Today we continued our leisurely ride towards the pilot station at the Thames estuary. Our arrival time being dictated by the start of the flood, going up the river. There is one spot in the river that is very shallow and the pilots time the transit of the ship in such a way that we are riding the “wave inbound” over that spot. Although most people equate London with shows, shopping and fashion; it is also a big industrial area and that means that there is a considerable amount of shipping going to and from the port. In the old days it was a major port, where most of the products to and from the Empire were processed. The old London docks were very extensive and always teeming with shipping. That all changed with the arrival of the Box boats. For their draft the river was too shallow and to avoid loosing time ports were sought that where closer to the sea and did not have locks closing off the docking area’s. Thus Felixstowe opposite Harwich is now the biggest English port for containers. As a result most of the old docking areas have been abandoned by the shipping company’s and taken over by developers for housing and offices. Canary Wharf is one such an example.
We approached the pilot station from the North as we had crossed most of the North Sea in the early morning and then started to come down the coast. By noon time we were just past Cromer where I live thus that gave me the opportunity to use my home town as the popular location during the Voice from the Bridge at 1 pm. This time not so many miles from Rotterdam, Amsterdam or Stockholm, now it was 53 miles S.E. off Cromer Norfolk. I later heard that a few of the guests went to the library to find out where Cromer was exactly located as with 5000 inhabitants it is not exactly a Metropolis.
The river Thames from sea to Greenwich. The latter is located right in the bend of the big turn in the river. Photo courtesy: unknown source on the internet
The Thames Pilotage is divided into two parts; the sea pilot takes the ship up to Gravesend and then the river pilot takes over for the 2nd part to Greenwich. As the Thames has a wide estuary it is not that exciting for the first two hours. The only things of interest are old 2nd World War anti air battery emplacements about 1 hour upriver. They look like square steel boxes on poles from a distance but they are multi level steel buildings but very much in decay. According to the pilot they downed a total of 70 enemy aircraft in their whole career.
The first place of interest is the town of Southend on the North side of the river. Grown through the centuries as a London day-trippers paradise, it is now a major commuter town for London. It boosts the longest pier in the world, over a mile long, and a little train runs over it to get you from one end to the other. A number of years ago a coaster plowed through the pier and then they had two half piers for awhile. The captain of the ship probably never gave it a thought that there could be piers in the world of over a mile long.
Lining up for the gap. The ship sailed through with a speed of about 7 knots and 15 meters clearance on either side on water level.
The major hurdle in the cruise up river is the Thames barrier. Put in to protect London from storm floods, in the same way that Holland built it’s Delta Dykes after the floods of 1953. The barrier is designed with half round gates that can be closed if the water level deemed to go too high. It is compulsory to have a tug boat at the stern in case the ship veers off course and then might hit the barrier itself. Each gap in the barrier is 60 meters and with the Prinsendam only being 29 meters wide, it is not a big deal. There is less room in the Panama Canal and the Kieler Kanal locks. By the time we were through here, it was fully dark and so very scenic to do the last stretch of the river, which is very winding. At the last bit, near the Millennium Dome (now called the 02 dome) it is almost an 180o turn around the rivers bend and the shores are quite close by.
Greenwich observatory has now added a Green laser to their tower that indicates exactly the zero-meridian and thus just before docking on the buoys we went from the Eastern Hemisphere back to the Western one. We started docking at 23.30 on the buoys, which is a process that takes about an hour but more about that tomorrow.
July 3, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Nice to see Prinsendam making her way up the River Thames and docking in London.
Have I read somewhere that Captain Albert is taking leave shortly but that, after a relatively short break, he will be resuming command of the Prinsendam in Civitavecchia on 18 October? I hope so as my wife and I will be embarking there for the Black Sea cruise. We last sailed with him in command some years ago on the Veendam.