# Boat lift

A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the canal lock.
It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, like the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland, or operate on an inclined plane, like the Ronquières inclined plane in Belgium.

## History

A precursor to the canal boat lift, able to move full-sized canal boats, was the tub boat lift used in mining, able to raise and lower the 2.5 ton tub boats then in use. An experimental system was in use on the Churprinz mining canal in Halsbrücke near Dresden. It lifted boats 7 m (23 ft) using a moveable hoist rather than caissons. The lift operated between 1789 and 1868, and for a period of time after its opening engineer James Green reporting that five had been built between 1796 and 1830. He credited the invention to Dr James Anderson of Edinburgh.
The idea of a boat lift for canals can be traced back to a design based on balanced water-filled caissons in Erasmus Darwin's Commonplace Book (pp. 58–59) dated 1777–1778
In 1796 an experimental balance lock was designed by James Fussell and constructed at Mells on the Dorset and Somerset Canal, though this project was never completed. A similar design was used for lifts on the tub boat section of the Grand Western Canal entered into operation in 1835 becoming the first non-experimental boat lifts in Britain and pre-dating the Anderton Boat Lift by 40 years.
In 1904 the Peterborough Lift Lock designed by Richard Birdsall Rogers opened in Canada. This 19.8-metre (65 ft) high lift system is operated by gravity alone, with the upper bay of the two bay system loaded with an additional 30 cm (12 in) of water as to give it greater weight.
Before the construction of the Three Gorges Dam Ship Lift, the highest boat lift, with a 73.15-metre (240.0 ft) height difference and European Class IV (1350 tonne) capacity, was the Strépy-Thieu boat lift in Belgium opened in 2002.
The ship lift at the Three Gorges Dam, completed in January 2016, is 113 m (371 ft) high and able to lift vessels of up to 3,000 tons displacement.
The boat lift at Longtan is reported to be even higher in total with a maximum vertical lift of 179 m (587 ft) in two stages when completed.

