The canal's course originally included thirteen locks, which later renovations increased to seventeen. Initially most were one-gate flash locks built into weirs (usually set below the mouth of a tributary creek), where water was dammed until a barge was ready to pass downriver. In Lauenburg the initial course included one chamber lock (the "Palmschleuse") because of a watermill whose operation would have been made impossible by a flash lock. Over the course of the canal's lifetime further flash locks were progressively converted to chamber locks until the 17th century.