Locks: River Saar

The river Saar runs 73 miles from the French/German border near Saarbrücken down to Trier where it flows into the Mosel (Moselle in French/English) on the Germany/Luxembourg border.

There are seven locks in use on the river, the farthest upstream or nearest the French border is a standard 40 metre Freycinet lock. The other six are 185 metre long locks and some of them have a smaller, Freycinet lock alongside to cater for the smaller péniches and pleasure boats. Although, if the large lock is being used for a larger boat, smaller boats will accompany them instead of using the smaller lock in order to save water. Most of the locks are about seven metres deep.

When approaching a lock, a sign indicates the VHF/UKW channel that should be used when contacting the lock keeper by radio. The caller indicates their size, vessel name, direction and how far away from the lock they are.

The locks are controlled by traffic lights with two green lights indicating the lock is ready, a green and a red indicating it is being prepared and two red lights indicating that the lock is being used in the opposite direction and the boat should wait. If four red lights are shown then the lock is out of service.

Some of the locks have a boom just before the gates which is lowered for the large boats to prevent them going forwards onto the gates and causing damage.

It is a busy commercial route that was originally used to transport coal upstream and iron ore downstream. Remains of blast furnaces can still be seen and the coal trade is still in existence with several coal ports on the river side. Boats up to 180 metres long are often seen on the river, the most northerly destination being a large port downstream of Saarbrücken.

Schleuse Güdingen