BOATS OF ALL SORTS

There used to be a thousand or so holiday cruisers on the River Thames; the number has now dropped to one hundred or less.  The boatyards you could probably count on one hand.  The yard where we4 used to voyage from has been replaced by mobile phone and IT shops.  Such is progress. Soon no one will need to go away; we’ll all be able to take virtual holidays complete with memories and souvenirs, just like the film ‘Total Recall’.  Scary!

Boats are often given names of places, Bermuda Spray, Gay Bahama iii (you couldn’t call a boat GAY anymore!); or girls names, Marina, Suzy Q, or Princess, Lady or Queen something.  Sometimes they are given a title, such as Marchioness, Empress or Countess, (perhaps not so lucky, because a number of Empresses and Marchionesses have been sunk over the years).  But the point is that boats are never named after boys!  Girls rule on the River!  Hooray!

The first boat I remember wasn’t named after a titled lady or a girl. It was called ‘Glow-worm’; more of an aeroplane name really, like ‘Gypsy Moth’ – wasn’t that also the name of Sir Francis Chichester’s yacht?  It was made of wood.  Most boats are made of moulded plastic of some sort, or fibre glass.  Glow-worm was an old boat, loaned out to families who were cruising for the first time.   If you didn’t like it you could go back to the boat yard, before the end of the holiday.  We stuck it out for a week, and how it did rain! Had it rained any harder we would have needed wet suits.  Well, we had those anyway!  It poured down.  And the problem with old, wooden boats is that often they leak.

     There were two parts to Glow-worm.  A main cabin and galley in the bow, and a cabin in the stern.  Steering was done from a well in between the two, with a tarpaulin to put up in bad weather.  I remember returning to our mooring on one occasion when it was raining, and the tarpaulin had collected quite a lot of water. There was a large pool of rainwater in the middle of the cover.    My father opened it to we could go inside, and the whole lot fell on him.  He was soaked!  There were a lot of damp clothes on that trip.  I don’t remember how they were laid out to dry in such a small space.

     Glow-worm had berths for four people.  We were five.  The small cabin in the stern was used by the three of us, my brother, my sister am I.  It had two single bunks, one on each side of the boat, so one of us had to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag.  I think my sister and I took turns because our brother wouldn’t.  She was five and a half, he was nearly seven, and I had just had my ninth birthday.  There was a leak directly above where the top of the sleeping bag lay.  It was dark blue in colour.  We had to wriggle right down inside to avoid getting wet, but at least it was nice and warm.  No matter how hot it gets in the daytime, nights always get a bit chilly on the River.

          Gay Bahama III was designed differently to Glow-worm.  Made from fibre glass or moulded plastic, there was no central well, steering being done from a corner of the saloon, at the bow.  There was a big well at the bow, where my mother handled the mooring rope and a small one aft, which was my station.

          The saloon had a table and seats, a radio (no TV, although I believe one could be hired for a nominal fee), and a cupboard for crockery and eating irons.  The seats could be converted into a double berth at night my means of a board fitted between them.  The board hung on the wall when not in use.  The galley was narrow, with limited equipment and the bathroom contained a wash basin and a chemical toilet.  There was also a shower, although it was very basic and rather difficult to set up.  Some of the boatyards did provide ablutions, but we didn’t use them often.  Nowadays, there are many fewer boatyards, and the facilities on board ship are greatly modernised compared to those of thirty- some years ago.

          The toilet had to be emptied every couple of days, and as children it was one of the high points of our trip to go with our father to “THE POO HOLE”, a cess pit provided for emptying the waste into.  It was situated a little way from the #River, and had a cover so the odour didn’t ruin the atmosphere.  Who’d want to float peacefully about on a smelly river?  “High point”?  The smell was terrible!

          The aft cabin had a double and a single berth, where the three of us slept.  Because it got cold at night on the river, we had sleeping sacks made out of old flannelette sheets, to sleep in under the blankets which were provided.  And I remember once having a brand new flowery nightdress which my mother had made, with a gathered neck and wrists.  But the elastic was too tight, and I probably whined and moaned, and couldn’t go to sleep, until the elastic was cut to make them comfortable.  In other words, I behaved like a girl!

          Red Queen I was the first of two boats I have shared with my own family.  The other was Bermuda Spray.  Red Queen had a similar layout to Gay Bahama, the boys sharing a double berth in the aft cabin.  Bermuda Spray had quite a small saloon, but it did have a double girth in the stern cabin, and another cabin with bunk beds, off the galley.  My eldest son, at sixteen, had the big cabin to himself, while       his younger brother and sister shared the bunk beds.  My husband and I got fed up with erecting our bed in the saloon each night, so we left it up all the time.  This made the living area even smaller, but was a lovely place to sprawl.

