We moored, with nb Thistle, on the BWML visitor moorings at Limehouse (£18 per day excluding electricity) on June 19 in readiness for our 'booked' passage from Limehouse to Teddington on 21 June.
We had been told by the lockie that we would need to be ready to enter Limehouse Lock at 0710 21/6/06 as High Tide London Bridge was 0951 and it would be expected we would take 3.5 hours for the journey to Teddington. An overcast start to the day with a mild wind and not too warm. We were up early, in fact 1/2 way through the night at 0530 and were ready to go into lock at 0745, we actually got into the lock at 0655. nb Thistle was first out of the lock followed by nb Hannah and then nb Hakuna Matata. The tide was runnng quite well and the wind made it a little choppy, this was not helped by the two catamarans that passed us soon after exiting the lock and one of the small, fast inflatables that past us at Westminster. We passed under Tower Bridge at 0725 and London Bridge 5 minutes later. Lots of people crosing the bridges on their way to work. Not long beore we got to Chelsea Bridge we could see some smoke coming from nb Hannah's exhaust, I got closer and he slowed down and deployed his anchor from the back of his boat whilst under Chelsea Bridge. I breasted up on him and his engine (Beta 35 HP) had overheated and he had shut it down. Rather than leave him there I got Sue to tie the front ends of the boats togetherand I tied the backs of the boats together and got him to pull up his anchor. As he had some knowledge of engines, but did not do his own maintenance I got him to do a few quick checks, and decided to keep running breasted up whilst his engine cooled down. When it was cool enough to touch he checked for visible signs of problems and found the pipe going from the engine to the calorifier had lost a jubilee clip. A further wait until he could get a jubilee clip onto the hose and top the engine up with water (it took just over 5 litres). I had a quick check over the engine and found another jubilee clip loose so tightened it up. Engine flashed up and ran in neutral for about ten minutes, followed by 10 minutes driving the prop (stilled breasted up). A further visual check of the engine showed there were no apparent water leaks so we split the two boats just after Kew Bridge. (A total of 8 miles breasted up together and my engine, Nanni 40HP, running at 1800 revs). Whilst all this was happening nb Thistle was staying just in front of us (at not far above tickover), and had offered to breast up on the opposite side if needed. Whilst breasted up we hit a sand bar, grounded with a boat breasted up to me, I swung round and could not move forwards or back. One of the Thames work boats and it's tender were just about to pass us as we grounded so they put a rope on and pulled me off - had he have not been there we would have had to split the boats and put an anchor down on the stricken boat whilst I got myself out of trouble. nb Thistle had also offered to turn round and tow us off. We covered the Tidal portion of some 17.75 miles in 3 hours despite being breasted up and making a lesser speed for about half of that distance. By now the sun was shining strongly and most of the cloud had cleared. We got to Richmond Lock at 1010 and had to use the lock, the lockie said it would be another hourbefore the river levels were such that the lock need not be used. Teddington Lock was reached at 1105 and we moored at just after 1200 at Kingston upon Thames on the EA Moorings. Here we met up with nb Nutwood (John & Judy) who are CIBC members and are friends of Val and Michael of nb Thistle Terry and Sue nb Hakuna Matata ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Great things are happening at Yahoo! Groups. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/TISQkA/hOaOAA/yQLSAA/ygtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
