No Regrets
Well-Known Member
We left Bray last Wednesday afternoon, and took a lovely little cruise down to Staines upon Thames, where we took a chance on the Town moorings, but still had a quiet night, then Thursday saw us meeting our guests at Tedders, before punching the tide to Imperial Wharf, where we were kindly squeezed in by Glynn, the Pier-master (Very short notice, thanks to a previous thread!) and met Plumbob in his very tidy and unusual Birchwood 29, before enjoying the smoothest evening in history, no doubt due to the almost total lack of river traffic.
Friday morning, we left a little early for St Kats, and arrived bang on 09:40 for the first lock, where we were slotted in, albeit after all the raggies and other lame ducks. The VHF signal was 'Oh hang on, I have just seen a smaller vessel, No Regrets can you come in please!' which was nice, if a little embarrassing...
The three days booked at St Kats turned into four, albeit when we arrived we were forced into rafting with no less than eight other Bray boats, a real work of art which required teamwork and more fenders than even FUCC collectively own! We soon grabbed a bit of bankside real estate once one of the Pageant vessels departed though, and all Brayites enjoyed bankside views once more.
Locking out was a breeze, as we free-flowed out to the last remnants of an incoming tide, and into the choppiest wind-over-tide ever! Spray was smashing into the flybridge windscreen, and it's a good job all windows and hatches were secured, we even had to abort raising starboard fenders as it got way to hairy for SWMBO, who wouldn't take the helm either...
Richmond-under-Thames was the next port, but mainly underwater, so we didn't bother stopping, and Teddington's lock was almost superfluous, as it was just six inches up! Never seen that either...
Our smugness at being dry all the way down, and all the way back soon changed, as it started to rain, and didn't stop. Our usual method of dealing with this is to open up the drinks cabinet, crank the volume up as loud as possible, to drown out the sound of our trusty little Perkins 4-108, and helm from downstairs with the wiper on.
Four CD's later, and we arrived at Hampton Court, met up with Ross and Sam in L'Chaime and had a Chinese before popping on board L'Chaime for a forum mini-meeting. What a cracking boat, and great guy too
No change in the weather the next day either, and another 6 CD's/2 bottles were needed to get up to Windsor, where we parked up on a **** covered towpath knowing we would only be an hour or so from home this morning.
A swift refuel at Windsor along with a pump out showed the fuel cost to be £85 for the whole trip, which equates to around 5mpg, which ain't bad considering half the trip was fairly close to WOT at 7-8mph, and the return journey from Richmond was against a fair old flow too, after days of rain (In stark contrast, the Alcohol bill was closer to £300...LOL)
We had absolutely no mechanical issues either, not a drop of oil used either, and the No1 battery bank (two 120A/H) managed four nights with the fridge and heating on before failing to start the engine (I switched over to No2 bank at this point) which is a first! They soon recovered, but I'll keep an eye on them, as they're five years old now. Oh, I did have to de-fluff the fridge evaporator grille as we had an Ice shortage, which was a major tragedy to SWMBO
All back safely home now, with No Regrets ready for the next trip!
I shall polish her again for providing such sterling service
Friday morning, we left a little early for St Kats, and arrived bang on 09:40 for the first lock, where we were slotted in, albeit after all the raggies and other lame ducks. The VHF signal was 'Oh hang on, I have just seen a smaller vessel, No Regrets can you come in please!' which was nice, if a little embarrassing...
The three days booked at St Kats turned into four, albeit when we arrived we were forced into rafting with no less than eight other Bray boats, a real work of art which required teamwork and more fenders than even FUCC collectively own! We soon grabbed a bit of bankside real estate once one of the Pageant vessels departed though, and all Brayites enjoyed bankside views once more.
Locking out was a breeze, as we free-flowed out to the last remnants of an incoming tide, and into the choppiest wind-over-tide ever! Spray was smashing into the flybridge windscreen, and it's a good job all windows and hatches were secured, we even had to abort raising starboard fenders as it got way to hairy for SWMBO, who wouldn't take the helm either...
Richmond-under-Thames was the next port, but mainly underwater, so we didn't bother stopping, and Teddington's lock was almost superfluous, as it was just six inches up! Never seen that either...
Our smugness at being dry all the way down, and all the way back soon changed, as it started to rain, and didn't stop. Our usual method of dealing with this is to open up the drinks cabinet, crank the volume up as loud as possible, to drown out the sound of our trusty little Perkins 4-108, and helm from downstairs with the wiper on.
Four CD's later, and we arrived at Hampton Court, met up with Ross and Sam in L'Chaime and had a Chinese before popping on board L'Chaime for a forum mini-meeting. What a cracking boat, and great guy too
No change in the weather the next day either, and another 6 CD's/2 bottles were needed to get up to Windsor, where we parked up on a **** covered towpath knowing we would only be an hour or so from home this morning.
A swift refuel at Windsor along with a pump out showed the fuel cost to be £85 for the whole trip, which equates to around 5mpg, which ain't bad considering half the trip was fairly close to WOT at 7-8mph, and the return journey from Richmond was against a fair old flow too, after days of rain (In stark contrast, the Alcohol bill was closer to £300...LOL)
We had absolutely no mechanical issues either, not a drop of oil used either, and the No1 battery bank (two 120A/H) managed four nights with the fridge and heating on before failing to start the engine (I switched over to No2 bank at this point) which is a first! They soon recovered, but I'll keep an eye on them, as they're five years old now. Oh, I did have to de-fluff the fridge evaporator grille as we had an Ice shortage, which was a major tragedy to SWMBO
All back safely home now, with No Regrets ready for the next trip!
I shall polish her again for providing such sterling service
