Commonwealth Games Queen’s Baton Relay in Royal Albert Dock

The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebration weekend coincided with the visit to London of the Queen’s Commonwealth Games Baton and as part of a number of events across the capital several stages of the relay took place in the Royal Docks area of the London Borough of Newham.

One aspect of this included the transportation of the Baton by boat through parts of the royal group of docks from near City Hall to Royal Albert Wharf.

QXDBR2022 Flotilla in Royal Albert Dock

Billed by the event organisers as an “eye-popping 25-boat flotilla” the reality was somewhat less inspiring and a real shame that there was no easy way to determine from which watersports organisations the participating craft came from.

Of the 13 vessels that actually took part two where from the Metropolitan Police’s Marine Unit that provided two of their fast patrol RIBs to provide security and as a camera platform (there was little chance of marauding vessels in the otherwise deserted expanse of the Docks!).

Marine Police RIB

The locally based Windy Pandas Dragon Boat club provided one of the 4 Dragon Boats in the event and also had the honour of carrying the Baton. Other boats were crewed by the Typhoon Dragon Boat club, the Thames Dragons Dragon Boat club and a forth, as yet, unidentified club.

WINDY PANDAS with the QCG Baton

WINDY PANDAS with the QCG Baton

WINDY PANDAS with the QCG Baton

WINDY PANDAS with the QCG Baton

TYPHOON DBC

THAMES DRAGONS DBC

? DBC

There were also three rowing teams from the London Otters Rowing Club.

LORC

LORC

LORC

Unfortunately the final rowing boat didn’t make it all the way to the end of the Royal Albert Dock and turned back without the participants being identified – this rowing boat was also accompanied by a RIB operated by the Atlantic Pacific Lifeboat organisation (soon to build their new Royal Docks training base).

Rowing Boat

ATLANTIC PACIFIC

The final 2 boats were provided by the Docks management company, one safety boat and one workboat that was used by the event organisers with more security personnell and photographers on board.

RoDMA 1

Good to witness a piece of history but a shame the event was over promised and under delivered.

A few more pictures from the event can be seen here,

Rock n Roll Royals

The Royal Docks is often used as a location for the set–up work for various PR events due to the non-tidal waters with good road access and areas of hard-standings with the benefit of being a little bit out of the public gaze (apart from me!!).

The end result – Liam Gallagher and band on a boat on the Thames in London

It remains to be seen how the redevelopment plans for the area will affect this facility but in the meantime I hope the interesting projects keep coming to the area.

So, back to Rock and Roll.

The latest project being undertaken by the Livett’s Group involved the creation of a floating stage for a music performance along with a full TV outside broadcast facility. To facilitate this the Livett’s team deployed their large P2 pontoon with tug Felix providing the motive power and luxury charter vessel Edwardian was used as a floating ‘green room’.

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  Felix + P2 rigging the stage

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  Edwardian acting as logistics base

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  Felix + P2 rigging

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  Edwardian, Felix & P2 – event set up

In addition camera boat Equity and fast launch Lima Lima 1 were used to ferry personnel and to act as camera boats during the filming of the event.

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  Equity

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  Lima Lima 1

Whilst the Royal Docks is often used for the preparation activity it is less often that the “star” of the show is seen in the area but on this occasion Liam Gallagher and his band used the location as a staging point for getting afloat.

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As darkness fell the barge and accompanying boats started making their way up the Thames and were joined by a helicopter that was used to get some additional shots of the various Thames landmarks as the band and stage made their way towards Tower Bridge.

All very ‘Rock & Roll’!

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I wonder what we will see next at Gallions Point as a followup to having Liam Gallagher down by the river Thames?

Changing cranes

The KGV Lock has long been used as a location for loading and unloading equipment and plant from barges and pontoons due to the fact it is a non-tidal protected area of water that make such operations safer and easier to undertake.

KGV Lock with working areas

There is a question mark hanging over the future of this facility though as the future development plans for the area show new buildings much closer to the dock edge and less convenient road access routes – something that seems to go against the London Plan and the protection of the Blue Ribbon network!!

Anyway, back to the present and a recent where one large crane was taken off a pontoon and a slightly smaller was loaded in it’s place.

The pontoon was provided by the Livett’s Group and Thamescraft Dry Docking provided the Emilia D and the Dalby Venture to keep the pontoon in place and the latter also had a supply of wooden beams used to help the cranes drive off and on the pontoon.

Operations such as this one are good examples of #STEM in action with plenty of physics and mechanics involved when it comes to moving heavy items of plant off and on a floating pontoon whilst keeping everything safe and secure!

Both of the cranes were Liebherr mobile cranes, with a LR 1110 Crawler crane operated by Hawks Crane Hire being unloaded first.

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Then a LTR 1100 operated by Sarens took its place.

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The following fast-motion video shows the action with the first crane also assisting with the moving of the boards to assist the loading of the second crane.