Puffin - a 1937 Hillyard sailing yacht

You have to buy a vignette from VNF, which allows you to travel on french waterways (apart from the Somme, which is free). It cost €85 for 30 days. Charges are based on size of boat. I think in total we have spent about €250 on vignettes - a couple of 30 days and some 1 week extensions. Some locks are automatic, you get detected by a radar thingy and it starts to fill/empty then traffic lights tell you when to go. Some have lock keepers and some are operated by you. There is a pole dangling over the canal that you twist to start the process then more poles inside that you pull to fill/empty the lock. A few are manual with hand cranked sluices and push beam gates but not many on the canals we were on. We had the most trouble with the radar locks as we were too small to always be detected. Lots of floating around waving arms at a camera on a pole! When there were lock keepers they sometimes travelled between locks on a moped or in a van so you had to agree a schedule for the day with them. On the really big locks you contact them on vhf radio as you approach and they then direct you what to do - usually wait on a pontoon and go in to the lock after the big boats and commercial traffic. Sorry, long answer, I’ve learned a lot about locks on this trip!