Fifty Shades at St Kats again!

[No Regrets]

Yet another lovely trip, nice to see OG on the way down, followed shortly by a snapped throttle cable, amazingly on a clear afternoon, and the part was delivered by courier (top marks to DB Marine for astonishing service, they couriered the part to Hampton Court Palace mooring) and fitted in 15 minutes by myself!

The usual week of polishing and South bank action followed, after meeting Jaws outside St Kats, on his way back from Holland! (expert timing huh?) and an interesting trip upstream involving the worst boat handling from Hire boats and 'new boaters' including rescuing a drowning girl from a lock. The feeling of relief seeing a little hand coming up from the water was immense let me tell you, but the response from their crew was rather disturbing...

All back safe and sound, normal abuse will be resumed shortly...

 

[rubberduck]

What time were you at Hampton court,we pulled in there to let the rain pass as didn't fancy going through the lock in that.

 

[bumperdump]

well done on pulling the girl out, what was the response of the crew?

 

[mark.adams]

Oh god, that sounds awful, no lifejacket i presume?
What was the response?

 

[No Regrets]

RD, we were at Hampton Court at about Midday Friday 8th. Easily recognisable by the Smoke from only one side...LOL

When the girl (20?) fell in, I was chatting to the boat behind, when I heard the huge splash, and my Wife shouted to me, and thinking it was one of our Dogs, I leapt over the guard rail, which fortunately didn't snap, and saw the rest of the family looking into the water, and figured thats where I should be looking too. I then saw the mass of bubbles coming up, and was just contemplating dropping into the lock (stupid I know, but you just DO these things!?) when a little hand became visible. I managed to dip my own hand into the water, and give it a pull upwards, to see a face, and then upper body surface. I held her as high as I could, trying to get her onto the bathing platform (Hey, she was cute!) when her little sisters grabbed her other hand.

As soon as I thought she was safe to a point, I let go, only to be hugely disappointed by the menfolk on her vessel just standing there watching a couple of kids aged 10 trying to pull out a 20 year old. Her feet were hanging onto the fender, which was luckily dangling in the water anyway, and I reckoned she was about to go back in, smashing her chin on the way down.

The lockie was shouting at them to grab her, so i joined in, and eventually the limp wrested Skipper got her top half over the gunnels. Then stood back...:nonchalance:

Perhaps it's because they were Moslems (Pakistani looking at the general dress etc) but they just wouldn't pull the poor thing in! I must admit I was tempted to grab her shorts, but after recent Operation Yewtree arrests, declined, as I suspect it would have all ended up rather messy, and by this time she was able to at least hang on.

Eventually, the Women puled her in, and she disappeared below decks.

They were very grateful by the time we got to Sunbury the guys on the boat were grateful and told me she was fine, despite the abuse I hurled at the Skipper....

TBH, anybody would have just done this, it was all over within twenty or thirty seconds. I was a bit surprised my hand reached the water from where I was though, I tried later and got nowhere near. the Guard rail is a little bent though :ambivalence:

Hero status 5/10 in real terms. A boathook would have sufficed

 

[apollo]

You've always been a hero of mine dude!

 

[Actionmat]

Talk about right place at the right time. Well done.

 

[Ramage]

He flogged the skipper a Mercedes too! (Allegedly).