Memories of the River Thames  - The Mud Anchor Theory

 

Boating on the Thames with a deep keeled steel cruiser I quickly discovered that there could be insufficient water depth near the banks to moor. This together with a lack of public stopping places focussed my thoughts on actually anchoring. Having casually mentioned it to my wife Su, at the first opportunity I set about testing my theory.

 

Now I have to admit that Su was not impressed (putting it mildly) when we wildly swung about all over the navigation channel near Windsor on a measured 50 metres of heavy chain. Further, she hinted that she was not prepared to even consider weighing the muddy sea anchor whilst I, the captain, manned the bridge controls. "In your dreams" was close to the comment I recall.

 

So I reluctantly shelved the whole idea until I discovered an old rusty 50lb iron weight in the depths of our bilge. Plan B was emerging - Mud Anchoring! all it required was a simple rope and a decent dumpy weight to hold us securely. So much easier than setting spikey sea anchors on long chains. Su still thought the whole idea rather stupid.

 

But there were so many advantages: ease of deployment and retrieval, safe stowage as ballast, security from possible vandals cutting our bankside mooring lines. A pair could be used to stop the stern swinging in a navigation channel, simple weights wouldn't snag underwater power cables... (but that's another story!). No hammering steel spikes. No more coaxing Su to leap on to slippery banks with two mooring ropes between her teeth, no muddy wet footmarks when she scrambled back aboard from the bank or water. Added privacy from the towpath, and importantly - no mooring fee!

 

I drew Su's attention to all these reasons for good old fashioned mud anchoring but deep down being a bit of a land lubber she was not convinced, and so on our next cruise I devised a cunning plan to prove my point.

 

When the time came to stop for the night we found a deep water mooring spot alongside a nice ploughed field, paid the £3 fee to the friendly farmer and relaxed.

 

Later using the excuse "Bringing in the Ensign at dusk" I quietly lowered my secretly prepared mud anchoring gear into the water in the river side of the boat and having complete faith in it's safe holding power, slackened our now hopefully unnecessary mooring ropes by a metre or so.

 

We slept well with no problems at all, the boat had held it's position without aid from the mooring ropes. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, until noticing a passing cruiser heading for the next lock about two miles upstream, Su suggested we move on smartly to catch the opening together with this boat, so we quickly cast off and made all speed up to and into the lock.

 

A rather officious lock keeper took Su's bow mooring line and after making everything secure he shouted to her, and everyone else for miles, that she had left a front rope dangling in the water. Embarrassingly poor nautical practice!

 

Slowly she gave me one of those "I could kill you" looks whilst an interested audience watched as she lugged the dragged 50lb mud anchor weight aboard.

 

I had my back to her as I was busy retrieving the stern one!

 

Bernie Bowler

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Don’t try and beat the tide.

 

How often have we been out across a low tide and the weather has turned grey and over cast? The most important thing is to get back on the moorings in the river and get home to that nice hot cuppa or glass of something.  It was like that with us one summer’s day this year.

 

The day started early and was wall to wall sun.  We went out on a dropping spring tide and spent an idyllic day down at Lantic Bay having a Barbie and doing a spot of swimming.  Then around fourish the weather suddenly and unannounced turned for the worse.  Okay, time to head back.  When Black Dwarf got off the Island, the reef was still just exposed off Hannafore. Now I know well that there is no way I am going to get on my mooring until the last rock has disappeared from Mid Main Marker. I knew I still had to wait half an hour before I could make it, but when you’ve been out all day and getting colder by the minute, run out of thermos flask coffee and eaten all the food, then you take a few risks to get back on the mooring.  Motto…don’t! Any way I tried it.

 

We went up the river which was fast running and got above the bridge. All okay so far. Because of the incoming tide of course I needed to moor up facing down the river, so I went just beyond my moorings off Dave Pearn’s slipway and started to turn to come back onto them. There’s a sand bank just upstream, and I now know it intimately. I went aground broadside on, being pushed further onto the sand by the incoming fast tide. After a few explicits and watching the other moored boats nearby, I rushed to chuck the anchor over.  Would it hold on the tide? Well yes, just although we did slowly move up the river.

 

By now there was a small crowd of interested people staring and pointing at us on the Millpool quay walk way.  Oh the embarrassment!  We tried to pretend it was all planned, but they and we knew better. Slowly Black Dwarf began to come off the sand and turn down stream, but still the engines were digging in the sand.  I couldn’t pull them up you see; they had gone in so well. “I’m not here” I heard myself say. Marilyn suggested a few things, one of which was why didn’t I jump over the side and make the boat lighter.  A possibility that I rejected, being cold already. We just tried to sit on the upper side and ignore the fact that the whole of both East and West Looe might be watching us in our time of peril (and stupidity)

 

Eventually of course the incoming tide lifted us, it can’t have been more than ten minutes, but it seemed like a life time. With pretended nonchalance I restarted the engines, pulled up the anchor and made a good approach and successful first time mooring. But oh dear, the embarrassment. Even though probably no one except myself remembers the incident I still smart at the thought of trying to get up the river too quickly. Luckily nothing hurt except pride.

 

Peter King

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An advertisement I read boasts that a holiday in the Norfolk Broads is like a whole new world with a unique boating experience for everyone and an opportunity to travel over 200 miles of beautiful inland waterways, a water enthusiast’s paradise. It also said that it’s easy with no complicated locks to maneuver. I know someone who found an easy way to make it very difficult.

Many years ago, I was on a camping and fishing holiday in the Norfolk Broads with my two brothers. On a beautiful day we decided to take a small row boat out to a quiet spot and see if the fish were biting. We gathered our fishing gear and some lunch and went down to the water. The youngest of us decided he wanted to take his own boat and didn’t need our help. We were on vacation and said "Well; o.k. if that’s what you want". We loaded our stuff into two boats and I and my older brother pulled anchor and struck out to find the fish.

We didn’t go very far as we wanted to keep an eye on our wannabe sailor kid brother, who seemed to be struggling to get away from shore. We set up at a spot and cast our lines and were enjoying the tranquility, which was disturbed only by the noise of oars clanking and creaking from our brother’s boat a couple of hundred yards away. As time passed we began to wonder why he wasn’t making any headway. He seemed to be doing a great deal of puffing, panting and sweating, but had only moved a few feet from shore.

We continued fishing while keeping a curious watch on the labouring rower who by now had stripped to the waist, but had closed the distance between us by meager feet. A very long while, a few fish returned to the water and a couple of sandwiches later, we realized what the problem was. Our young oarsman had not weighed anchor! We decided to let him struggle a bit longer before embarrassing him by shouting instructions across the water; 

"Pull up your anchor!"

Our younger brother is no other than your own Webmaster, David Jones.

 Allan Jones. Ontario, Canada