Dick Wynne
05-19-2006, 05:56 PM
Not one of our better London pulling evenings last night. To begin with, we let go and shoved off from our berth at Limehouse in Vancouver, our Montague Whaler, around 1830. Something prevented us going more than a couple of yards. Casting about for the cause I spotted the power line which we use to charge the lamps, still connected to the socket on the pontoon. This, I explained to a bemused crew, was why electric boats will never catch on.
Anyway with a strong south-westerly behind us we fairly zipped up the Limehouse Cut under the 15ft oars, exchanging waves as usual with the young children in the canalside flats. We bore left at Bow and covered the four miles in all to Hackney in under an hour (not bad for a ton or so under just four oars).
We turned around to come back, this time into the wind, which played havoc with us, often driving us into the side of the canal, and creating a serious risk of oar breakage. Not relishing four miles of this we elected to motor (yes we have an outboard, which we use to get up-tide on the river, and has to live on the boat).
We relaxed to enjoy the ride under the quiet 4-stroke, and I was not entirely surprised when it cut out after a few hundred yards; the canal is not always as clean as we'd like, and plastic bags quite often wrap around the prop and block the exhaust. I tipped up the motor to free it, and was surprised to find a clean prop. I held off informing the crew we were out of petrol, by busying myself in search of other causes (and verifying that all three spare cans were also empty) for as long as I felt reasonable.
So it was back to the oars, and before long, in a tunnel section which funnelled the headwind wind extremely well, we were soon demonstrating that the canal here was as wide as the boat was long, and were obliged to man-haul on the towpath to get through it. Having overcome this obstacle we just had the arrow-straight 2 mile Limehouse Cut to cover again, ending in another wind tunnel I won't bore you with.
We put Vancouver to bed and made it to The Grapes just in time, as they stop taking food orders at 2100. A few pints, aided and abetted by fish 'n chips, bangers & mash etc soon had us realising - hmm, one of our better London pulling evenings...
http://www.wappingwhalers.org/resources/Grapes.JPG
Anyway with a strong south-westerly behind us we fairly zipped up the Limehouse Cut under the 15ft oars, exchanging waves as usual with the young children in the canalside flats. We bore left at Bow and covered the four miles in all to Hackney in under an hour (not bad for a ton or so under just four oars).
We turned around to come back, this time into the wind, which played havoc with us, often driving us into the side of the canal, and creating a serious risk of oar breakage. Not relishing four miles of this we elected to motor (yes we have an outboard, which we use to get up-tide on the river, and has to live on the boat).
We relaxed to enjoy the ride under the quiet 4-stroke, and I was not entirely surprised when it cut out after a few hundred yards; the canal is not always as clean as we'd like, and plastic bags quite often wrap around the prop and block the exhaust. I tipped up the motor to free it, and was surprised to find a clean prop. I held off informing the crew we were out of petrol, by busying myself in search of other causes (and verifying that all three spare cans were also empty) for as long as I felt reasonable.
So it was back to the oars, and before long, in a tunnel section which funnelled the headwind wind extremely well, we were soon demonstrating that the canal here was as wide as the boat was long, and were obliged to man-haul on the towpath to get through it. Having overcome this obstacle we just had the arrow-straight 2 mile Limehouse Cut to cover again, ending in another wind tunnel I won't bore you with.
We put Vancouver to bed and made it to The Grapes just in time, as they stop taking food orders at 2100. A few pints, aided and abetted by fish 'n chips, bangers & mash etc soon had us realising - hmm, one of our better London pulling evenings...
http://www.wappingwhalers.org/resources/Grapes.JPG