Sunday 22 September 2013

Photo Story: River Winch


This image comes from Regensburg, and I took it from an island in the Danube. There is a bridge there, built in the 1100's and still in use today. It sits on massive boat-shaped pylons that churn the river into whirlpools. More pictures of the setup here. Anyway, back in those days, ships moving upriver didn't have enough power to pass the turbulence, so a winch was built. That's the winch house there in yellow, and if you look closely, you can see a long slit in its wall - that's where the winch cable came out to attach to the ships and guide them up past the rough spot.

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