Sep 16, 2018 at 06:52 am

My friend the Moon

Update posted by Martin Wainwright

So it is done! But only after the edgiest moment of the expedition when Penny the Land Support Commander and I slid Clementine off her rather high pontoon at Richmond into what resembled a mill race. My failure to consult the phases of the Moon meant that I was unaware - until I met the Richmond waterfront crew on Thursday evening - that the tides are currently very strong. Wobble, wobble, nearly-tip and whoosh. I was rapidly the small object in the second pic, rocketing off towards central London with no extra power needed from my ageing, and now quite tired, limbs.

Having said that, you do need to have some extra power just to steer and avoid boats, bridges etc. Luckily I had mastered this when my cousin Lucy Skirrow unexpectedly hailed me cheerily from the bank and, in a very deft and lightning manoeuvre from some muddy stairs, slipped £90 from her family and my dear Uncle Tim under the spider straps on Clemmy's stern.

I whirled past the somewhat-feared (by me) Richmond half-lock easily in time to beat the 9.20am shutting of the weir sluices, and so into the Tideway stretch governed by the Port of London Authority's rowing code which I described in the last update. You can maybe imagine my nervous state if you look at this page from that code which was bearing on my mind:

But I have learned to trust and admire the PLA and their note that such dramatic situations are rare was reassuringly true in my case. Throughout my 90-minute slalom from the half-lock to Chiswick Pier, I met no large powered craft but only a lot of scullers, pairs, fours and eights, all of whom treated me with great kindness and encouragement. That said, you need to keep a constant watch. I scraped the first of the invaluable red buoys which mark your lane but otherwise managed to keep well clear of everything. Indeed after 20 minutes or so, I was used to the unsettling system where you proceed mid-river with boats passing you on either side in both directions.

My other tidal experience was nosing in to a shingle bank to text the Land Support Team and realising after ten minutes or so that Clemmy and I were firmly aground because the tide had fallen so fast. This led to the final reappearance of the bung problem; the bung-tip protrudes below her hull and forces the bung open when she is flat on terra firma. There wasn't time to sort things out, so I proceeded onwards for the last 20 minutes with Thames water (yuk) slopping round my feet.

And then, bliss! Shouts, cheers and toots from the bank, and a stylish (I boast) curve towards Chiswick Eyot to sweep back in to Chiswick steps and the site of the now-vanished Vosper Thorneycroft motor torpedo boat yard.

It remains to thank everyone who has helped in so many ways, to say how VERY much your generosity has meant to me and the Treehouse team and to offer up paens of praise to the weather gods (15 minutes of drizzle over seven days), the incredible lock keepers of the Environment Agency and staff of the PLA, and above all to PENNY THE COMMANDER OF LAND FORCES, seen below on her own progress through a Thames lock, albeit in friends' somewhat larger boat, without whom this would have been quite impossible. xx M

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