Friday

David & June set off for the Bank Holiday weekend on the Friday – running aground on the way down the River Wey, due to a shortage of water.  I mention this because on our return the river was so high that we only just managed to get back under our bridge with millimetres to spare, thanks to Dave’s very skilful boat handling.

Arriving at Teddington about 5pm, we met up with three other boats from the club.  The moorings were packed and boats were rafting off two and three deep, with more still arriving.  Discussions about the crack-of-dawn start the following morning, to be ahead of the rush for the lock, rapidly turned into a plan to go through in 45 minutes time and join another of our boats who were already tied up at Chiswick Pier.  Choice between a pleasant, calm sunny evening journey and a rugby scrum at 6am was a no-brainer, so off we went.

Arrived at Chiswick Pier, we met the guy in charge and all tied up for the night.  Checking the boat before going to bed, Dave noticed a RNLI lifeboat buzzing about.  It turned out that one of our boats was moored up on their mooring.  There were no signs and the harbourmaster had failed to point this out, so everyone had to turn out and move higher up the jetty.

Saturday

Good start to the morning.  Pleasant sail down to St Kat’s and a remarkably easy entry into the harbour.  Everyone settled, we all walked over to June’s favourite café on the corner of St. Kat’s for coffee and pastries.  So what to do with the rest of the day?  

It was decided that we’d take taxis over to Leicester Square and get tickets for a theatre matinee performance.  One couple gave the expedition a miss but the other six finally decided on tickets for “The Drowsy Chaperone” with Elaine Page.  We found out later that this was a preview performance and the show did not open until a week or two later.  Lunch next, at Garfunkles – yum!  A leisurely stroll down the Strand to the Novello Theatre, then singing, dancing, tap dancing 1920s style and over-acting like you have never seen, making for an hysterical production.  Great fun.

By the time we came out about 6pm it had started to rain.  Don’t think it stopped until we were all safely back home again.  In fact, a typical Bank Holiday.  Back to the boats for a leisurely cup of tea before supper.  David, never one to sit still for long, decided he’d just see if he could work out what was the matter with the windscreen wiper.  He lifted up the hatch to the lazarette.  “There’s water in here” he called out.  Turning round he opened the engine compartment.  It was a good ten inches deep in water.  Boxes of tools were floating.  “We’re sinking!” he yelled.  After a few quick checks round he jumped off the boat and ran to alert the others.

Immediately people were round with pumps, buckets etc. and the water was eventually reduced so it was possible to see what was going on.  Water was coming in through a split exhaust hose between the starboard engine and the drive leg.  We managed to get it under control but it looked as though Dave would be up in the night to keep pumping it out.

We then tried to work out what we should do.  We had a suitable spare hose on board but, because it was below the water line, we did not think it could be replaced until we could get to a crane.  There are no facilities at St. Kat’s and the nearest crane was probably at South Dock.  However, we could not leave St. Kat’s until the morning tide.  Worse still, the crane crew at South Dock were away for the Bank Holiday and even on Tuesday they were fully booked.

We decided to seek advice from Tim Barfield of Tim Barfield Marine at Hampton.  He has worked on many of our boats over the years and is a former member of the Club.  Although it was now quite late on Saturday evening he took our call and was quite willing to offer his advice.  He told us that it was possible to change these hoses while afloat.  We needed to shift as much weight forward as we could, to lift the stern.  Then we needed to work fast as the water would come in!

We were booked in for supper at the Dickens Inn, so we all walked over there, leaving David on his own.  While the others stayed for a nice meal, I took a takeaway back to the boat.  By the time I got there David had succeeded in wrapping self-amalgamating tape around the the hose.  Checking at intervals during the evening, this seemed to be keeping the water out and we went to sleep feeling relatively safe.

Sunday

Oh that rain!  It never let up.  Our fantastic boat-buddies turned out in their wet weather gear to help David sort out the boat.  Inside I was moving water bottles, drink cans, cleaning materials, tinned food, everything I could think of, into the bow. Meanwhile some of the others set out the anchor to pull the bow down and raise the back end (sorry, stern!) out of the water.  Two large buckets full of water were put in position.  Then everybody climbed onto the bow with their umbrellas up to protect them from the pouring rain.  By raising the drive leg, we were then able to get the exhaust outlet to the surface and hoped that this would reduce the intake of water.

Now Dave had to work alone in the engine room to keep the stern as light as possible.  To his great relief, we had ballasted the boat so well that water level was just below the bottom fitting and no water came in at all.  Once the new hose was fitted to the bottom section we could allow the rest of the team to step off the bow and shelter from the rain while we finished the job.  This involved improvising a gasket and securing the hose properly.

After all that excitement we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day.

Monday

Now the weather appeared to be coming direct from the arctic.  A bitter wind had blown up and we all froze as we stood on the boats to make our exit from St. Kat’s.  I thought it was rather nice that each of the four boats had taken on passengers for the return journey, although this was not quite the delightful, warm summer boat trip they had probably expected.

We were all keen to get home after such dreadful weather.  To get back onto the Wey, we generally have to be back at Thames Lock by 5pm.  We were long after that but David rang the lock keeper who said he could certainly see us through.  He would be manning the weirs for a long time yet, due to the excessive amount of rain.  We had already seen the yellow boards on the Thames.  There was so much water that we did not need to use the lower pound.  We were through in no time.  It only remained for us to fold down the windscreen and side-screens and negotiate the fast-flowing weir stream to get through one of the Weybridge arches ……… and finally home.  What a relief.

We simply can’t thank our boat-buddies enough for all their help during this very serious incident.  Special thanks are also due to Tim Barfield for his advice.  Although he advised us that we should be able to cope on our own he also offered to be with us in 45 minutes if we got into difficulties.

But don’t worry.  It’s not put us off.  We’ll be out on the water again on 22nd June at the start of our trip up the East Coast, along with our VERY good friends in WBCC.

 

June, Tahoe

St Katherine’s Dock