Cormorant s eel meal at164th boat race

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1 Cormorant s eel meal at164th boat race A greedy bird gulps down a whopping eel moments before the start of the world s most famous boat race. The peckish waterbird, a variety of cormorant, was captured in this spectacular photo as Cambridge got ready to take on Oxford for the 164th Boat Race. We, as always, had a very important role to play in the event, as four staff in special PLA stakeboats took turns to hold the stern of each boat, in order to make sure neither team had an unfair start. We also lay moorings, pontoons and race markers and closed the stretch of river to normal The Cambridge ladies have won traffic, making sure the 4.2-mile every race since course was free from obstruction. Over 250,000 people watch The eventual winners of both the the race from the banks of the men and women s race was tidal Thames. It s thought Cambridge, their men winning with 15 million people or more watch a time of 17 minutes and 51 it on television. seconds, while the ladies romped home Rowathon with a time of 19 min 10 sec. covers tidal Thames...twice A two-day rowing challenge which comfortably covered twice the length of the tidal Thames, has raised more than 2,000 for Sport Relief. The Rowathon on three machines at our Royal Terrace Pier in Gravesend, Kent, saw dozens of our staff row alongside many people from partner organisations along the Thames. The challenge took place on a Friday and Saturday late last month, took 28 hours and the total distance covered was 213 miles. Organisations including London Port Health Authority, Port of Tilbury, Tideway, RNLI and MBNA Thames Clippers took part. Each rower made a donation in exchange pier throughout for a 10-minute slot. both days and it was especially One of the event organisers, PLA pleasing to see project engineer Lee Walker, said: people have a The rowathon was a brilliant event go, even if they d and lots of people are looking never rowed forward to another one next year. before. There was a genuine buzz on the

2 Greener water bottles for our afloat staff Environment manager Tanya Ferry (pictured right) presents a new kind of water bottle to the PLA s Gary Eve (vessel master on our Hydro survey vessel Thame). A number of afloat staff are set to begin a trial of cleaner, more environmentally friendly water bottles on several of our boats. The trial continues our drive to get rid of single-use plastic at the PLA. Replaceable (and recyclable) filters in the Water-to-Go bottles can filter up to 200 litres of water, meaning less need for single-use plastic bottles. Tanya said: Staff are very much looking forward to trialling these bottles as it s hard to get a reliable fresh water supply on most of our vessels. Filtration systems for fresh water are invariably too big for our boats and crew members are often forced to use plastic bottles of mineral water. Hopefully this will help keep down the number of plastic bottles used by our staff.. helps rowing coaches A great idea thought up by one of our boat crews is helping rowing coaches and their students stay safe on the Thames. Marine river inspector Tony Handley and deckhand Nathan Dare (pictured right), who patrol the tidal Thames between Putney and Teddington in West London came up with SKILLS, a handy leaflet and poster campaign which promotes safety advice and reminders about must-haves for those overseeing sporting activity. Each letter of SKILLS refers to an element of safety and/or required equipment. These include: S = Steers-Accredited: Anyone in charge of a rowing boat must have completed a steering and navigation test to prove they understand the unique rules contained within the tidal Thames Code of Practice and can act safely on the water. K = Kill Cord: Coaches in a launch MUST always use a kill cord attached to the engine. It has one purpose, to kill the engine if the driver is somehow moved away from the controls. Failure to wear one puts both the coach and any passengers at risk. I = ID Code: All rowing and coaching boats on the Thames Tideway must display a six-figure ID number. L = Lifejackets: Launch drivers (coxes, coaches and umpires) must wear a correctly fitted and well-maintained lifejacket at all times while afloat. L = Lights: Lights must be displayed at all times of limited visibility. S = Size: Coaches need always be mindful of the size of the group they are managing and the wash (water disturbed by a moving boat) created by boats being used. The SKILLS posters and leaflets have been delivered to around 50 rowing clubs on the tidal Thames.

