28 Sep Massey Shaw reaches cruising speed during September
Volunteers from the Massey Shaw Education Trust had a busy September, attending multiple events up and down the River Thames as part of Totally Thames 2017 and Open House London.
Beginning with an exclusive trip for members and guests, Massey set off from West India Dock on Thursday 7th to the Thames Barrier and back into central London for the Classic Boat Rally at St Katharine Docks. We were joined by 8 passengers who thoroughly enjoyed the trip, even after a lengthy wait (almost 5 hours!) getting into St Katharine Docks! But that aside, the rally saw us join fellow Dunkirk Little Ships and other historic vessels, including the Queens rowing barge, Gloriana for a full weekend of music, food and history.
Over the course of the event we saw over 600 visitors on board and had many discussions with potential volunteers and partners to help us into 2018 and beyond! We were unable to do any pumping this year due to the number of boats in the dock, but we were glad to share the weekend with the public and raise some much needed funds through donations!
The following weekend saw us at Hermitage Community Moorings in Wapping for the London Open House weekend. Again, record crowds and lots of interested people. Monday saw us return to West India in company with Steam Tug Portwey – an interesting, if short, trip.
Through contributions from passengers and visitors, we received about £1000 from the above outings. A good return and our sincere and heartfelt thanks to all the volunteers who crewed the boat and showed visitors round.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR MASSEY SHAW?
Our next outing is to take Massey up to Kew Grid – a drying out facility close to Kew Pier. We will be leaving West India at 0800 on Saturday 14 October, and crew will need to be on board by 0730. We are scheduled to arrive at Kew around 1000 and, once the tide falls sufficiently to allow us to work, the intention is to clean and inspect the hull and fittings. We will be able to work for at least 3 hours, which should be sufficient. We will then leave Kew the following morning at around 1030 back to West India in the early afternoon.
CAN YOU HELP?
Finally, we have a couple of groups of visitors to Massey in West India and we’d be grateful for a couple of volunteers to show the visitors around the boat on the following dates:
- Tuesday 31 October, around 1300 start
- Thursday 16 November starting around 1030
Please sign up on 3 Rings if you can help with any of the above or email events@masseyshaw.org with your details. Or download a volunteer form to join our subscriber list to be informed of up and coming events.