City Centre Sailing 2004 - Richard Elkan

Hello Richard

Jamie Orr dropped me an email saying you were looking for Chebacco material and suggested I got of my a**e and wrote something. So here it is, sent to two email addresses as Jamie wasn't sure which one I could get though to!  Thanks for all your efforts in keeping us Chebacconists
in touch.  Richard Elkan


I live in London and I'd like to take you on a Chebacco trip down the London River, if Richard will permit me. Perhaps you are wondering what the London River is? Well most people would call it the River Thames but the traditional name for the Tidal Reaches of the Thames is the London River and that's where we are going. We are voyaging on Sylvester a wonderful Chebacco, built by Bill Samson and purchased from him, by myself in 2003. We will travel from Sylvester's mooring at
Shadwell, which is about a mile downstream from Tower Bridge to Gravesend about 25 miles further downstream, a five hour journey, with the ebb tide.


One thing you learn very quickly on the London River, is that you if you want to go anywhere, and more importantly get back, you sail with the tide. A third hour Spring tide will run at 6 knots and my 3hp Yamaha just doesn't cut it against this, if the wind drops! So Gravesend it is!  I have done this trip there and back in a single day, I have also done it single handed . But I must confess this trip is a
compilation of many individual trips, so if the sky changes from blue to black, the reason is the pictures might have been taken 6 months apart and if Sylvester changes from an all White to Cream Hull and Fawn Cockpit, it's for the same reason. So professional continuity artists,
look away now!


So it's a twenty five minute drive from my house near Highgate to Shadwell. Sylvester is waiting patiently on her mooring, but to get her out there was quite an event and presents a view of a Chebacco that most owners will never have seen and yes my heart was in my mouth as
700 kilos of Chebacco was craned from the Quayside to the water. ( If your wondering how much this cost, the answer is nothing, as the crane was booked for a morning and only had to lift a workboat and Drascombe longboat in, Sylvester just kind of slipped in alongside.)


What goes up.........




Must come down.      Nice to have helpful friends!!!!!!!

So here we are at the mooring below (photo courtesy of Jamie Orr)
rigging up and getting ready for the off. In the background is Canary
Wharf, the new East End of London, situated on the Isle of Dogs, so
called as this was where King Henry VIII kept his hunting dogs. The
dock entrance (shown above) is to the old Shadwell basin, famous in our
family as being the place where my late father in law moored up in his
Submarine on the occassion of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth (the
2nd that is)  See we're almost related to royalty.



So we rig up and cast off and head down river with the tide. As you can
see the river is only about 400 yards wide here. It can be a very busy
river. Most frequent are pleasure boats taking site-seers down to
Greenwich or the Thames Barrier or the Hydrofoil river buses travelling
at 30+ knots and completely silently at that, can be scary!!!! There
are working boats too, such as tugs with waste barges in tow or the
sand carriers which are small freighters. Weirdest of all is when the
very big Cruise Liners come up to moor along side the Belfast or even
Aircraft Carriers that come up as far as Greenwich. It is not without
it's risks. A friend of mine had his Wayfarer Dinghy moored about
twenty yards from Sylvester. A tug was turning a French Warship at
Shadwell and "got it wrong". He took out my friends mast, turned him
turtle and snapped the mooring chain. The harbour master saw fit to
moor what was left of the dinghy to Sylvester's transom, still up side
down!!!! I was none too pleased and asked  him to remove it before the
mooring dragged. One thing I have learned on the London River is that
manouverability is of great importance. To this end I always keep the
mizzen set, even in winds up to force 6. Often on the river you may
only have one chance to tack, before you run out of water and hit the
embankments. So hauling in the mizzen really powers the boat through
the wind and you never get caught in irons or find your tack has
failed. From Shadwell to Greenwich is just under an hour and rather
than any kind of chart, you just need a good street map to indicate the
river side pubs, many of which we visit from the water if the river bed
is exposed and the tide is flooding. Try it on the ebb and it could be
six to seven hours before you can float off again. You have been
warned!


Here we are moored up at North Greenwich, on the north bank of the
river. Opposite is Sir Christopher Wren"s beautiful Royal Naval
Hospital in Greenwich proper. I once saw a Dolphin in this reach of the
river and have seen a Seal playing around the moorings as far up as
Shadwell.  Most common in the river are the eels. These are still
fished by commercial fishermen, albeit on a very small scale. Delicious
when smoked, disgusting when "jellied", which I am afraid to say is the
traditional East End of London delicacy. Just out of picture is the
Trafalgar Tavern, a great pub to visit by boat. We leave Greenwich and
carry on past the Millenium Dome and down to the Greenwich Yacht Club
of which I am a rather new member. It has a great club house built on
stilts out in the river. The government built this great new structure
for the club when they were forced to leave their old site so that the
Dome could be built. Many people will tell you that this is the only
good thing to come out of the Dome fiasco. It is still unoccupied since
2001. GYC arrange for cruiser racing and it appears that Sylvester has
got herself involved in a race. Here we are trying to outrun some club
member's yacht, he hasn't a chance!!!!!!



