(a) At locks, hand lines shall be secured to the mooring lines and passed as follows:
(1) A downbound vessel shall use its own hand lines, secured to the eye at the end of the mooring lines, by means of a bowline, which hand lines shall be passed to the linehandlers at the lock as soon as the vessel passes the open gates;
- (i) For the #4 mooring wire, the hand line shall be passed to the linehandlers at the lock as soon as the vessel's aft fairleads pass the open gates.
- (ii) For the #2 mooring wire, the hand line shall be passed to the linehandlers at the lock as soon as the forward fairleads pass the last HFM unit.
- (2) Hand lines shall be passed to upbound vessels by the linehandlers as soon as the vessel passes the last HFM unit, and secured, by means of a clove hitch, to the mooring lines 60 cm behind the splice of the eye;
- (3) At Iroquois Lock and Lock 8, Welland Canal, both upbound and downbound vessels shall use their own hand lines as provided in paragraph (a)(1) of this section; and
- (4) Upbound vessels of overall length in excess of 218 m in Locks 4 and 5, Welland Canal, shall secure the hand lien to the eye of the No. 1 mooring wire by means of a bowline.
- (b) Mooring lines shall not be passed over the side of a vessel in a manner dangerous to a lock crew.
[39 FR 10900, Mar. 22, 1974, as amended at 47 FR 51122, Nov. 12, 1982; 55 FR 48599, Nov. 21, 1990; 61 FR 19551, May 2, 1996; 70 FR 12972, Mar. 17, 2005; 90 FR 1883, Jan. 10, 2025]