All Ship-shape and Blackwall-fashion, by Jeremy Batch

All Ship-shape and Blackwall-fashion, by Jeremy Batch

Meeting at the Blackwater Sailing Club.  The speaker is Jeremy Batch who will reveal some new facts and history about London and its River. Details of Jeremy's talk can be read below.

Meal at 19:00, talk at 20:00.

A menu and  booking form is attached below. Please return to Ken Nunn by the 29th of September.

'As you sail past the O2 “Dome” on the Thames Clipper or fly over it on the cable-car, look to the opposite bank and you will see the site of the largest private dock in Europe, the birthplaces of the hydraulic crane and the modern lighthouse, the yards where “bad buoys were made good” and HMS Warrior was launched, and the wharf where Brunel’s first steamship had her engine installed.  You will be passing the departure point of fleets (great and small) which set-up the first permanent English-speaking colony in the New World, established the most powerful multinational corporation that has ever existed, and towed the floating harbours that made the D-Day landings possible.  Here the Cutty Sark unloaded tea and wool, and here many of her sisters were built.  Blackwall has featured in all of Jeremy's previous talks, so the time has come for a closer look.  For example, what is the connection between the local Majestic Wine Warehouse and Captain James Cook's first ship?'