Having acquitted ourselves reasonably well in the race (by NOT coming
last!!!!!) we head back to the club house for long drinks and tall
stories.



Greenwich Yacht Club is very close to the impressive Thames Barrier,
that is designed to keep London safe from flooding.(photo below) It is
necessary to call up the barrier control on the VHF radio and ask
permission to pass through the barrier. One interesting thing I have
discovered about Chebaccos is that they are invisible to radar! Stealth
boats, no less!  Despite the fact that I always wait until I am within
sight  of the barrier, the barrier control (call sign London VTS)
always ask me where I am (they could see us if they looked out of their
window), but they are glued to their radar screens. So never assume
your all wooden Chebacco will be seen by other boats' radar. They like
us to motor through the barrier and I do if sailing upwind. On a run it
is ok to sail through but try and beat through and you can get into a
real pickle as the winds do all sorts of strange things between those
weird shape pilings.



Once through the barrier and safely past the Woolwich Ferry, which is a
free car ferry that carries around 50 cars at a time across the river
the river begins to widen gently. Here I have experienced great fun
with wind over tide conditions. This part of the river can kick up a
real chop, especially toward the south bank. I don't know why here
particularly but you sure get a lively switch back of a ride with a
spring tide against a force 4 wind. Sylvester's flat bottom does tend
to pound into the chop, causing much spray and laughter, as long as you
are not the foremost crew member, who takes the brunt of the spray and
keeps the rest of us dry!!!



Here is a picture of the author of this tale. The building right behind
the mizzen is the Woolwich Ferry South Terminal with a ferry in dock.
Level with my eyes is the Thames Barrier, we have just passed through
and the tall buildings are Canary Wharf, in the distance. Traffic from
here on is limited to commercial vessels and private craft. Gone are
the pleasure boats and river taxis. Still there are plenty of moored
barges and other oddities to be on the watch for. We pass Fords of
Dagenham, where Ford cars used to be built. It is now being transformed
into a research centre for the automotive industry. The ebb sweeps us
down past the moorings of Erith Yacht Club where a very Bolgeresque
mini schooner is moored. (below) You can see how the nature of the
river has changed. This south bank is now salt marshes and home to many
birds. I always like this reach, as it is a view of the river unspoilt
by the twentieth century and you can imagine the tall ships of
yesteryear sailing up and down this great river.



Sometimes you don't even have to use your imagination. Sometimes they
just appear, just like this one..........



The Endeavour......... you can tell by the surroundings that Captain
Cook is not on board, in this incarnation. I can tell you I got an
immense shock when I turned round, whilst helming Sylvester and saw
this coming up silently behind me. Still on we go and underneath the
most recent of the London River Bridges, the elegant Queen Elizabeth
2nd bridge, carrying the M25 motorway over the river.



There is still a lot of industry round here and we have lost the salt
marshes under petro-chemical installations. Still Greenhithe is still
an interesting  village and there is plenty of maritime history, if you
know where to look. Not long to go until we reach Gravesend. First we
come to Tilbury a very interesting Passenger Ferry Terminal for London.
Once incredibly busy but now much reduced in importance. It also the
site of a seventeenth century fort, still totally intact and quite
fascinating to visit. From Sylvester we view a huge Japanese cruise
ship and get a cheery wave from one of her crew standing by the
terminal building.



And so on to Gravesend our destination. I could show you pictures of
the old town, the sailing club, the trots of pilot tugs that tow the
large shipping up to the Pool of London or even Princess Pocahontas'
grave (for she is buried here) but I won't as I haven' got any
pictures, but what I have got is a record of what actually was awaiting
us on this trip..................something to appeal to our American
brethren and what all good Englishmen get up to on a sunny summer
weekend...........



Re-enacting the American Civil War.......what else!


Strange what you see from a Chebacco on the London River!  and I'm
really not making this up.

Happy sailing to all,  Richard Elkan, London.


Richard

Perhaps you would add this postscript to the piece I wrote?

P.S. Having just discovered Google Maps, I realise you can follow the course of this trip from Shadwell to Fords of Dagenham, in high resolution satellite imagery. Shadwell is easily identified by the the seven moored boats in the river. At the time of this photograph Sylvester was not one of them! You should be able to identify the Isle of dogs (big U bend in the river) Greenwich, Greenwich Yacht Club (on the south bank), the Millenium Dome (big white circular blob) the Thames Barrier (obvious), the Woolwich Ferry (terminal on both banks) and Fords (on the north bank, just before the hi-res imagery runs out. From here we are in lo-res but you can easily make out the QE2 Bridge, Old Tilbury Docks ( a weird L shape of blue on the north bank) and finally the built up area is Gravesend.

Thanks


Richard Elkan