BillyBloater
New member
Last night I completed my first adventure on the bit of the Thames that goes up and down!
We turned up at Penton Hook bright and early on Thursday morning, launched the boat and parked the car and trailer. I must say that the set up at Penton Hook looked very professional and I felt that the car and trailer were going to be secure.
We started motoring down the river at about 09:30 and had an enjoyable few hours stopping twice for lunch, once at Walton and again at Kingston.
Mid afternoon we arrived at Teddington. We motored on down through Richmond Lock to Eeel Pie Island and then turned around and headed back to Teddington going through the hardest rain I think I have ever seen. The start of things to come!
We moored alongside the lock cut at Teddington and wandered in to the town and had a couple of beers and a half decent meal.
As the boat, at 17ft, is a tad on the small side for this type of thing we opted to sleep two on board and I pitched a tent next to the towpath. The rain started pouring down at about half past one.
We left Teddington at about 07:30 and headed of towards central London. The weather was shocking, but we still had a lot of fun. Passing the Houses of Parliament a Police launch came along side, wanting to board us. It was pretty obvious that unless we were going to take our covers down (which we were not going to do in the rain) then we would have to moor up before an officer could come aboard. A friendly plod joined us for 10 minutes or so and we moored up on the pontoon just the other side of London Bridge to let him off. The BBC were on board the police launch filming the whole thing for a new series of the River Police. We grabbed a coffee from Starbucks at St Kats and Carried on downstream with the weather getting even worse.
Navigating the Thames Barrier was no problem at all. We gave London VTS a shout on channel 14 to let them know we were coming through, but as VHF is not a requirement for a boat as small as ours we could easily have managed without. The correct span to go through is clearly identified by large green arrows.
We turned up at Galleons Marina during the worst of the weather and as it was more or less low tide, we gave them a call to see what time they thought we could attempt locking in. The chap at Galleons was great and reckoned that as we had such a shallow draft we could try coming straight in. We must have had inches of water to spare but we very carefully worked our way in to the lock. I do not know how deep the lock is but it was a long time before we got to the top.
The Sun then started shining. We got a pontoon sorted and even managed to get a lift to the petrol station to refuel.
We had booked a hotel next to excel for the night and we had an enjoyable meal and a good nights sleep.
I woke up to see my hometown on the news under two feet of water!! Luckily I had spoken with my wife and I knew that our house had escaped the flooding, although many of our friends were not so lucky.
As the weather had been so bad we were nervous about the condition of the river and decided to cut our trip short by a day and go straight back to Penton Hook in one hit.
We had a much better view of the sights on the way back. By lunchtime it was raining hard again and we really had to push hard against the flow of the floodwater against us.
We arrived back at Penton Hook about 7:30 and we all agreed that this was a trip we would never forget.
If you have not tried going on the tidal Thames then my advice is to give it a go. It really is very easy as long as you have planned adequately and the boat and engine behave!
Many thanks to those of you that gave me so many hints and tips. It made the whole trip much easier.
We turned up at Penton Hook bright and early on Thursday morning, launched the boat and parked the car and trailer. I must say that the set up at Penton Hook looked very professional and I felt that the car and trailer were going to be secure.
We started motoring down the river at about 09:30 and had an enjoyable few hours stopping twice for lunch, once at Walton and again at Kingston.
Mid afternoon we arrived at Teddington. We motored on down through Richmond Lock to Eeel Pie Island and then turned around and headed back to Teddington going through the hardest rain I think I have ever seen. The start of things to come!
We moored alongside the lock cut at Teddington and wandered in to the town and had a couple of beers and a half decent meal.
As the boat, at 17ft, is a tad on the small side for this type of thing we opted to sleep two on board and I pitched a tent next to the towpath. The rain started pouring down at about half past one.
We left Teddington at about 07:30 and headed of towards central London. The weather was shocking, but we still had a lot of fun. Passing the Houses of Parliament a Police launch came along side, wanting to board us. It was pretty obvious that unless we were going to take our covers down (which we were not going to do in the rain) then we would have to moor up before an officer could come aboard. A friendly plod joined us for 10 minutes or so and we moored up on the pontoon just the other side of London Bridge to let him off. The BBC were on board the police launch filming the whole thing for a new series of the River Police. We grabbed a coffee from Starbucks at St Kats and Carried on downstream with the weather getting even worse.
Navigating the Thames Barrier was no problem at all. We gave London VTS a shout on channel 14 to let them know we were coming through, but as VHF is not a requirement for a boat as small as ours we could easily have managed without. The correct span to go through is clearly identified by large green arrows.
We turned up at Galleons Marina during the worst of the weather and as it was more or less low tide, we gave them a call to see what time they thought we could attempt locking in. The chap at Galleons was great and reckoned that as we had such a shallow draft we could try coming straight in. We must have had inches of water to spare but we very carefully worked our way in to the lock. I do not know how deep the lock is but it was a long time before we got to the top.
The Sun then started shining. We got a pontoon sorted and even managed to get a lift to the petrol station to refuel.
We had booked a hotel next to excel for the night and we had an enjoyable meal and a good nights sleep.
I woke up to see my hometown on the news under two feet of water!! Luckily I had spoken with my wife and I knew that our house had escaped the flooding, although many of our friends were not so lucky.
As the weather had been so bad we were nervous about the condition of the river and decided to cut our trip short by a day and go straight back to Penton Hook in one hit.
We had a much better view of the sights on the way back. By lunchtime it was raining hard again and we really had to push hard against the flow of the floodwater against us.
We arrived back at Penton Hook about 7:30 and we all agreed that this was a trip we would never forget.
If you have not tried going on the tidal Thames then my advice is to give it a go. It really is very easy as long as you have planned adequately and the boat and engine behave!
Many thanks to those of you that gave me so many hints and tips. It made the whole trip much easier.