3 Women s Day with all helps students grow London teenagers learning about the world of work, thanks to rowing and practical advice, have finished a mentoring scheme with our staff. Ten Year 10 girls from St Angela s Ursuline School in Forest Gate, east London, were given the chance to take part in the 18-week programme, as part of the Breaking Barriers project in association with London Youth Rowing (LYR). During practical sessions late last year, the girls learned vital skills including team work, communications, time management and, indeed, how to row with help from PLA staff and LYR coaches. The PLA mentors are: Sarah Robinson, Raj Kehal, Ross Havery and Briana Hunter. For six weeks they had a go on a rowing simulator at Royal Albert Dock and actual rowing on the Thames. And for the remaining 12 weeks, four of our colleagues (from a variety of departments) took turns, in pairs of two, to mentor the St Angela s students at our Pinnacle House base in City of London taking them through a series of activities to develop skills and help grow their confidence. The programme finished recently and the girls made a presentation to Year Nine pupils at their school who could be doing the same scheme next year. Our chairman Christopher Rodrigues gave a talk on his time competing as a rower in the world-famous University Boat Race. One of the PLA mentors, Raj Kehal, said: It was fantastic to watch the girls grow in themselves, even if it was for a short space of time with us. I think they learned a lot about the Thames and the world of work generally. It was a real pleasure to visit St. Angela s and hear what they thought of the sessions and I hope the girls will be able to use what they learned in the future. More mentoring sessions with Breaking Barriers and Year 10 students are planned next school year. two tonnes collected. Discarded lifejackets, plastic bottles, pens, disposable lighters and even cutlery were among the haul at a foreshore clean-up in Cliffe, Kent. Litter pickers gave up their time to take part in the spruce-up which saw almost two tonnes of rubbish collected. It took place next to land we own a few weeks ago. Dozens of helpers took advantage of the low tide, to fill bags with waste that has been carelessly dropped in the tidal Thames. The clean-up was organised by RSPB volunteers and included PLA staff. Some of the litter pickers are pictured. about our Cleaner Thames campaign

4 Thames radar site Technical support engineer Dave Barnard is pictured putting the finishing touches to the installation of a new Base Station and antennae at one of our radar sites overlooking the tidal Thames at Warden Point in Sheerness, Kent. The new equipment is a Kongsberg Automatic Identification System (AIS) Base Station. It transmits and receives up-to-the-minute tidal information, as well as the position, course and speed of vessels, helping to keep ships entering (and leaving) the Port of London safe. The new base station will feed information to our Port Control Centre where we coordinate movement of shipping in the UK's second-biggest port. Not only that, the information can also be beamed to electronic devices used by pilots who board the ships to safely guide them into port. Dave said: The new base station is an improvement on what we had at Warden Point as it allows us to transmit and receive information, when previously we could only receive it from vessels on-board equipment. Dave is part of our Navigation Systems team, which does vital work maintaining and managing safety-of-navigation hardware dotted along the banks of London s river. The PLA has 18 radar sites along the tidal Thames. AIS is an automatic tracking system used on ships and by our Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) team in addition to marine radar which continues to be the primary method for managing marine traffic. Arrivals < Lessons learned at our second Tidal Thames Environment & Heritage Conference will help the ongoing drive to protect London s river. The conference at Museum of London Docklands supports the delivery of our 20-year Thames Vision which includes goals for environment and heritage. It was an opportunity for stakeholders to hear the latest developments on battling pollution on the river. The themes at this year s event included Education changing behaviour and citizen science. Environment manager Tanya Ferry said: It was a very worthwhile event and a chance to update stakeholders on the work the PLA does for the environment. And it was also a great opportunity for terminal operators and business-owners on the river to meet environmental groups that they might not get the chance to otherwise. Delivering the Thames Vision goals for environment and heritage is extremely important to everyone at the PLA. Holding this event helps us focus more strongly on those goals. Guests at the event included Thames Explorer Trust, British Canoeing, Historic England, Kent Wildlife Trust and Thames 21. EE

5 Women s Day with all-female crew An all-female crew are pictured on Battersea Pier/Westminster Pier a Thames riverbus service, marking service, proving that there are International Women s Day. many opportunities available to They worked the Woolwich women to pursue a career in the All Pier/North Greenwich aboard! Pier to marine sector. Our Andy Pictured (l-r) are: Captain Joy McGlinchey, Mate Ellie Wooldridge, Relief Mate Emma Lewis and Barista Sitarah Bailey-Thompson. unveils his blue beauty Marine engineering technician Andy Bridges has a lot to smile about after creating this beautiful working model of a PLA steam locomotive. Engine enthusiast Andy, along with son Luke, spent three years lovingly constructing the PLA 53 engine, using their engineering nouse and a few details from history books, including a 1957 black and white photo. The small but powerful engine is actually fuelled by tiny lumps of coal and is a tribute to the PLA engines that moved cargoes between London s docks up until the 1960s. The original PLA 53, built around 1915, was based at Millwall Docks and ran until Andy said: It was a lot of work but worth every minute. It will be able to pull up to eight people, believe it or not. It packs a lot of power for something weighing just 50kg. Andy is a member of Maidstone Model Engineering Society in Kent. This summer, PLA 53 will be taking visitors on 8mph journeys around a track in the town s Mote Park. The track is open to the public every Sunday afternoon during summer months.

