Climbing Moss

Having lived in London all my life (Ash), I have never actually been on The Thames – as in on a boat along it. For years it was only used by the wealthy, the Police, tourists willing to get ripped off and the occasional nutcase. But in recent years The Thames Clipper started using the river as a means of public transport, but as a true Londoner (Ash) and Someone who has been on a boat in the Thames before (Bob) -we knew better than to take to the river to get around – until last week…

The River Thames has always been a used, for commercial and personal traffic, up until the start of the 20th Century, when the boats to transport goods around the world became too big to use the ports of London and the river pretty much fell into disuse. But there were still bridges crossing the river and that was for most Londoners, the only time they came close to the water. There have been tourist boats and party boats traversing the river for years, charging a less than small fortune for passage to travel and see the sights, but for the most part, most of us just avoided this in favour of buses and cars, until recently that is. In 2020 Uber joined City Clipper and started to offer water taxi journeys up and down the river.

The Uber Boats are huge Catamarans that can carry over 200 people at a time in comfortable airplane style seats, offer food and drinks and give great views of the sights of London. They populate the heart of the capital these days running up and down the River Thames, once again making proper use of the waterway in the centre of London

So, last week we decided to take one of the latest form of public transport from Battersea Power Station to London Bridge instead of going Underground and travelling across town the usual way, on the tube.

We started off at Battersea Power Station Pier, having finished with the dog’s Hydrotherapy treatment and taking to the floating pontoon on the river. The timetable says that a boat should run at about every 15 minutes, according to the timetable but like everything with TFL it is just a reference and to be taken with a pinch of salt!

The Thames Clipper Company runs the service with sponsorship from Uber and is linked to TFL, but isn’t completely part of the Transport for London, so this means it is a bit vague in the pricing, there are concessions, but only for Freedom Pass Holders, any other type is not recognised and the prices are dependant on where and when you buy them. Buying online beforehand can cost £8.50-£10.30, for a one-way trip, to use your Oystercard will cost £10.30, but to use a bank card on the contactless touch pads will cost £8.50, but every person must touch in while being witnessed by one of the half a dozen staff on the pontoon, so the queues to scan in are slow.

The boat arrives and docks efficiently enough tying off and pulling down a ramp for access to the back of the 38m Hunt Class Catamarans and with everyone on the boat’s massive engines kick in to churn up the water and spin the boat to return down river towards Tower Bridge. We stayed on the back on the boat to move about and try to get a better view of the passing scenery, but you can take a seat inside in one of the 220 seats the boats are fitted with. Inside the seats are comfortable and span the cabin, with a bar to the rear – where you too can pay £7 for a cup of tea or £15 for a bottle of Becks! As well as toilets, there is an upper deck, but on most of the boats this is just the wheel house, for the crew.

So what’s it like? Well with the engines revving to set off it’s pretty noisy standing on the back, but once cruising speed is achieved it can be quite pleasant, the main problem of the UberBoats, that cruising speed is barely reached, because the moment the boat gets moving its stopping again, to slow for the next stop. The moment we cleared Battersea Pier there was a call for passengers disembarking at Vauxhall St. George’s Wharf. This is literally down the river, a possible 10 minutes walk from the power station and yet there were people who got off, having paid their £10! Ten minutes later the engines revved again and we set off once again. Gunning for – Millbank Pier, yes the next stop is a massive 400metres away if you walk it and in the boat it’s literally across the river under Vauxhall Bridge.

It takes about 2 minutes to cross the river and 10 minutes to manoeuvre onto the pontoon, to allow on another 50 passengers and let off another 6. So 20 minutes after leaving Battersea, we start off again (given that it would have taken you 20minutes to walk the route. But maybe it’s just a case of all these stops at the start and then you head off without stopping again, yeah right!. No, of course not, the boat sets off again and for once actually does make some distance, heading due north.

This is when the UberBoat could be a great journey, the boat charges north in the twisting river and heads past Lambeth Palace and then the Palaces of Westminster, close enough to get a great view of St. Stephen’s Tower , the ornate Gothic Architecture and the hundreds of Houses of Parliament representatives and MPs on the veranda at some afternoon function that probably cost a few thousand pounds in taxes!

But no this journey Google claims it takes 8minutes along the river, but 5 of those are mooring up at Westminster pier. Bombing along the water for 3 minutes is fun and on a glorious sunny afternoon enjoyable. but then 15 minutes mooring and getting the 200 hundred tourists onboard was tiresome. We stood looking over at the London Eye with it’s huge Lastminute.com signs all over it and eventually we were off once again. Not to pass the Savoy and The NFT, no don’t be silly, we crossed the river, to moor up under the Eye, (just 200metres if you walked it) and admit another 30 people and let off about 50 people, many who had just got on at Westminster! Another 15minutes (we were held back while another of the 24 UberBoats travelling the same route, overtook us) and we were finally off. Now can you. guess where we went this time?

2.5minutes across the river to Embankment Pier, under Hungerford Bridge, yes another 5 minute walk or 20 minutes total travel time on a boat!.

Another 10minutes of reversing this time onto a pier, for no one to get on or off! Then we headed to our next distant destination Festival Pier! Yes Festival Pier, that is that pier you can see on the opposite side of the water from where you are at Embankment Pier. If you had walked the route (like a sane person), you would have to walk back across The Golden Jubilee Footbridge and back to the Southbank in 3minutes, but on the wonderful UberBoat, it takes 10 minutes of traversing around the giant skiffs that are moored in the centre, so the boat has to twist and turn around, back and forth, traversing the water to get to the other side and guess what? No-one got on or off again! So we headed off, eager for the next long journey to…

Blackfriars Pier – OMG we actually went somewhere, under Waterloo Bridge AND Blackfriars Bridge – two bridges in one go!! A grand total of half a mile or 8minutes walk and we did it is about 3minutes! This is what it could be like if these boats actually went from A to B without stopping at A.1 A.2 A.3 etc. Of course it couldn’t last, no, the next stop was Bankside under Tate Modern, as seen clearly from Blackfriars Pier and then seen for the next 5 minutes while the large boat reversed across the river to take station at the pier.

We set off again – now remember this has taken 90minutes so far and thankfully the call for London City Pier came over the Tannoy and we were finally able to get ready to get off, five minutes of actual moving from Bankside to London Bridge was the longest distance travelled on the journey, a whole 0.7 of a mile and still managed to take 10minutes from cast off to docking. We disembarked and climbed the ramp to dry land, bleeping our cards at the touchpad and found ourselves by HMS Belfast and the end of a journey that took one hour and forty-five minutes. Such a great way to cross the city at speed!

So, what did we think of Thames Clipper’s Uber Boats? Well I think you may have guessed our final review. DON’T DO IT, Stay away from the boats! It is not worth it.

Oh and just for reference Google states it’s 3.5miles and would take 1hr and 15mins, but we all know that means it’s half that in the real world, so say 2.5miles max and about 50minutes to walk the same route!