Great River Race 2015: Two Special Boats

Two boats in the 2015 Great River Race caught my eye in particular.

One was Jubilent (above), a replica of the Naval Victualling Commissioners’ Barge in the shape of a Royal Shallop. It's part of the waterman tradition along with the Doggett’s Coat and Badge race, as described here.

Going further back in history, really much, much further, was the half sized reproduction of the Dover Bronze Age boat:

It felt rather appropriate to see it on the Thames, given that many bronze age artefacts have been found along the banks of the river, as I posted about last year.

Great River Race 2015: Buff's Boat

G'day all! Buff Staysail here! Buff by name and Buff by nature!

I told JP I'd write something on the GRR but you know how it is - couple of late nights, head a bit delicate in the morning and the post somehow gets "eaten by the hair of the dog" if you know what I mean!

But I had to comment on the legends on Hammer of the Gods who clearly had their priorities right, fortified as they were by a bottle of something suitable strong, complementing their no-nonsense look.

Buff would have been right at home here with their "no worries" rowing style:

Good sports one and all!

This is Buff Staysail, over and out!

Great River Race 2015: Sassi says its "oarsome!!!" (geddit!?)

Hi Guys,

OMG, you GRR guys ROCK! I mean - those outfits, they were totally awesome - or should that be oarsome - GEDDIT!!!

Take the Ooo....PS above: abs. fab. guys!!! Way to like totally commit!!!

And ladies of Cam - I love, love, love the look! Feathers and masks!!! Count Sassi in!!

Just what you need for a Venice Ball - am I right?????

More great hat action here:

Alas not everyone was pulling their weight, as can be seen by this photo:

Now Pigs going to ham was TOTALLY in the spirit of things but St Quentin, would an Edwardian jacket and boater be too much to ask?? Hmm?

Of course its not all about hats - there's also SELFIES!!!

Main thing to remember is that everyone who finished is a winner!!!

(but some are more stylish than others!! - and as for JP, just DON'T ASK. Fashion d.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.)

Luv yah!!

Sassi xxx

Great River Race 2015: Go Gladys!!

Hurrah for Chris (of Rowing for Pleasure) and co (aka the "Whiskered Terns") on Gladys!

Here they are pulling well during today's Great River Race trying to repeat their previous victories.

And they were seen over-hauling a couple of boats as they headed up the Thames....

But was it enough....?

Crossness: The Cathedral of Sewage Works

Two hundred years ago London was a mess with raw sewage flowing into the Thames and thousands dying of cholera. In 1858 the "Great Stink" from the river got so bad that Parliament had to close and it was therefore generally agreed that something had to be done.

Enter the engineer Joseph Bazelgette who supervised the building of the great Victorian sewage network for London: 100 miles of intercept sewers, 450 miles of main sewers and 13,000 miles of local sewers. It was future-proofed by being built with double the necessary capacity and is still being used today.

All that waste was sent down the estuary to two pumping stations, one on each of the river banks, which discharged it into the out-flowing Thames.

The pumping station on the south side was built at Crossness and opened on the 4th April 1865, by a lot of big-wigs including the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York and the Lord Mayor of London.

It could have been one of those hidden away, not to be talked about, bits of ugly but necessary machinery. But for some reason the Victorians built the pumping station as a cathedral of industrialisation, ornate cast iron decorations around a central Octagon.

The building contains some of the largest steam engines in the world: their scale can be judged in this picture of two of the beams:

It has a wonderful Gothic feel to it, and you won't be surprised to hear its been the set of many films, TV programmes and pop videos:

It was last used to pump after the great floods of 1953 and then abandoned. It might have been sold for scrap but fortunately the works were so heavy it would not have been cost effective, and was therefore left to rot.

So it was saved by default for the nation, and is now a Grade 1 listed sewage works. It's not open that often as the restoration program still has many years to go, but one such opportunity arose last weekend as part of the Totally Thames festival.

I passed it when walking from Erith to Greenwich and wanted to go in but it was closed, so I kept an eye open for an opportunity - and was glad I did!

As to that artist mentioned in the previous post? Well of course it was John Martin who came up with the idea 25 years before Bazalgette implemented it.

I've posted about him before, as his life seems amazingly rich, including art and engineering, writers and royals, from racing on steam engines with Brunel to giving a home to the author of "The Mummy".

And Crossness seems to be the embodiment of that mixture of the two cultures, where form and function both show the ideals of the Victorian era.

What did sailors use before toilet paper was invented?

So now you know.

You might be wondering what JP was doing in a museum with these sorts of exhibits?

