Post date: Jun 23, 2010 1:06:21 PM

Stephen Macnamara, Stephen McCullagh, Alistair Kennedy, 3 hours

Met up at Stephen Omnibus's house in Belfast for tea and ham & cheese sangwiges, and drove down together.

Al had bought 10m of piping from a hardware shop, and we also had Bus's garden hose - the plan was to initiate the draining of the first (perched) sump.

Al went in first through the freezing static canal before the sump, and we quickly discovered that the 10m piping was about 4m too short. After some vain efforts to start a siphon, we used the garden hose, and suckcessfully established a flow from the final sump back to the main streamway. We then used the flow from this hose to fill the larger diameter piping, and set the pipe up to drain the canal before the sump, again back to the main streamway.

So both are currently flowing (we hope) - the canal should be drained totally and the sump itself *may* be - it was quite a low flow.

If it turns out that there's much afterwards (a parallel passage would be nice) then we will try to set up a self-draining siphon - i.e. one you don't have to restart manually each time... picture attached for your general edification and amusement.

Going back tonight (Wednesday 23rd) for a gander.