This website will I hope, be helpful to anyone who has not cruised the Medway either tidal or non tidal before.

Please note that I will not be held responsible for anyone navigating it. I am only trying to give another Boating persons view to those who have never cruised the river.

I will try and point out places to moor or anchor, either bankside on non tidal or open/sheltered waters in tidal waters.

I arrived onto the River Medway about 20 years ago now from my previous moorings on the River Lea near Hackney marshes East London where I had been for about 9 years in Springfield marina. I had started off with an old wooden motor cruiser about 18ft long which I had glass fibre sheathed because it was pretty bad and would have needed lots of work to keep it watertight.

After about a year of messing about with this boat, I thought it was about time I got into something a bit better. My wife and I saw a small 18ft grp cruiser with a rear cabin called a Europa 4,We liked it and after finding out they were built in Tollesbury Essex, we ordered a shell in orange and white and fitted it out to our liking.

As we had 3 very young children it suited us fine, the children fitted in the rear cabin which we set out as one huge bed and we had the V berth at the front. The power came from an elderly Johnson 18hp outboard, which was great until it stalled near a lock or whatever and I had to make a dash through the rear cabin open up the escape hatch and tug on the pull start before we rammed something.

We had a couple of years with the Europa and then wanted a BIGGER boat. We then found out about a boat called a Seabird 700 motor cruiser made by Wavey Rider marine also from Tollesbury. We ordered a new shell once again and that started off a 15 month task to fit it out. I fitted a BMC 2-2ltr diesel engine slightly rear of  the helm, and a Perkins outdrive which was I believe the forerunner of the Enfield?.

When the boat was eventually finished, we had it launched and our first big trip that summer was to Blankenberge in Belgium with some friends from Springfield marina, Pat and Terry with their Senior 31, Pete Caplen and his wife Pat with their Senior 31, And an elderly well loved chap by the name of Ken Kelly who was a wonderful chap and was a great laugh to be with.

He told more stories than Enid Blyton, and lived in an old fibreglass converted lifeboat he had built from two halves. He has since passed away but will never be forgotten.

We had problems on the way home though, as we had got caught in Calais inner harbour with very strong winds and had to leave the boats behind for 3 weeks.

When we eventually went back to bring them home, my boat had been broken into and the prop shaft which was inside the boat not through the hull been stolen. After calming down and being told not to worry, we towed the boat home that weekend on a long rope, Believe me it was not a nice feeling not being in control but my friends got me and the boat home safely.

Well once again we got the bug and wanted a boat just like our friends had. We saw a Senior 31 advertised in the Exchange and mart, and after a phone call arranged a viewing, as the owner of the other boat also wanted a smaller boat which needed no work, He saw our boat and was happy and we visited Arundal near Littlehampton on the river Arun to view his boat. Well it was badly in need of some work and was being used as a fishing vessel. No nice bits for a woman left on it, no curtains no proper windows, just black perspex which made it look like an ambulance.

We did a deal with the chap, he took our boat away on a lorry and I and some friends brought the Senior home to Springfield marina. That was an eventful trip I must say. but I will deal with that at a later date.

During the next couple of months we rubbed the hull down and repainted it, with contrasting stripes etc. fitted a rear cabin which was built from 3/4 in marine plywood and fibreglassed over to match the hull. Inside there was a small double bed, a single bunk above it and a toilet compartment. My children all fitted in there and loved it.

Well, One year later after buying the boat we arrived at Allington marina near Maidstone in Kent to start the beginning of a 20 year relationship with Maidstone and the River Medway.

We have had many trips to France/Belgium with "Brimore" as she is called, Up the canals from Calais to Ostend in Belgium, also round to the Isle of Wight on the south coast, with friends from Allington marina. We started up a club which had fallen by the wayside, and went out on trips etc in the Medway estuary and further afield to the non tidal river Thames.

Most of the members now have moved away from Allington marina, we moved upriver about 1/2 a mile to Fords Wharf boatyard where we have been since. A very nice marina with very nice grassy areas alongside the moorings and we have our boat outside the owners house, we get on with them very well and enjoy our summers down there.

We spend quite a lot of our time just cruising up and down the non tidal parts during spells of bad weather. When its windy or not very good for tidal work we stay upstream, and do our own thing, mostly resting. fishing or as always tinkering about with the boat.

A few of our friends have now bought bigger boats, They have now gone down to the tidal stretches around Rochester etc, so they do not have to stay below Maidstone bridge or worry about the creek and limited times for the lock, we dont worry too much as we still like the best of both worlds, thats the peaceful non tidal or the exciting tidal stretches.

