When a canal boat needed repairs, the captain went to the nearest dry dock, a basin or bay that could be flooded to admit a boat and then drained for repairs. Along the canal, at least 44 different dry docks operated over a 100 year period. Today Chittenango is home to the only recovered and reconstructed three bay dry dock on the Erie Canal. After it was rediscovered, volunteers began digging in the summer of 1987, using old maps and photographs to guide excavation of the dry dock bays and the search for building foundations. Each of the three bays had a different depth, allowing empty, partially loaded, and loaded boats to be repaired; when filled, the water depths were 6, 7, and 8 feet. A narrow sluiceway behind the gates carried water out of the dry dock bays. Most docks stood on the edge of streams or slopes where water could drain easily, but Chittenango's dry dock complex was built on level ground, so its owners dug a ditch a quarter mile to Chittenango Creek to drain the bays. Drop gates could be operated by one person with a hand crank on top of the bay walls; each gate pivoted at the bottom and fell toward the canal, similar to castle moat gates. Miter gates, operated by two people on either side, formed a V shape with the point facing toward the canal, and when closed, water from the canal pushed on them to create a tight seal.