I’d better stick to installing gates and not building boats, doesn’t it? Thanks for your research!
Mind you, I still wonder about that additional plate…
Dear Ranger!
I’m afraid that your comment about the metal gate onboard the Red Funnel ferry is wrong!
You refer yourself to the BTCV handbook, and from within it’s tomes, is the following: http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/content/section/3320?keywords=gate … namely that:
‘Single braces usually run the opposite way to those on wooden gates, and act in tension to keep the gate a true rectangle.’
Terribly sorry to have to do this!
Andy