## Selected lift locks

Notable lift locks — ordered by size :
| Name | Location | Opened | Type | Displacement | Dimensions | Vertical lift | Cycle time | Notes |
| Goupitan ship-lifting system (second lift) | Guizhou, China | 2021 | Vertical caisson | 500 tons | 280 by 35 by 5 metres 919 by 115 by 16 feet | 127 metres 417 feet | | Tallest boat lift in the world. |
| Goupitan ship-lifting system (first lift) | Guizhou, China | 2021 | Vertical caisson | 500 tons | | 72–79 metres 236–259 feet | | |
| Three Gorges Dam ship lift | Yichang, Hubei, China | 2016 | Vertical caisson | 3000 tons | 280 by 35 by 5 metres 919 by 115 by 16 feet | 113 metres 371 feet | 30–40 minutes | |
| Krasnoyarsk Dam ship lift | Divnogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia | 1982 | Inclined plane | 1500 tons | 90 m × 18 m × 2.2 m 295 ft × 59 ft × 7 ft | 104 m 341 ft | 90 minutes | |
| Ronquières inclined plane lift | Braine-le-Comte, Hainaut, Belgium | 1968 | Inclined plane | 1350 tons | 91 m × 12 m × 3.7 m 299 ft × 39 ft × 12 ft | 67.73 m 222 ft | 22 minutes | |
| Strépy-Thieu boat lift | Le Rœulx, Hainaut, Belgium | 2002 | Vertical caisson | 1350 tons | 112 m × 12 m × 3.35 m 367 ft × 39 ft × 11 ft | 73.15 m 240 ft | 7 minutes | Tallest boat lift in Europe. |
| Scharnebeck twin ship lift | Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, Germany | 1974 | Vertical caisson | 1350 tons | 105.4 m × 15.8 m × 3.4 m 346 ft × 52 ft × 11 ft | 38 m 125 ft | 3 minutes | |
| Niederfinow boat lift | Brandenburg, Germany | 1934 | Vertical caisson | | 85 m × 12 m × 2.5 m 279 ft × 39 ft × 8 ft | 36 m 118 ft | 20 minutes | |
| Niederfinow north boat lift | Brandenburg, Germany | 2022 | Vertical caisson | 2100 tonnes | 115 m × 12.5 m × 4.0 m 377 ft × 41 ft × 13 ft | 36 m 118 ft | | |
| Peterborough lift lock | Ontario, Canada | 1904 | Vertical caisson | 1300 tons | 42.7 m × 10.1 m × 2.1 m 140 ft × 33 ft × 7 ft | 19.8 m 65 ft | 10 minutes | |
| Kirkfield Lift Lock | Ontario, Canada | 1907 | Vertical caisson | 1300 tons | 42.7 m × 10.1 m × 2.1 m 140 ft × 33 ft × 7 ft | 14.9 m 49 ft | 10 minutes | |
| Rothensee boat lift | Saxony-Anhalt, Germany | 1938 | Vertical caisson | 1000 tons | 85 m × 12.2 m 279 ft × 40 ft | 16 m 52 ft | 20 minutes | |
| Falkirk Wheel | Falkirk, Scotland, United Kingdom | 2002 | Rotating caisson | 600 tons | 21.33 m × 6 m × 1.37 m 70 ft × 20 ft × 4 ft | 24 m 79 fts | 4 minutes | The only rotating boat lift in the world. |
| Henrichenburg boat lift | North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | 1962 | Vertical caisson | 600 tons | 67 m × 8.2 m × 2 m 220 ft × 27 ft × 7 ft | 14 m 46 ft | 25 minutes | |
| Geheyan Dam ship lift | Hubei, China | 1987 | Vertical caisson | 300 tons | | | | |
| Longtan Dam ship lift (first lift) | Hechi, Guangxi Autonomous Region, China | 2020 | Vertical caisson | 500 tons | 73.0 m × 12.2 m × 3.5 m 240 ft × 40 ft × 11 ft | 62.4 m 205 ft | | |
| Longtan Dam ship lift (second lift) | Hechi, Guangxi Autonomous Region, China | 2020 | Vertical caisson | 500 tons | 73.0 m × 12.2 m × 3.5 m 240 ft × 40 ft × 11 ft | 93.6 m 307 ft | | |
| Canal du Centre boat lifts | Hainaut, Belgium | 1888–1917 | Vertical caisson | 360 tons/350 tons | 40.1 m × 5.06 m × 2 m 132 ft × 17 ft × 7 ft | 16.93–15.4 m 56–51 ft | | Three lifts each 16.93 m high plus one 15.4 m high. |
| Fontinettes boat lift | Arques, Pas-de-Calais, France | 1881–88 | Vertical caisson | 300 tons | 39 m × 5.2 m × 2 m 128 ft × 17 ft × 7 ft | 13.13 m 43 ft | 5 minutes | Replaced by a single lock in 1967. |
| Anderton boat lift | Cheshire, England, United Kingdom | 1875 | Vertical caisson | 250 tons | 22.9 m × 4.7 m × 2.9 m 75 ft × 15 ft × 10 ft | 15.25 m 50 ft | | |
| Montech water slope | Montech, Tarn-et-Garonne, France | 1974 | Water slope | | 443 m × 13.3 m × 6 m 1,453 ft × 44 ft × 20 ft | 13.3 m 44 ft | 6 minutes | Oldest water slope. |
| Fonserannes Water Slope | Hérault, France | 1980–83 | Water slope | | 272 m × 13.6 m 892 ft × 45 ft | 13.6 m 45 ft | | |
| Big Chute Marine Railway | Ontario, Canada | 1917–78 | Patent slip | | 30.4 m × 18 m × 7.9 m 100 ft × 59 ft × 26 ft | 18 m 59 ft | | |