6 working on the Thames Arrivals < E Navigating a career on the tidal Thames was the theme of an open day organised by Thames Skills Academy (TSA). The organisation, which delivers high-quality, cost-effective training to the maritime industry, invited guest speakers including former Transport Minister John Hayes MP along to the event which coincided with National Apprenticeship Week. Mr Hayes, who grew up along the Thames at Woolwich, told the open day audience at Trinity House that it was extremely important and useful to let kids develop their skills on the river, as the tidal Thames is such a vital part of London (and Britain s) economy. Also there were riverbus operators MBNA Thames Clippers, marine logistics experts Livett s and construction firm Red 7 Marine, among others. Now in her second month as chief executive officer of TSA, Katherine Riggs said the open day was an encouraging success, guest speakers included retired Olympic gold medallist Andrew Triggs-Hodge. We (the PLA) had a stand there too and have taken on four new apprentices in the past year. I was very pleased with how the open day went, we had young people from a range of backgrounds attend and I m sure they took away with them the fact that a career on the Thames is both possible and exciting. EE

7 on tidal Thames Beautiful racing yacht Maserati Multi70 passes under the QEII Bridge, marking the precise moment a world record is broken. The trimaran took an impressive 36 days, 2 hours and 37 minutes to sail between Hong Kong and London, using the historic Tea Route taken by countless ships over the past several hundred years. Multi70 s journey knocked more than a week off the previous notable tea-route journey time, set by catamaran Gitana 13 in Ecstatic skipper Giovanni Soldini said: The record went very well, we are very happy with our route. The most difficult part was the last one, with more favourable weather conditions in the Atlantic we could have gained another three or four days, but that s ok. Multi70 began her journey on January 18, taking advantage of the north-east wind to reach the southern tip of Vietnam within two days. By the time she reached the Indian Ocean three days later, she already had a two-day advantage over Gitana 13. After overcoming a few bouts of harsh weather, her crew finally entered the English Channel before dawn on Thursday 22 February. Early next morning she reached the Thames Estuary, where she was guided upriver by a PLA Harbour Service Launch as well as RNLI volunteers. She crossed the finish line at exactly 1.20pm. Read more about Maserati Multi70 s windswept voyage below. debut A new class of barge has been welcomed to the tidal Thames to work on the Tideway project. A pair of new barges got warm welcomes on two chilly mornings recently. The 1,500-tonne Churchill got to work straight way after she arrived and will be largely based at the Carnwath Road site, removing excavated material that comes from the 4.2 billion tunnel project. She ll be collecting spoil to be deposited at a site in East London. A few days later, she was joined by Phoebe, her slightly smaller 1,000-tonne sister barge. It was revealed in September last year that eight new barges were on the way to join the Tideway project. Churchill and Phoebe are soon set to be joined on the river by 1,000-tonne Tideway barge Zeus. Watch a video of Zeus hitting the water for the first time:

8 An hour to the Tower oil spill drill success London visitors crossing Tower hour. The team, for the first time, that handle oil and fuel. This Bridge recently would ve been used the Lamor Minimax 25 exercise was unusual because it forgiven for thinking a boat crew on Skimmer, a lightweight unit that s was carried out in central London. the river below were handling the easily transported and assembled. The drill went very well and I was world s biggest black pudding, Made up of a skimmer body, a pleased with how fast we were able going by these pictures. collection hopper and brush, the to get to the location. We try to In fact, new equipment to tackle device can be assembled in under achieve a minimum of two drills per accidental oil spills in the Thames a minute and is used to recover year and vary the location this was being deployed as part of an spilled oil and fuel. was the first time that a small emergency drill exercise. Also in use was a hydraulic power scale rapid response was trialled The PLA-organised Thames Oil pack, a suction pump and power in real time. Spill Clearance Association source for the skimmer. I think we proved the ease of use (TOSCA) got to work on a PLA marine services manager Jim of the new equipment and with make-believe scenario to see both Denby said timing was extremely stopwatches running we measured how fast they could get to central important as oil, if it gets into actual response time from first London and how speedily they the river, can shift rapidly thanks to notification at Denton to could sort the 'spill' out. the tide. deployment of boom at the scene. TOSCA S Respond boat, leaving He added: TOSCA drills are our Denton base in Kent, arrived usually carried out further about TOSCA near Tower Bridge in about an downriver and closer to terminals Pre-season briefing 2018 Our annual public meeting preceding the launch of a season of recreation on the tidal Thames has been held on Dixie Queen near Tower Bridge. About 100 invited guests (who are members of Tidal Thames Navigators Club) enjoyed a variety of talks by some of our Harbour Master team who also answered questions at the end of the event. The talks included a well-received presentation by Miles Featherstone, assistant marine surveyor, who used graphics and animations to illustrate some of the interesting takes on navigational safety he s encountered during his time at the PLA. Other topics of the night included an overview of events at a local club, a look at large-scale towing operations and bigger ships now calling on the Thames. The evening at Butlers Wharf Pier concluded with a Q&A session led by harbour master. upper Mark Towens. He said: "The briefing went very well, we provided updates on works and events on the river and took the opportunity to make points about safety for recreational vessels. "We received a lot of positive feedback and had many useful suggestions from people attending."