          The main difference, nowadays, compared to boats from thirty years ago, is the plumbing.  Flushing toilets!  No more “Poo Hole”!  On Bermuda Spray the shower was actually in the toilet area.  The tray for the shower was hidden under a panel under the floor.  It measured, perhaps, eighteen inches to two feet square, and when I tried to shower my four year old daughter, it was far easier to let the tray fill with water and use it as a hip bath.

          There were other drawbacks to the situation of this shower.  Trying to stand up from the toilet in a confined space it is an automatic reaction to reach out and grab something, or to knock something over.  In this case, we found out almost immediately, that the tap for the shower was in a bad place.  One knock would start the shower running on the back of the occupant while exiting through the door.

          There are all sorts and sizes of boats on the River.  Cruisers, sailing boats, a few barges and rowing boats can all be observed.    Rowing boats use the River to train for races, especially at Henley, where they hold the world famous regatta in July each year; at Eton College, Windsor, and by the University in Oxford, where the rowers train for the Oxford V Cambridge Boat Race every spring.  Mostly they just glide past, with the blades making a ‘swish’ in the water and the Cox calling ‘stroke’. But sometimes they get in the way.

          I remember once, just as we were mooring at Oxford, a rower cutting right across our bow and seeming to disappear under our boat.  Well, I was only nine or ten, and I thought we had hit him, but he reappeared again shouting angrily at my

Father.  I think he swore, but I may be wrong about that.

FROM OUR LOG

11/7/02

1245  Outside Shiplake Lock.  Crunched boat on side because of wash from the ‘Destiny’.

          The ‘Destiny’ was a big boat which could obviously se to sea, judging by the size and the electronic gadgets it had on board.  It had a radar on the roof and inside there were steps down to the saloon.  But size can be a set back to fine handling.  The ‘Captain’ of the ‘Destiny’, for I’m sure he would have styled himself so, had trouble mooring at Windsor and didn’t seem to know how to tie up.  My husband, after watching the man fumbling around for a while, went to his aid and moored the vessel to a nearby tree.

FROM OUR LOG

28/7/02

1510 East Molesey Lock.  The Germans and Bouncy boat take over.

          Another boat, following the same course as us was full of Germans, ‘flying the flag’.  They moored at some of the same places as us and at one point a German woman hailed my husband, pointing at our boat.  He thought he had done something to upset them, but she only wanted to say that they had also travelled on Bermuda Spray, our boat on that trip.  International incident avoided! 

          Most boats move steadily over the water, some faster, some slower, in much the same way as cars along a road, sometimes pausing, sometimes stopping.  But one particular boat didn’t make its way in this fashion.  We nicknamed it the ‘Bouncy Boat’.  It seemed to ‘bounce’ through the water like an aquatic wallaby.  Whether it was going too fast, despite the speed limit on the River, or had ‘kangaroo fuel’, the wrong sort, that makes a car jump, I don’t know.  It was very amusing and very peculiar to watch.

          We all know what hogs are.  Pigs are warty, bad tempered, hairy things, with tusks.  They are fat, snorting, grunting beasts.  The dictionary definition of a hog is:-

Old English    hog – noun.  A pig, especially one weighing over 120 pounds

Verb - Hogging – Slang – To take more than one’s share of.

          Road hogs are drivers who go far too fast, screaming up the road, overtaking everything, weaving in and out along the toad.  Certainly a dangerous situation to be involved in for all concerned.

FROM OUR LOG

18/5/97

1038   Left Days Lock

1045   Overtook crazy drivers

21/5.97

1202   Left Bray Lock.  River Hogs overtook us.  Isle of Bute.

1233   Boulters Lock.  We beat the Hogs.

The River has hogs, too, River Hogs.  Blasting along faster than the 3 miles an hour speed limit, (this is defined as a brisk walking pace).  Beating you into the lock or mooring space you have been waiting patiently for these last five minutes.  Making a mess of throwing the ropes, or jumping ashore before the boat is close enough to the bank, all the while showing off and thinking they are clever.

D  Picture the scene.  It’s a balmy summer evening.  You’ve just motored down the River through six or seven locks, and now the boat is moored in an idyllic spot, beneath the weeping willows.  The sun is going down, and there’s a glass of chilled wine in your hand.  Suddenly, as if out of thin air, - can air be thin?  We know its there, but we can’t see it, so how can it be thin, or thick for that matter? – into the stillness, the ‘River Hogs’ come racing past, lights blazing, music blaring, and Whoops,  the boat rocks violently, and there goes the Cabernet, all over your brand new holiday gear!

     But, eventually, these menaces of the waterways get their just deserts.  On one occasion we saw a boat whiz into a lock ahead of everyone else, and got caught by the Environmental agency.  It was explained to them that they were going to fast and the wash they made would erode the riverbank.  They received a speeding ticket for their misdemeanour.  Let’s hope they learned their lesson.