Well it was grade 1 listed awesome and meant I could babble about one of my favourite artists - can anyone guess who that is and hence where I was?

JP's foil-up sailing project!

In my last post I asked whether you could add foils to everything, and there could only be one response to that question and add foils to JP's own boat.

It's a classic Hobie cat (or at least a scale version) and clearly new-tech foiling required an expert, so we asked Hannah White of project Speedbird. Alas she was unavailable but mini-fig Hannah (above) was only too happy to join Team JP's foiling project!!

The first question was to the material to use for the foil, and we plumpt for Grape-Nuts cereal packet. This was found to be stronger than the Kellogg's Crunchy-nut equivalent (plus lower sugar - hurrah!):

Team JP engineers used high-tech design technology (Microsoft Visio) to define the foil size and shape, to optimise the aerodynamic effect. Naturally the coating was foil (for strength, water resistance and that shiny, laser bright look) and mini-fig Hannah was delighted by the result:

Of course the critical stage was the testing and we had to wait for optimum conditions in terms of water depth, temperature and number of bubbles.

Finally, we were able to launch the JP-foiling boat, and mini-fig Hannah had to hold on tight!! Yes, it was literally flying in the air!!

After a couple of successful runs it was back to land for a debrief:

Mini-fig Hannah's verdict: "Big thumbs up!" (or at least, the mini-fig equivalent).

So a success and proof that the JP foil-up project works!!!

It was, if I say so myself, a total foil-up!

Holy foiling cows

Can you - should you - add foils to everything?

Also, where are the laser canons? Surely it has laser canons, somewhere in the bow...

Zap, zap, zap!

Thames picture puzzle

Yesterday was a busy day on the Thames foreshore for men and women with hi-vis gear: but what were they doing, where, why and for how long?

The Last Tall Ship

Over the last few years, as part of the Thames Festival, tall ships have been coming to Greenwich for the last weekend of August, a three day long bank holiday.

On Monday there was a parade of sail followed by fireworks!!

There was also rain, lots of rain.

Now rain is typically incredibly rare in London - in fact, several hours can go by without it raining at all! Some people even call it the "Sunny City"!

[Ed: Who? Unable to fact check this!!]

Yesterday this unusual meteorological condition, combined with having a recurring bug, meant I felt more like making crab with linguine, watching Parks and Recreation, then having an early night.

Today I went exploring down river to see what could be seen of these majestic vessels. But alas, they had headed out to sea, leaving just this one remaining:

This is the Dar Mlodziezy, a Polish ship built in the Gdansk shipyards of Poland in 1981.

However I overheard one women say she had told her husband it was the Cutty Sark.

Just for comparison, this is the latter, land-locked in its glass sea:

And notice how it is not raining in any of these pictures! The Sunny City indeed!

Tempted to go for a swim?

The water is not as inviting as it looks at first:

The changing Thames - from above

I was recently researching a picture my dad gave me, trying to work out where and when it was painted. It was of an urban scene, in London, probably from Cheyne Walk where so many artists visited and lived.

The history of the area proved easier to track down than the artist, with resources like the Britain from Above, which revealed the photo above of Battersea Reach in 1928.

I was staggered by how much London's river bank has changed, and recently too, for these factories were mostly there 50 years ago. Now that area is part of the expanding developments of river view apartments, with another 100,000 planned between now and 2020.

Before the transformation there were factories making candles and soap, mills for flour and sugar, distilleries, malt-houses and much much more.

This site allows you to compare modern satellite photos side-by-side with old OS maps from a hundred years ago. And for this stretch of the river in the 1888 - 1913 maps there were engineering works, saccharum works and a starch manufactory (yes, that's what they called it).

After looking through these photos and maps I biked along the oh-so-smart Thames path for this stretch of river. My eyes could see the concrete and glass but in my head I saw chimneys and brick. On the river weren't tourist boats but dozens of lighters taking goods down to the docks.

London is ever changing, but this was more than that, a transformation, the end of the industrial Thames.

The rivers and air is the better for it, but it is worth remembering this smoking, dirty but hard working part of the city's history, which helped build modern London.

The changing Thames - from below the surface

Nice video from the PLA on how they track how things are changing below the surface.

Next of course, how the Thames is changing - from above.

Two super-yacht videos and a question

J-Class Bicentenary 2015 from J Class Association on Vimeo.

So I was watching the video above and had this thought.

It's a great video of its type, full of clips of beautiful Js racing along the Solent. But it's a very traditional view of sailing, jackets and ties on the lawn of an exclusive club, full of.... shall we say "seniors"? That hat at 03:47....