9 helps ex-servicemen and women A state-of-the-art simulator at the Port of Tilbury is helping ex-servicemen and women get back into work. The Vortex simulator uses 13 screens and 270-degree views to give users an immersive look at crane operation, as well as lifting systems and a variety of work scenarios. The Attention to Logistics training programme and bursary scheme was launched as part of the Logistics Training Academy, in partnership with Tilbury on the Thames Trust. The programme, introduced last year, is focused on helping veterans retrain in the logistics industry. The simulator also trains operators how to react to operational hazards, including overloads, bad weather and equipment failures. Thurrock MP Jackie Doyle-Price was guest of honour at the simulator s unveiling. She said: I am very excited that we are pulling together the best possible facilities for the Attention to Logistics programme. We are committed to giving ex service personnel the best facilities in which to learn so that we can help them into new employment. These are fantastic resources. planned Tilbury2 Ferry and logistics giant P&O has agreed a deal with Port of Tilbury owners Forth Ports to open a 150 million river berth on the tidal Thames. The move will treble P&O Ferries annual freight capacity to 600,000 by Its bosses think Tilbury2, the port s proposed new terminal at the former Tilbury Power Station, will give it an unrivalled service for companies exporting to, and from, London and the south east. An application for a development consent order for Tilbury2 was handed to the Planning Inspectorate in October last year. It s set to be built on a 152-acre site and includes a new deep water jetty on London s river. It s hoped the planned new terminal will be linked directly to the A13, via a new road, providing quick and easy access. It will also have a bespoke layout enabling customers to locate their unit promptly as part of a 30-minute gate-to-gate turnaround. Janette Bell, Chief Executive of P&O Ferries, said its river berth at Tilbury will cut channel crossing time by one hour, from eight to seven hours. She added: "Together with our market leading services across the English Channel, this new facility will enable P&O Ferries to offer customers exporting to or from London and the South East genuine alternatives, whether they choose to move their loads in self-drive vehicles or as unaccompanied freight."

10 Gateway A maritime transport company has agreed a long lease at London Gateway, to build a multi-temperature warehouse facility. CMA CGM has signed a deal to occupy a site on the port s 2.4 hectare logistics site next to the tidal Thames. The state-of-the-art site, fitted with the latest IT and electronic management systems, has been described as a milestone in the company s strategy. facility will start later this year and it will become operational in early summer The CMA CGM Group, the world s second largest carrier of reefer containers, is currently bringing cargo through DP World London Gateway Port on seven services. This includes large numbers of refrigerated containers arriving from the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, India and South America. The cold store will house a wide variety of chilled and frozen foodstuffs, while offering a large number of services such as packing, sorting, labelling and bagging. EE Work on the new campaign Arrivals < Britain s first female Muslim Government minister dropped into London Gateway on International Women s Day to back the port s campaign. Nusrat Ghani MP joined female workers at DP World to hear how it s working with local communities and organisations to support and empower women in their right to education and welfare. #Dpworld4Women encourages mentoring and investment and celebrates the success of female staff. DP World s UK operations employ 130 women at its sites in London and Southampton, 12% of its workforce (in an industry traditionally dominated by men). It enforces equal opportunities for training and internal roles to men and women. Parliamentary Undersecretary for Transport Nusrat Ghani said: It s excellent to see DP World embracing such an important initiative and prioritising the empowerment of women in the shipping and logistics sector.