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Steam narrow boat President

Tideways and Palaces By Bob Crompton

Being a mad impetuous sort of person (not) I had volunteered to be Driver from the BCLM down to Crick and then down towards London, until David Powell was due to arrive somewhere around Rickmansworth, resplendent in his Chairman’s ceremonial dress i.e. bib and brace overalls!!!

By the time we got towards Batchworth, two weeks of Driving, plus cleaning the tubes at Crick had made me a worthy member of the Babs Parkin Mucky Duck Club. So when Capt Nick suggested that I stay on for a few days to help with the Thames tideway voyage, the biggest issue was to find a cleanish shirt for the London transit !!

On the Monday, with David now Driver, we made our way down past the Denham lakes, through Uxbridge, turn left at Bulls Bridge, past the top side of Heathrow, Northolt and into a good lay by mooring outside Sainsburys at Kensal Green. Re provisioning of the boats didn’t take too long and we decided to stay the night, as we were still some way from Little Venice.

On the Tuesday, we had an excellent trip through Little Venice, Islington Tunnel, the Zoo, Camden Locks, past City Rd basin and into Battlebridge basin, our adopted London home, for a quick courtesy call.

Leaving Battlebridge we made good progress through the East End, past all sorts of places with names from a childhood song about the bells of London like Stepney, Shoreditch and Bow. Past Victoria Park and the junction off to Hertford and Bishops Stortford and finally through the lock into Limehouse Basin.

We were met by a Cruising Association steward who had reserved us a prime mooring and told us about the toilet/showers and the Cruising Association Clubhouse, where we later ate a good meal and supped some very passable southern ale. The TV crew arrived soon after for interviews with John Greatrex of the Crystal Palace Trust and Capt Nick about both the bringing of the castings for Crystal Palace down to London and our passage over the Tideway in the morrow to deliver them to South Dock Marina.

A beautiful morning greeted us on the Wednesday and we promptly disposed of breakfast and started preparing the boats for the Tideway. The boats were breasted up and additional ropes (springs) were taken from the fore T stud of each boat back to the mast, as well as additional cross ropes at both bow and stern. Lifejackets were issued, the VHF radio checked out and a safety briefing given by David Powell from his experiences on the Thames the previous year and by yours truly from my experience of sailing in tidal waters. The petrol driven pump was checked out and test run and then rigged in President’s hold ready for instant starting.

The high tide was middle afternoon so we had to be ready to go out on the river around 12.45. At about 12.30 we were ushered into the lock, while David was getting a good fire and a good head of steam up. The lower gates opened and having notified Woolwich VTS, we set off. As we had agreed, David opened her up so we would have steerage way as we left the lock entrance channel. Unfortunately, the exit is blind and as we came out a fast ferry was approaching upstream which necessitated a sharpish turn to starboard to avoid him, before we were able to round his stern and head downstream

A solid half hour plod against the incoming tide ensued, with the biggest problem being the wash from some of the ferries and larger boats causing the boats to “scissor” quite dramatically. One wash in particular caused one of the cross straps to part, fortunately there were plenty of other bits of string holding us together.

Arriving off the entrance to the Marina, we were advised by radio that we were a little early for an entrance, so we throttled back and almost at tickover, nicely stemmed the tide. We got the call to say that the lock was set and started our approach. This was complicated by a pontoon out in the river, just upstream from the entrance and the trick was to avoid being swept onto this, as we started to turn sideways across the flood tide. After a practice go around, we made it OK but not without a sigh of relief from me.

We were quickly through the lock, aided by the Marina staff and after a bit of difficulty with the breeze, managed to reverse under the crane which was to be used for the offloading of the castings.

First job was to shift the remnants of the coal from the centre hold to uncover the castings and just as we were swinging the first casting up, the coal lorry arrived. Despite us having booked the lorry with two hours of waiting time, the driver insisted that we had half an hour maximum to unload him. In the end, we offloaded the coal from the lorry, used the crane to lift the castings over the coal and onto the fairground lorry which was to take them into Sydenham and then loaded the coal by hand with the aid of one of the top planks (it was a significant drop from the quay down into the hold).

The media was out in force, but time and tide wait for no one, so as soon as we had the side sheets up, we winded into the lock and then onto the river. Out in the middle of the Thames with a good fire going, the speed of the boats was really impressive, but just when were getting used to it, the boiler decided to prime fairly spectacularly. The ensuing loss of power caused the boats to become more tide-borne than engine-driven for a short while, with yours truly looking worriedly at approaching ferries and gravel barges.

Order was restored by a very hot-looking David and with no more drama we turned into Limehouse lock, with tide time to spare and were through the basin and at the top of the first canal lock before 5pm. A cup of tea and a Hob Nob on the tow path and Penny departed for home on the Docklands Light Railway while the rest of us worked the boats up to Battlebridge in glorious weather to be moored up ready for the Fly Run the following week.

Bob Crompton