Mooring in central London

tacker · 17 August 2012, 08:00

Are there any public pontoons to moor temporarily eg 1 hour in central London, between Westminster and Tower Bridge? If not, where are nearest?

John Kennett · 17 August 2012, 08:22

I've stopped on the inside of the pier at St Katherines a couple of times. I don't know what the deal is officially but I wasn't given any hassle.

tacker · 17 August 2012, 08:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by tacker

Are there any public pontoons to moor temporarily eg 1 hour in central London, between Westminster and Tower Bridge? If not, where are nearest?

Cheers, did you leave it for any time or just stop and stay with ?

John Kennett · 17 August 2012, 08:30

We went to the pub for lunch.

Bern Hanreck · 17 August 2012, 08:47

Tacker , I think that nowadays , with security being what it is , you are very unlikely to get anyone to give you official permission to tie up for an hour or so . If you want to leave the boat , you'll almost certainly have to enter St. Katherines ( or Limehouse ) . You may have better luck upstream .

Where's Twim when you need him?

Vandad · 19 August 2012, 19:54

The answer is NO! Let's forget the extra security measures for the olympics etc. but in general you have two issues:

1. Very Choppy Water so you can't just leave the boat/rib tied to a small pontoon
2. It is tidal so you need a floating pontoon and Lack of available pontoon!!!!

When we used to go to tidal thames, I had to refuel near Tower Bridge, and I always had problem finding a quiet spot to fill the tanks using portable cans. We always ended up holding one of those floating rubbish collectors and refuel!

My advice would be to use Chelsea Pier, or the easiest place would be Putney!

The only place I used once was a pier downstream of Towerbridge called Hermitage Moorings, again, the water is so choppy and the pontoons are not suitable for Inflatable boats, so you MUST have some fenders available.

BogMonster · 19 August 2012, 23:01

Surely the easy way would be to lash a couple of 45 gal drums together with an alarm clock and some wiring on top, and nobody will go within a mile of it

Then you can explain to the blokes in black ribs when you get back from lunch that the alarm clock was just to remind you to refuel after a couple of hours

Tim M · 20 August 2012, 08:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by tacker

Are there any public pontoons to moor temporarily eg 1 hour in central London, between Westminster and Tower Bridge? If not, where are nearest?

Cadogan Pier in Chelsea is the only pier which will accommodate a short stay in central London, plus being a little further up river there is less worry about massive wash from big boats. It's a 10 min taxi ride or half hour walk back to Westminster from there.

Swifty · 20 August 2012, 08:39

The only place I have found is Limehouse. You have to lock in and we then park up on the right hand side. Short walk to the pub. Lock keeper grumbled about sluicing a million gallons of water for one RIB. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Otherwise there is pretty much nowhere to stop and leave the boat unattended. We have stopped on the steps outside St Thomas's Hospital but its fraught with hazards.