I could go on for ages and probably bore you silly? In the few pages on the site, I  hope to list and possibly show photos etc of places of interest, where you can take your boat and enjoy the River Medway.

This website is still in early stages of construction, and I hope to add lots of info and links to places etc which you will find of interest.

If you have some valuable information that you feel will come of use to a River Medway user, please email me HERE and I will look and see if it will be a valuable  piece of information on the site, also I hope to put peoples boats and bits. n pieces on a seperate page for sale and wanted.

Thanks for logging in and reading this, please be patient while I try and put it all together.

Brian and Maureen and family. BRIMORE.

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Here are a few stories about my exploits with Brimore, I hope you like them.

From the Arun to the Thames with Brimore 

You may recall the disaster which befell Brimore the 23ft Wavey rider seabird 700 which was stranded in Calais after some bilge rat stole her intermediate prop-shaft and she was towed home to her berth on the river Lea in London. Brian had for sometime been thinking about a bigger craft as his family a wife and 3 children found life a bit cramped and also a lack of privacy as the children were getting older. He saw an advert in Exchange and Mart offering  a single engined senior 31 for a smaller boat not needing any work. In a very short time Brian had visited the craft at Arundal on the river Arun and the other person had visited the Wavey rider at her moorings on the river Lea in north London, A deal was struck and Brimore was whisked out of the water by a local wood yard crane and onto a flatbed lorry for its venture to Brighton we believe? At the same time arrangements were mad to bring the Senior also to be named Brimore back to the moorings at Springfield marina on the river Lea by sea. A crew of volunteers were chosen and the car loaded with provisions for the 160 mile journey set off on the Friday evening. On arrival we met the owner who had let us down by not fuelling her up for the journey so we had to buy white diesel at the local garage at a price of £1:85 a gallon which was about three times the price of red diesel at the time, 35 gallons later we arrived at the boat with the cans etc, Brian had warned us in advance that the boat had been used for fishing parties prior to being sold, We were pleasantly surprised to find it was by no means a mass of fish entrails and bones etc but  quite clean and comfortable in a basic sort of way. The engine a Ford 4D coupled to a Borg Warner gearbox sounded great and could not be faulted mechanically. The design of the wheelhouse left something to be desired, however as there was only 5ft headroom under the first rather substantial beam it took several bumps and bruises to remember to duck when passing under it. The craft was moored a couple of miles upstream on the Arun, so with daylight now fading we moved away from her old moorings with the ex owner helping to pilot us past Arundal castle to the harbour passing many sewer outfalls/moorings and the famous Osbournes yard.we tied up alongside a sailing cat who’s owner quickly appeared and said he was off at 6am and we replied that we were also, he went back into his cabin mumbling. Once secured we went ashore to grab a few pints before closing time. The next stop was to the burger bar as we had not catered for Friday night, the owner kindly filled our water carrier as the boat didn’t have a proper water tank. Eager to get going I was up and ready well before 6am and after listening to the weather forecast at 5:50am which was favourable we untied as the others secured any loose object incase a bumpy ride lay ahead. We motored out past the breakwater into a gentle channel swell. Then we steered a course seawards for a mile and a half and then set a course for Beachy head, a distance of around 30 miles over the ground, the tide was against us until about 11 o clock. As it was a neap tide we calculated an average of one knot against us which cut our speed down to 8 knots. We passed Beachy head approx 1 mile out at about 10 o clock and set a new course for the Royal sovereign light tower which we recognised by the Channel pilot book we had on board. The sun was shining and despite my not bringing any beer etc we were all enjoying ourselves in the rather large open cockpit. Our new course for Dungeness was a distance of 23 miles, the tide was about to turn in our favour so we could average a better rate of speed. A following sea built up and was sending us on a surfing safari and dropping us into the rather deep troughs, all jolly fun we thought until we set off on the crest of one big wave which sent our speed log off its 15knot limit and dumping us in a huge trough while fighting with the wheel trying not to get broached with the next wave, we had quite a bit of fun/anxiety battling with the wheel til the seas died down, funny how all our laughs suddenly stopped and a look of concern was upon us all, what with all this to contend with we somehow missed the Dungeness light, not a sign of it? We noticed by then a few small coasters etc passing inshore of us and realised that the sea conditions and us not paying too much attention  had drifted out away off our plotted course.We looked around and checked the log etc and plotted a course which