Tidal Thames Mooring

[vjmehra]

I have recently bought a RIB and have it moored at Kew Marine, which is on the tidal thames and would be ideal, except I live in East London, so I'm looking at South Dock or Gallions Reach, Limehouse says its full on the website, so unfortunately it looks like thats out of the question.

Does anyone have any advice to offer? On the South Dock website it says something about not being able to leave without 24 hours notice, presumably I'm misunderstaning this?

 

[newtothames]

you should try small moorings next to Tower bridge, greenwich yacht club etc.

Kew is a nice place too, close to both Central London and the river.

 

[Jeepster]

My advice would be to get yourself a boat trailer and keep the RIB at home on your driveway (if you have one?)when your not using it. This way it will be far less likely to get stolen or otherwise fiddled with and it wont cost you a penny in mooring fees!
There are plenty of free slipsways on the tidal Thames so you wont have to pay to launch it either, unless you really want to by joining a local boat/yacht club with a private slipway say.
I keep my Marina 16 GT (450kg cuddy cabin cruiser) on a trailer in my front garden and usually launch it at the free slipways at Twickenham or Barns, as they are the two nearest to where I live.
RIBs are pretty light so you probably wont even need brakes on your trailer to tow it behind a normal car.
My towcar is a little Mazda 2 (2003 "DY" model) 1.4TDS, and I can tow 750kg as long as the trailer has brakes.
I've just got myself a lightweight braked trailer on ebay, of about 750kg capacity for £300, so a good trailer need'nt break the bank.
BTW, I now have a heavy duty, single axle, braked trailer of 2 tonne capacity for sale which may be just what you need (depending on your towing vehicle...If you have a 4X4 then its perfect.)
It was too heavy for my Mazda, once the boat was on it, so I got the other trailer as a lighter wieght replacment.

 

[vjmehra]

I don't have a car or a driveway so a trailer unfortunately is not an option!

I live in E1 so can get to the river in a matter of minutes, so really want the boat on the water, I'm curious about the small moorings you mention, is this the name of a company, or do you literally mean there are small moorings available. If so, how do I find out more about them?

 

[No Regrets]

Worth talking to Limehouse, a Rib is surely able to be tucked away in a small corner somewhere?

 

[vjmehra]

Well after a day of ringing around yesterday I got back what I thought were mixed results...

Limehouse- 2 year waiting list
Poplar- No room
Butlers Wharf- No room

No real surprises there

Then...

South Dock- May be able to fit us in, but closes at 7, so no good for summer evenings
Gallions Reach- Room, but they shut at 5!!!!

I found this very odd, does no-one apart from me go out on the river after work???

Imperial Wharf has room and 24 hour access, a bit more expensive, but is awkward to get to anyway.

So in short those all look like no-goers!

I'm visiting Greenwich Yacht Club on Tues, hopefully they may be able to come to my rescue!

 

[Chris_d]

Have you tried the Hermitage moorings just below Tower Bridge, mainly for liveaboards but might accomodate a rib? http://www.hcmoorings.org/

 

[vjmehra]

I gave them a call and they said they could not offer a permanent mooring for a RIB :-(

 

[cafebloke]

Gallions point marina has plenty of space and is one of the cheapest on the river, and if you live in east London it must be perfect.. right next to the city airport.

Chris

 

[Imperial One]

Imperial Wharf has room and 24 hour access, a bit more expensive, but is awkward to get to anyway.

Imperial wharf can be accessed by road with great parking on site, by train with it's own station all of 75 yards away from the pier head and if you have one, by helicopter to Battersea reach - I am sure the pier master would come across and pick you up! You should call again and ask to speak to Coiln (he was away last week) and see what can be done.

 

[No Regrets]

Yep, Colin is a top bloke, and the Marina is in a great place with loads to do on site (Or as near as dammit)

 

[vjmehra]

Gallions Reach closes at 5pm, so despite the location and cost being ideal it being shut before I finish work rules it out!

Imperial Wharf is very nice (and rocking up in a helicopter would be cool!), but not very convenient from East London and costs 266% of what I'm paying at the moment, at Kew. That may be worth it if the transport links were good, but Imperial Wharf station is not the easiest to get to for me, so it doesn't seem a viable option.

 

[teddington_lock]

How was your trip upstream ?

See you came through yesterday ...

 

[vjmehra]

Yeah, our first time on the non-tidal Thames in our own boat (have been once before in a hire boat), well it was quite eventfull!

We managed to get the tides at Kew correct, so at least we didn't end up getting stuck on a sandbank But we did severely misjudge the speed at which we could make progress, with our initial plan of going to Windsor quickly shelved!

In the end we made it to Shepperton, although that was only because some kind people decided to give us a tow! Our engine stopped around 10 mins past Shepperton Marina (no idea why), thanks if you're reading this, guys on the two narrowboats tied together!

We managed to get started again this morning, getting to the marina to fill up, however on trying to leave the engine wouldn't start again, although eventually after revving it enough it finally did...

Finally we pulled into Kew marine and once again...the engine packed up! Very strange, need to get it checked out...

That said, it was eventfull!

We were pretty carefull with our wash/speed, so hopefully that was all okay, although it did seem that all the passenger ferries were going a lot quicker than us, which was odd!

 

[newtothames]

Going slow with outboard engines is always difficult, they are designed for high speed at high rev! especially the two stroke versions which always have problem at low rev=>low speed.

I remember I always had problems inside the locks with my Evinrude 70hp, always died at low rev and I thought it's just me but then realised most outboards have problem at low rev.

If your engine works fine at high rev then it is probably just the carb needs cleaning, might be able to get some fuel cleaner and add to your fuel tank and it does the job usually.

But if it dies at high rev, then it could be a bit of bad news!!!!

 

[Jeepster]

Four stroke outboards are the solution...but they aint cheap!

 

[teddington_lock]

If they are dying at low revs , get the slow running jets cleaned out , best way is high pressure air hose.

 

[vjmehra]

Yesterday we had a little trip down to Fulham Bridge (from Kew), but on the way back, the engine cut out, I noticed the fuel tank was slightly 'sucked in', so I vented and pumped again and it worked fine...my current startup procedure is to vent the vapour, close the vent, then pump, should I be doing something different here do you think?

 

[Ramage]

The vent should be open at all times when the engine is running.

 

[vjmehra]

Ah that would make more sense then, so:

Startup

01) Connect engine to fuel tank
02) Open Vent
03) Pump

Shutdown

01) Close Vent
02) Disconnect Engine from fuel tank
03) Run engine to ensure all remaining fuel is out of the system