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The canal has to drop by about 72 m within about 7 km as it passes La Louvière. That's too steep for...
The canal has to drop by about 72 m within about 7 km as it passes La Louvière. That's too steep for locks so the old canal used four hydraulic boat lifts: sections of canal which could hold a boat and could be raised and lowered by about 18 metres each. The new canal does it in one go, at the giant Strépy-Thieu Boat Lift. The canal section is currently on its way down, without a boat in it, and the four counterweights are coming up. Because of Archimedes' principle, the moving section of canal weighs the same regardless of whether or not there's a boat in it, about 8000 tonnes.


UTC Time: 11:10, Tuesday 04 September 2018
Local Time: 13:10, Tuesday 04 September 2018
Estimate of longitude: 4° 6' 32.33" E = 4.108980°
Estimate of latitude: 50° 28' 50.05" N = 50.480570°
Possible error on position estimate: 10 metres