Thames tideway

[Scholar Gypsy]

I am very grateful to David Johns, who has made these three videos of the recent St Pancras Cruising Club trip on the tideway.

* St Pancras to Limehouse
* Limehouse to Margaretness
* Margaretness to Teddington.

 

[PCSB]

I enjoyed watching these as David published them. 

[Tonka]

Can not believe he missed the Grand Union at Brentford. Was appalled at the vegetation in Teddington Lock and noticed it was not the whole lock

[Hudds Lad]

I'd almost persuaded J it was something we could do at some point, until the shot of the boat bucking like a bronco on the waves possibly put her off for life  

[Scholar Gypsy]

3 hours ago, Tonka said:

Can not believe he missed the Grand Union at Brentford. Was appalled at the vegetation in Teddington Lock and noticed it was not the whole lock

 On Brentford I can offer you two reasons:

 

1) David had (as he mentioned in the commentary) covered this section before in an earlier video. See below:
2)   He was having a little snooze between Hammersmith and Richmond (see second photo, taken just by the piece of modern art).

On Teddington, the outer gates of the barge lock have been out of action for about 4 years, so we can only use the inner half. A pity, as I  reckoned the 590 metres of boat would just about fit in the lock, three abreast.

 

 

1 hour ago, Hudds Lad said:

I'd almost persuaded J it was something we could do at some point, until the shot of the boat bucking like a bronco on the waves possibly put her off for life  

My apologies! Personally I reckon pitching is good for safety - though it may cause some mild nausea and breakage of crockery.  MOBIUS is short and light - longer and heavier boats pitch much less which means that on occasion you can get a bit of water running along the sidedecks and in the side doors if you have not taped them up. It's fair to say that the centre of London is usually quieter than this, and if pick a tide so you can depart Limehouse at 0700 then it's usually much quieter....  

[howardang]

2 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

 On Brentford I can offer you two reasons:

 

1) David had (as he mentioned in the commentary) covered this section before in an earlier video. See below:
2)   He was having a little snooze between Hammersmith and Richmond (see second photo, taken just by the piece of modern art).

On Teddington, the outer gates of the barge lock have been out of action for about 4 years, so we can only use the inner half. A pity, as I  reckoned the 590 metres of boat would just about fit in the lock, three abreast.

 

 

My apologies! Personally I reckon pitching is good for safety - though it may cause some mild nausea and breakage of crockery.  MOBIUS is short and light - longer and heavier boats pitch much less which means that on occasion you can get a bit of water running along the sidedecks and in the side doors if you have not taped them up. It's fair to say that the centre of London is usually quieter than this, and if pick a tide so you can depart Limehouse at 0700 then it's usually much quieter....  

The best way to ease the effects of pitching is to SLOW DOWN. I am sometimes perplexed to watch narrowboats plough through choppy water and then complain about the rough conditions. 
Wind against tide conditions also cause the river to be much choppier than expected and more care should be taken in these conditions.

 

Howard

[Scholar Gypsy]

2 hours ago, howardang said:

The best way to ease the effects of pitching is to SLOW DOWN. I am sometimes perplexed to watch narrowboats plough through choppy water and then complain about the rough conditions. 
Wind against tide conditions also cause the river to be much choppier than expected and more care should be taken in these conditions.

 

Howard

In general I would agree, but I think it's more complex in a convoy, where boats handle differently and each skipper has a different view of how fast they need to go to maintain control. The lead boat in each group does try (and I think this is unavoidable) to maintain constant speed/ RPM, otherwise things can get rather messy. 

[howardang]

2 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

In general I would agree, but I think it's more complex in a convoy, where boats handle differently and each skipper has a different view of how fast they need to go to maintain control. The lead boat in each group does try (and I think this is unavoidable) to maintain constant speed/ RPM, otherwise things can get rather messy. 

I hear what you say but if it is necessary for the lead boats to maintain a constant speed maybe a modest reduction in that set speed might be worth considering? 
 

Howard

.

 

 

 

[blackrose]

I met a couple of SPCC boats in Limehouse basin about 15 years ago while I was waiting to take a couple of friends upstream to Brentford. The SPCC boats were doing the Thames barrier trip, something which I wouldn't have been confident enough to do on my own, and they invited me to join them. Unfortunately one of my friends was married which brings with it the associated inflexibility and lack of spontaneity, and he had to be in Brentford by a certain time that afternoon, so unfortunately we couldn't do the barrier trip with the SPCC. One of my boating regrets. 

9 hours ago, howardang said:

The best way to ease the effects of pitching is to SLOW DOWN. I am sometimes perplexed to watch narrowboats plough through choppy water and then complain about the rough conditions. 
Wind against tide conditions also cause the river to be much choppier than expected and more care should be taken in these conditions.

 

Howard

 

You can hardly say they were going too fast on the tideway! When it gets choppy in the Pool if London it can come from all sides and there's often not much you can do about it. Anyway boats are meant to pitch and roll, it's only canal boaters who think that's unusual, uncomfortable or alarming.

Edited August 5, 2023 by blackrose

[Scholar Gypsy]

6 hours ago, howardang said:

I hear what you say but if it is necessary for the lead boats to maintain a constant speed maybe a modest reduction in that set speed might be worth considering? 
 

Howard

.

 

 

 

We were already going quite slow, in order not to arrive at Richmond before the gates lift.

[blackrose]

4 hours ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

We were already going quite slow, in order not to arrive at Richmond before the gates lift.

 

You've got to be going faster than the tide that's pushing you otherwise you'll have no water going over your rudder and lose steering - unless you're in slack water or punching the tide - in which case you'll already be going slow enough on any underpowered displacement hull canal boat.

Edited August 5, 2023 by blackrose

[Scholar Gypsy]

20 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

You've got to be going faster than the tide that's pushing you otherwise you'll have no water going over your rudder and lose steering - unless you're in slack water or punching the tide - in which case you'll already be going slow enough on any underpowered displacement hull canal boat.

Most of the day (according to my GPS gadget, referred to in video 2!) we were doing between 4.5 and 5.5 knots, although we did get as slow as 3.5 above Hammersmith as I had to waste a bit of time before getting to Richmond. The estimates for the time of lifting the weir (HW-2) are often out by 30 mins either way.

[Grassman]

On 04/08/2023 at 13:33, Hudds Lad said:

I'd almost persuaded J it was something we could do at some point, until the shot of the boat bucking like a bronco on the waves possibly put her off for life  

 

As Simon mentioned, leave Limehouse before 7am ish and you get through central London before it gets busy with the trip boats and those 'thrill ride' RIBS. Both times we've done it we left around 6am and the only traffic was a couple of UBA clippers, and they slowed down for us anyway. My wife had previously been very apprehensive but ended up absolutely loving it.