The Great River Race 2013 Photos from Putney

There's a tube direct from Tower Hill to Putney Bridge, but Gladys had gone through before I got there (I asked and someone remembered seeing her), veterans that they are.

However got to see the tail end of the Great River Race fleet:

 It was more colourful and generally more relaxed than the serious rowers that went earlier:

 The yoofs, of course, had their iThings and sound systems:

 These two boats I'd seen before at Tower Bridge:

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats:

Can't remember why this boat caught my eye:

Of course some were working very hard - such as those brave souls on the oldest powered lifeboat: you can see why it needs an engine!

Well done to all involved!

The Great River Race 2013

Today was the 2013 Great River Race and I ended up managing to see most of it not just once but twice!

Having enjoyed my viewing point for the start of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, and having lots of spare time today, I took the tube down to The Tower. This time I stayed on the north side to be closer to the boats which were sticking close to the right hand side.

Soon we were rewarded by the first few boats, including #1 herself, the world's oldest motor lifeboat, from Walton-on-the-Naze the James Stevens No.14:

Then there was a flood of boats, often with waiting supporters on or near Tower Bridge. It was an impressive sight:

This is a busy, narrow and fast flowing part of the river and at times it was a bit "interesting":

 I kept a look out for Gladys and soon spotted Chris and the others:

They were going strong, aiming for the old farts Veteran's Over 60 Class, though there was time for a quick snap of Tower Bridge:

I was going to yell out "good luck Gladys" but someone got there first. I did consider yelling out "good luck old farts!" but not sure if that was allowed when standing in the grounds of The Tower.

There were too many boats to post pics of each of them, but some of the costumes were good. This one is from Malta:

This one seemed a bit of a joker:

These looked like a hen night:

The river got crowded....

 ... and then the rush subsided, leaving just a few stragglers:

New moto: "Sky: believe in third from last?"

Then it was time to get back on the tube to race the rowers to Putney Bridge.

Would I to be in time to see Chris and co race by on Gladys or would the old farts veterans get there first?

Magical night with northern lights

For the last night at sea my watch was 9 pm until midnight and it was jolly cold. We'd got south enough for it to get dark, just below the Arctic Circle at 65.5N, and it was a clear, star filled night.

Now we were motoring the main duty on watch was keeping an eagle eye out for ice, and it wasn't easy. Ok, some big 'bergs were pretty obvious as they reflect like the White Cliffs of Dover:

Smaller bits are however harder to spot and some become translucent, vanishing into the waves. A couple of times we had to slow down to get through flows of bergy bits spored by an island of ice.

It was hard work and I was looking forward to my warm bunk when it was decided to keep going and do a second watch as we'd be anchoring soon.

We were rewarded for this effort by a mini-display of the northern lights (top pic) which rather remarkably were to the south of us, but that's Greenland for you. They only went for a few minutes but we'd definitely seen them.

It ended up being rather a magical night, a harsh beauty of stars, shooting stars, Iridium satellite flares and what looked to me like noctilucent clouds:

For the first time since Iceland we saw some flashing lights marking out a channel guiding us toward the narrow entrance into Tasiilaq fjord.

Then in the dim light of what was now early morning could make out the town, a jumble of coloured wooden houses clustered around a little hill:

The anchor went down with a splash and rattle of chain: we had arrived and I could head down to my bunk and rest.

Speed boat delivery service

The wind faded as we approached Tasiilaq and our boat speed dropped to a knot or two

Every now and then there'd be a puff, but progress was painfully slow: even with the sun out and the sky blue it was frustrating.

But we had got close enough to Tasiilaq for a high speed delivery service to bring a replacement starter-motor for our engine (above).

There was a roar from below and then a chug-chug-chug. We could get moving again, pausing only to let two who had tight deadlines zip ashore in the speed boat.

The rest of us kept going, passing a dramatic iceberg with a hole in it:

As often is the way, we were predicting an arrival time in the early hours of the next day.

I had one last night watch to do.

Sailing down the east coast of Greenland

Ok, back to Greenland for a few days.

So we escaped having engine failure in Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord by towing using the inflatable and headed south-ish towards Tasiilaq, with a way point a little offshore to avoid ice.

The wind was pretty good for nearly two days, and we galloped along sometimes surfing down waves at 10+ knots.

However during R. & T.'s watch they got gusts 40 - 50 knots which was too much, and which could well have been katabatic in nature, coming off one of the glaciers (see above).

But that's what reefing is for.

The storm that had blown through a few days ago had left a bit of swell, which is always hard to capture in a photo and while this pic looks impressive it probably was taken a bit too close to the wave to really get a feel for it:

The view was always amazing.

Over the two weeks we spent many days sailing down the coast and Greenland was one long line of mountains, almost entirely unclimbed and unexplored. The mountains would go right down to the sea, intercut with glaciers, and behind would be rank upon rank of other peaks fading into the blue.

An empty, beautiful land.

Then nearby there'd be icebergs of course:

We also got the most wonderful sunsets:

But eventually, on the day we were meant to arrive, with under a hundred miles to go, the wind died.

More Clipper Yacht Race Photos

Apologies for the delay in update but I have no laptop and photo editing + blogging with an iPad or Chromebook isn't as easy. At some point the jpegs are reduced in resolution though I then further shrink them to blog size (originals available on request).

Anyway here are a few more in particular of Derry Londonderry Doire - and we get to find out what Susie says.

More photos of the other three yachts that went into the Pool of London on request.

BTW Clipper experts - how were the four select yachts chosen?

Clipper Round the World Yacht Race starts in London

No blog posts on Greenland as this weekend's been busy with a Prom and the start of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.

It's been sad how many of the big races like Volvo have ignored the UK recently - another sign maybe that sailing isn't as thriving as it used to be.

So it was good to see a major race starting not just in the UK but here in London. I was able to go down to Tower Bridge to see them leave on what turned out to be a lovely sunny day.

Good luck to all yachts and their crew and well done for getting to the starting line. Ahead will be a great adventure you'll never forget.