Was this sort of thing, I wondered, the best way to attract new-comers into sailing? Would it, rather, give the wrong impression: that there are barriers and that socialising isn't open and inclusive?

Then today I was surprised, not for the first time, by finding out that a non-sailing colleague knew all about S/V Delos, and others like them on YouTube, enjoying videos such as this one:



Go Brady and Josje!

The Delos crew are doing a fantastic job - great videos and sailing, with some sweet world cruising, very different from the profile of a traditional yachty.

And I wondered, have you too been surprised by discovering that someone you know who you didn't think was into sailing has enjoyed these videos?

Blighty's Booming Boating!

"Ben's bloody brilliant!" booms Buff.

Ok, enough alliteration, but it is good news for boating as it appears that its not just cycling thats had a boost in the last few years.

According to the Telegraph "between 2010 and 2014 the number of people who took part in boating activities went up from 2.75 to 3.5 million."

In addition, the "number of craft, including yachts, canoes, dinghys and windsurfers, owned in Britain has also gone up, from 1.1m in 2011 to 1.2m in 2014" (thanks to Chris we can now add at least one to those numbers).

Is it the post-Olympics glow or is it Ben Ainslie's America's Cup challenge or new cool ways of getting out on the water (such as the foiling Moth, above, from the ACWS, or of course the RS Aero) or warmer weather or ...

Jolly good news any way you look at it.

Architecture Picture Puzzle

Two foodstuffs and a drink: what are they?

The 2015 London Free Cycle

The three year anniversary of the 2012 Olympic Games led to some hand-wringing comments about its legacy being squandered. But over the weekend it became clear that at least one sport has thrived, namely cycling.

The Prudential Ride London was a set of events open to both the casual weekend biker such as myself and gold medalists like Laura Trott.

On the Saturday the centre of London was made car free so that 70,000 cyclists of all abilities (all the way down to those with stabilisers) could explore those famous sights (above and below) without fear of being run over.

I went on a similar Skyride back in 2011 but this was bigger, with Mayor Boris calling it "the London Marathon on wheels".

It was absolutely fab and I combined it with the start of the 300th Doggett's Coat and Badge race. In fact I ended up doing the loop two and a bit times (route here), crossing Waterloo Bridge in total six times, three north to south and another three in reverse:

There was a bit of a crush around Trafalgar Square and Westminster where the route narrowed and there were frequent crossing points for tourists:

But the organisation was absolutely superb: lots of volunteers doing useful things and music all over the place, with bands like this one close to the Bank of England:

On the Sunday there was the racing, with professionals and serious amateurs heading off to loop around Box Hill just like for the Olympics, and again SW London was split into two.

The number of places had been increased from 16,000 to 20,000 in the first two events and finally this year 25,000 but was still massively over-subscribed, with 86,001 applying for the 100 mile race. They must have really enjoyed the finish line:

All in all, a hugely fun event, and my favourite track to bike to was this one:



With a tube strike threatened this week it might be an idea to have that bike handy and be ready to head back into central London.

The 300th Doggett's Coat and Badge Race

The America's Cup and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race often boast of their tradition and ancient history, but the Doggett's Coat and Badge Race is way older. 300 years old yesterday, to be precise.

It is also a connection to the tidal Thames's great maritime history, for it only open to young watermen “in the first year of their Freedom of the Watermen’s Company".

The founder of the race, Thomas Doggett, was not either a watermen or lightermen but instead an actor. However the watermen were the taxi drivers of the age, so he obviously appreciated their work and so set up the race in 1715 to commemorate King George I's accession to the throne.

The field of six raced from just below London Bridge to Cadogon pier and as I was in London anyhow I wandered down to the start.

It seemed a bit haphazard, with no clear "go" though HMS Belfast fired a salute 15 minutes earlier. The rowers just seemed to edge upriver and then go for it. I guess with a course that long it doesn't matter too much.

Anyhow, congratulations to the winner Louis Pettipher (top photo, blue shirt).

Who can guess what I was doing in central London and what form of transport took me there?

Great DW Kayaking Race Video

The Devizes to Westminster is one of the world greatest and toughest endurance kayak races, and its spirit has been captured in this recently released short video.

It follows Steve Backshall who was undertaking it to raise money for World Land Trust, a charity really worth supporting. The biggest two environmental problems of the day are global warming and loss of habitat, and its efforts to protect the richest habitats helps address both.

Tech heads might like to know it was filmed on Sony A7s, Handycam AXP33 and an action cam.

More ACWS Portsmouth photos

More ACWS photos from Saturday. The eagle eyed will spot that some had already been posted but have been clipped tighter.