Oars Above, Divers Below: The Erie Canal’s Final Week Brings 200 Rowing Shells and a Lock-by-Lock Underwater Inspection
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Erie Canal’s 202nd navigation season is ending the way it spent most of its life: with people on top of the water and others working beneath it. On Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11, roughly 200 rowing boats crossed the canal channel in Rochester during a Genesee Rowing Club regatta. This week, commercial divers are going under at six Erie and Champlain canal locks and gates, just ahead of the system’s 6:00 p.m. closure to navigation on Wednesday, October 14.
The regatta ran from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, according to a Notice to Mariners issued by the New York State Canal Corporation on October 9. The course started at the New Jefferson Bridge on the Genesee River and ran north across the Erie Canal to the Elmwood Bridge (E-156). Law enforcement and safety boats monitored the water, and the notice told boaters to stop all forward motion and proceed at no-wake speed, never above 5 mph, whenever they approached rowers crossing the navigation channel.
Divers Check the Doors
The same October 9 notice set out an underwater inspection schedule that boaters needed to plan around. On Monday, October 12, divers are examining lock chambers and surrounding areas at Erie Canal Lock E-2 in Waterford, along with Guard Gate 2 above the Waterford Flight in Crescent and Champlain Canal locks C-9 in Smith’s Basin and C-11 in Comstock. On Thursday, October 15, the work moves to Erie Canal locks E-7 in Vischer Ferry, E-18 in Jacksonburg and E-19 in Frankfort.
Inspection areas are marked with commercial divers’ flags. Boaters must come to a full stop, use caution and stay at no-wake speed near them, and should call lock operators to schedule passage. The notice names no inspection contractor and gives no cost figure. Inspections like these are routine: a lock is a set of massive gates, walls and valves that is only as reliable as its least-visited corner, and the quiet weeks around closing are when that hidden hardware gets looked at.
A Canal Built for Crossing
Neither story is new to the Erie Canal. From the start, the waterway was both a working corridor and a place where people gathered, crossed and watched. Rochester’s regatta is a reminder that the canal still carries sport and community as well as cargo and cruisers. A few miles west, the Canal Corporation lists a pedestrian bridge under construction in Brockport that will link the Empire State Trail on the north bank to the SUNY Brockport campus on the south. It will close a loop of about 1.2 miles and include a viewing platform for rowing competitions.
The rest of the corridor is also looking ahead. The Canal Corporation’s project page lists work including the Medina Waterfront Promenade and Highwall rehabilitation, reconstruction of Guy Park Manor in Amsterdam, and an Earthen Embankment Integrity Program to shore up stretches of canal more than 200 years old. Along the Erie Canalway Trail in Utica, the full closure between Harbor Lock Road and Barnes Road, with a signed on-road detour, is expected to last through December 31.
What Comes Next
After 6:00 p.m. on October 14, commercial shipping and tour-boat operators with a Post Navigation Season Permit may remain on the system under the terms of their permits. Everyone else will be off the water until spring: the Canal Corporation anticipates opening in May 2027 for the 203rd season of navigation, with the date and hours to be announced in a future notice. For emergencies, the Canal Corporation’s call center is 833-538-1042.
Sources: New York State Canal Corporation Notices to Mariners (October 2 and October 9, 2026) and Canal Corporation project and trail-alert pages.