The Putney Foreshore Festival 2/2: Blue Light Demo

After the presentation of the SUP (stand-up paddleboard) Cup there was another lull but there was rather a lot of emergency service boats (like the one above) lurking with intent and as promised we soon got a "Blue light demonstration".

Also lurking around had been this rower who all of a sudden had a heart attack!!

Fortunately he'd learnt rule #1 to safety on the river which is have an RNLI lifeboat within 100 m at all times and soon they and a rather crowded fire services inflatable were on hand:

Quickly he was assisted ashore and had this miraculous recovery:

Hurrah!!

Then this motor boat that also been hanging around in a suspicious way (above, background) had an engine failure directly in front of Putney Embankment!!

Fortunately they too knew rule #1 so got a tow from the RNLI before you could say "staged". They also seemed to know a rule #2 which is to have an RNLI crew member on-board from the start to help with the lines:

Well planned, guys!

Alas, what should happen next but a fire broke out!!

What are the odds on that: it never rains but it pours (like it did in the morning).

Luckily they also followed rule #3 so the fire boat was immediately to hand for just such an emergency. 

Unfortunately they seem to have their water gun thing (ok pump + nozzle) set to stun and with the wind in their face only made themselves rather wet:

Finally they got upwind of the "fire" and managed to create an artistic arc over the motor yacht: unsurprisingly all the crew seemed to have gone into hiding:

Finally the "fire" was out and the canon switched off, leaving a brief rainbow:

Nice!

Then the RNLI, motor cruiser and fire boat went safely on their way:

Emergencies sorted! Good job Thames Blue Light services!!

I see these guys going up and down the river all times of day and night and they do a fantastic job. 

While I've never needed them its really good to see them in action and know they would be to hand if things went wrong.

The Putney Foreshore Festival 1/2: SUP Cup Presentation

I'd been at the Putney Foreshore Festival before, as posted here and here. It's part of the Totally Thames, that "annual celebration of the River Thames". In particular it seems to be sponsored by the Thames Tideway Tunnel, the team digging the famous Super Sewer.

Alas the weather was cruel, and in the morning it absolutely tipped down. All those fine words about come down and try out stand-up paddle boards were washed away and a tweet announced it would open in the afternoon.

When I went down it looked a bit forlorn, with empty marquees, as in Active360s in the photo above. But there was a decent crowd with that something's-about-to-happen air about them. So I ambled between the stalls of Thames 21 (the litter pick-up people, must do that again), RNLI, ZSL and of course the Thames Tidway Tunnel, the biggest marquee with a model of a boring machine in it.

Then something did happen, as these two started giving out these awards:

It turned out that though the weather had been grim some brave souls had raced 15.5 km on their paddleboards up to Putney. The winners were given those brown trophies (above) made from mud dug out of the Thames Tideway Tunnel construction.

The one on the left is Andrew Hodge, a TTT programme manager and triple Olympic Gold Medallist in rowing (according to Wikipedia, TBH didn't recognise him at the time) and the one on the right is the Thames Tideway Tunnel's top engineer Phil Stride

So they handed out the cylindrical things (which seemed a bit fragile. Andrew was definitely worried when I picked one up to have a look) and the Thames Tideway PR team recorded every moment:

I think there were four or five bods with cameras out there. A Sony A7Sii, a phone on gimbal, a Canon with what looked like a 70-200mm lens and someone out on a rib (more on that later).

Then the top engineer Phil Stride went off to catch-up with our local MP, Justine Greening who I totally failed to take a photo of (doh!).

It was a shame about the weather as everyone had clearly been working for some time on this (look at this long list of events). There were other events - a mass paddle board trip upriver (which I missed) and a rowing race along with the stand up paddle board race (which I also missed). The try to paddle or kayak were cancelled due to the weather and water conditions.

But strangely the weather actually proved their point better than any number of fancy marquees. For when the heavens opens it dumps so much water that the sewage system just can't cope, so rainwater and sewage overflow into the Thames. It is just such a pollution event the Tideway Tunnel is designed to stop: the largest private run and financed infrastructure in Europe.

There was one boat that seemed a little shy, lurking below Putney Railway Bridge, just visible from Putney Embankment:

This is the Bubbler (as blogged here) and it pumps oxygen into the river to compensate for that lost by the flood of sewage which otherwise would kill of the wildlife.

They say that prevention is be better than cure, and this is why the Thames Tideway Tunnel is a Good Thing.