Posted by Peter Truelove on February 02, 2005 at 21:22:36 from 84.66.140.152 user jacpet.
In Reply to: Cruising the Thames posted by Dan Lind on January 31, 2005 at 02:19:32:
Hello Dan...............I have just noticed your query on Tarboard regarding boat charter on the tidal Thames. I note the reply from Fiona in Message No 16702 and can only agree with her. I worked for ten years on the tidal Thames as a River Police officer driving patrol boats day and night throughout the seasons and have to say that the tideway is totally inappropriate for pleasure boating. Privately owned motor cruisers do make the trip from the non-tidal section to the estuary, usually in two hops (riding each tide downstream with a break in the Marina at Tower Bridge. They even do it in a single hop, leaving Teddington lock at least an hour before high water, punching the last of the flood tide and then running down with the ebb to reach the wider waters of the estuary before the next flood.
I very much doubt that any boat hire facility above the lock would rent a boat to be used in the tideway....but I may be wrong. In addition to patrolling the Thames from Teddington to Sea Reach over a ten year period I have also covered the entire navigable length of the river from Lechlade to the estuary on a number of occasions in privately owned motor vessels and know the river well.
Best Wishes...........Peter Truelove.