brought us to the Dungeness light at about 13:20hrs.While this was going on, one of the crew George had prepared a nice meal and saw us tucking into it sitting on the cockpit floor supplied with a few mugs of tea also. Our next course was plotted to take us to south foreland and although the seas had mounted up again we made sure we didn’t repeat our previous performance, the South Goodwin light vessel was seen at 16:00hrs and as we rounded South foreland we were pleased to notice the sea had calmed down and was giving us a comfortable last leg of the first half of our journey. As it was approaching high tide we were able to take a straight line from Deal bank buoy to the harbour entrance of Ramsgate instead of following the deeper channel, the black entry flag was hoisted allowing us to motor straight in between the huge stone walls. The pontoons were crowded with trots of boats about 5 deep but we noticed that a large sailing craft about 60ft long had a bowsprit overhanging about 20ft of empty pontoon at the outside end, we crept in under his sprit and it proved ample for us to get a couple of lines on the pontoon and stay the night. It was long before a 36ft steel motor yacht squeezed in beside us also for the night, with a bit of jiggery pokery we managed to attach his lines to us and to the pontoon so we could settle for the night. When we were settled the skipper of the steel yacht appeared with some beers etc which made a very happy ending to a long day.I checked the fuel situation and was amazed that nearly all the fuel we had put in was GONE! Well, that’s ok if I were used to running a Moonraker or big Broom etc but I was used to plodding about in the estuary using somewhere in the regions of a gallon an hour, it turned out we had used somewhere in the region of 3gall an hour which certainly gave me the hump! Even a promise of a trip up into Ramsgate town to the Captains table for a steak meal couldn’t lift my chin up.Next morning after topping the tanks up  and saying goodbye to the yacht crew we left the harbour in a gentle sea haze and a flat calm, The throttle was opened and then dropped back so the billows of black smoke stopped and we only dropped a knot in speed, we soon were enveloped in patches of sea fog giving us problems locating Longnose buoy, remembering we had a compass of unknown quality and accuracy, although we did have a handbearing compass which didn’t help in fog. Once we found Longnose buoy we set course for south Margate buoy and during this elg of the journey the fog lifted and the day got warmer. We continued our journey along the Kent coastline to the Whitstable street buoy then altered course to pass the Isle of Sheppy on the outside through the four fathom channel across the Cant. It was along this route I decided to try the autopilot WRONG!! The wheel turned completely to port and locked hard down the boat turned round and round while we struggled to dis-engage the autopilot, after a short while we managed by turning the on/off switch and then pushing the clutch knob in and releasing the tension on the wheel, our course was regained in a short while as II promised not to touch the auto pilot again until we check it out, we found out at a later date the control unit in the cockpit sat under a hole in the cockpit roof which was for the wind charger and rain had for God knows how long dripped into the control box and rendered it useless severely corroded and good for nothing. I at a later date bought a new control unit only to have the other bit go within months, so it was taken off and has no auto pilot to this day.As we motored on past Sheppey towards the Thames the water was so calm it was mirror like, everybody had settled down now to enjoy the calm and the sunshine. By 1800 hrs we had gone through the Woolwich barrier and soon at the lock at Bow in Bow creek which was the entrance to what we called THE RUBBISH DUMP where everything that floated somehow ended up in that stretch. As we nosed our way through lorry sheets/pallets etc Old Ford lock was ahead of us, The newly installed hydraulic equipment was once again out of order and even our offer of some dosh couldn’t tempt the lock keeper out of the local pub to operate it by hand, this meant a three and a half hour journey now and seven locks travelled towards Limehouse cut then into the Regents canal dock where we entered the Grand union canal dock, it was the first time I had used this route although quite pleasant was most annoying as it only brought you about 300yards past Old Ford lock.The last 3 mile journey from Old Ford to Springfield marina was spent packing our gear away. We arrived at 2300hrs and after securing the new Brimore we left for home.The next day when I went down to the boat I checked the fuel situation, to my amazement we had used just 9 gallons or near as can be estimated, so with that drop of one knot in speed meant a difference of 2 gallons an hour or so. After many trips the fuel was checked and it was right Brimore was a very economical craft, Trustworthy,safe and good fun. I have had this craft for more than 23 years now and this year I am going to uprate the 4D to a Ford 120hp 6cyl diesel and hope that apart from the fuel she is as trusting as her diesel engine is now.

I hope you have enjoyed this story and I have another 2 stories both featured in boat magazines to put on the website. Hope to see you here again. Brian and family and of course   BRIMORE