It will fit through the door ...

Not a problem. The boat will fit through the Critical Practice room door (at a depth of 21 inches approximately). Mind you, not that they'll be any space or place for it to go... but it's reassuring...

5 more days

Well, I don't think my attempts at the gym are going to be much use, but I suppose its better than nothing. I worked out that about 10 minutes on the rowing machine equates to about 2km. Of course, this has absolutely no reflection on the type of rowing I'll be doing but it's encouraging nonetheless.

2km = 10 minutes
Convert to miles, say 1.6km per mile so ... 1.25miles = 10 minutes
Slow down the rowing 3 times, as this is a hand built clinker not a racing row so say 1.25 miles = 30 minutes
9.5 miles / 1.25 miles = 7.6
7.6 x 30 minutes = 228 minutes
228 minutes / 60 minutes = 3 hours 48 minutes
Add knackered factor of 20% = 274 minutes / 60 minutes = 4 hours 34 minutes
Lock transfer times, 10 minutes each x 6 locks = 60 minutes
Therefore total 5 hours 34 minutes
Plus 30 - 60 minute rest time
6 hours 34 minutes

Row map sketch

A sketch of my row thus far. It's probably quite a good guide, locating the locks (milestones) to make sure I'm at least rowing in the right direction. The good news is that I now estimate it to be about 9.5 miles (with a 2.5 mile saving - bonus!). My concern now is ensuring my walking passenger can travel safely beside me at all times....

Pass the sleeping pills!

Almost, the last three miles ..

I've calculated (with a piece of string I found stuck in one of my old sketch books), that the distance from Old Ford Locks, down the Limehouse Cut, into the Limehouse basin and round the corner to Commercial Road locks is approximately 3 miles, give or take a few nooks and crannies.

Based in these calculations, I can estimate the entire length of the journey from some maps I've found which highlight a basic journey (with milestones/locks)..

Licence to thrill

My licence to endure the waterways! On the application they asked for boat name, which is stated as 'Untitled'. I wonder if they then put on the surname of the licencee on all boat name applications or whether it was merely insecurity of allowing a boat untitled.

Getting it through the door

Ok, so it's pretty inevitable that I've got some feat on my hands (or is that feet on hands), but I've only just considered whether or not once I've got it into Central House, will I get it through the CP door?

In the beginning ...

"Ok, so we all have to start somewhere", my Father informed me when I bodged up the HMS Belfast in 1:1000 scale. I was always particularly inept at piecing together ready cut pieces to make models. In fact, I even failed miserably with paint by numbers, because I could never get enough paint on the brush to push it all the way out to the boundaries or too much paint without painting over the boundaries. What terrible anguish. I knew at that moment I would never quite match up to my Father's expectations of me as an artist. We persisted anyway.

30 years later, I replaced my scalpel and paintbrush with a tenon saw and camera, and began making work again. I thought that maybe a battleship was slightly ambitious, so set about knocking together a clinker rowing boat, to see where it takes me. Again.