TRIP REPORTS

WITH NB PRESIDENT IN LONDON

May 2004

Click on a picture to see a bigger version with a caption

In May of 2004, the steam narrowboat President and her butty Kildare made their first visit to London since 1996.

The original invitation to them came from Canalway Cavalcade over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend (1^st to 3^rd May). They arrived the day before and took a full part in the event, with the new engine on public view whenever they weren't taking part in Saturday afternoon's pageant or Monday afternoons parade of historic boats.

We had mixed fortunes at Canalway Cavalcade this year. Saturday and Sunday were warm and sunny, and brought plenty of crowds. Monday was the wettest day that the event has ever seen, with a very poor public turn-out as a result. But we still had about 25,000 visitors as well as something like 140 boats. And on Monday the weather cleared up in time for the pageant of historic boats.

This year's theme for Canalway Cavalcade was Steaming Ahead, to tie in with President's visit and also with the bicentenary of the first steam-powered transport on a colliery tram-road in South Wales. The event was opened by Ian Walden, Director of the Black Country Museum, which owns President.

President & Kildare at the London Canal Museum

Then President & Kildaremoved on to be guest exhibits at the London Canal Museum for the following week, where they were in steam for the weekend of 8^th/9^th May.

On Monday 10^th May they set off from the Museum down the Regent’s Canal for a rendezvous in Limehouse Basin with a flotilla of about a dozen narrowboats who were to escort them up the tideway to Brentford and back into the canal system. This cruise was organised by IWA South London Branch, of which I was then Chairman, so I was obviously going to take part. Wendy doesn't like the tideway, so I recruited a crew from our Branch Committee, Lesley Pryde (our Branch Secretary) and Andrew Mann. We were also joined along the way by Roger Stocker, a friend of Lesley's.

Our timetable was complicated by the fact that I needed to be at the Museum for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday because of President being there, so couldn't move FC2 until Sunday tea-time. Wendy's dodgy ankle had now manifested itself as another bout of Achilles tendon trouble, so she was stuck at home. Lesley came to help me move the boat from its post-Canalway Cavalcade mooring at Paddington visitor moorings. After a pump-out we set off at 17:20 into the Regent's Canal.

We shared the middle & bottom locks at Camden with our friends Alex & Jenny Nunes on nb Helix, after they'd shared the top one with the trip-boat Jenny Wren. We arrived at Battlebridge Basin at 19:30, moored in what is normally nb Shirley's mooring and went to the Waterside Inn for supper, after which we ended up drinking coffee in Kildare's back cabin with a couple of their crew.

DAY'S RUN 3.7 miles, 4 locks in 2 hrs 15 min

Next morning Lesley & I set off at 9:04, slightly later than intended, running single with a bad road. At Acton's lock Roger joined us by bike and lockwheeled the rest of the way for us. We arrived at Limehouse Basin at 12:05 and moored outboard of our friends Eric & Sally Naylor on nb Chérie and another boat called The Nuggler. Andrew joined us, so now we were four.

Later nbsPanacea and Fulbourne were outboard of us. Panacea belongs to Libby Bradshaw, who had organised the cruise but wasn't well enough to be with us as she was recovering from a fall. So her boat (which, as usual, was the radio-contact vessel) was crewed by Ian Ferguson and Richard Packer, with Jane & Tony Davey as guests. Fulbourne was crewed by Tim Lewis and Martin Ludgate, two very keen photographers (and Martin's a waterways journalist), who had worked out that because of the direction of the sun, their best position for photographing the event would be from the front of the convoy.

President & Kildare arrived and attracted a lot of photographic attention. Before Roger Squires' briefing of all the skippers, we had time for a snack lunch on board.

Locking-out began at 2:30, after the briefing. We were in the fourth & last locking at 15:09, along with President, Kildare and Panacea. I managed to side-swipe a buoy outside Limehouse by turning a bit too soon, which meant we lost a few minutes of time and had to "turn up the wick" a bit to get back in close contact with President.

The boats from the earlier lockings had been told to tie up on Free Trade Wharf to wait for the last locking and then follow on behind us. They found that was from passing traffic made life pretty uncomfortable on the wharf, so some the third locking decided to stay mid-river and stem the tide.

On the tideway we were joined by the Maritime Volunteer Service’s Londinium I. The weather was very kind to us and we had a beautiful run to Brentford. To start with we were able to keep pace with President, positioned a few boats' length aft of her

It was exactly 16:00 when we reached Westminster, and the chimes of Big Ben were followed by an almighty racket of President's steam whistle and everybody else's horns. Somewhere around Vauxhall when I noticed our engine was running a bit too warm, so dropped the revs a bit and joined the tail-end Charlies. Eric & Sally on Chérie had a self-induced engine failure and had to breast up to The Nuggler until it was sorted out.

We reached the mouth of Brentford Creek at 18:02 and joined the Grand Junction Canal. Despite having dropped back, we still had to wait for Thames Lock, although the lock-keeper was pooping boats through like clockwork. After a brief stop there, most of us carried on as far as the foot of Hanwell locks, (we got there at 19:20), where President & Kildare were the last to arrive, having stopped a while at Brentford to off-load Richard Thomas and some kit. Roger and his bike left us here and headed for home.

An earlier plan for a barbecue had been dropped as impractical, and we'd expected to eat at the Dolphin, but the combination of late arrival and an intransigent landlord put paid to that, and most of us ended up in a Thai resturant a little further off, after which Andrew headed for home.

DAY'S RUN 24.3 miles, 13 locks in 7 hrs 12 min

Next day we slept in much later than we'd intended, and were the last boat to start off up the locks, at 11:40. We ran single, following another pair. At Bull's Bridge Tesco we met up with some of the others, and paused to give Eric Libby's home 'phone number. He was single-handing Chérie and towing Panacea as he hadn't liked the thought of Panacea being left at the foot of Hanwell until Libby could find somebody to crew it home for her. On the last stretch I had to throw some grot of the blade, but I think there must have been some left, as the engine was running hot again, and I had to slow down. This meant that Eric caught us up and we locked through Cowley together. Panacea just fitted in behind FC2 and alongside Chérie, but it was a tight fit and I'd not like to try it working downhill. We got back to our home mooring in Uxbridge at 16:48. We did a rapid clear-up and dashed back to town by tube, as I had a walk to lead. Tube delays made me late.

DAY'S RUN 8.4 miles, 9 locks in 5 hrs 8 mins