For the dinghy cruising man (or woman) who has a car, the world is an oyster. He or she can take the dinghy to any cruising water with great ease and speed. Yet it is the car that is becoming the weak part of this scheme, as more and more cars come on the road.

The various points on our inland and estuarial waters where access to the water is convenient and a matter of public right of way are the same as were used by the old-time water transport workers, the bargees or sailormen. As those were thirsty occupations, the hards, slipways, drawdocks, etc were just the place to site a pub for the refreshment of the workers. The beery watermen are long gone, but most of the pubs have found a new clientele. They are just the place to drive to for a drink or even a meal because of their picturesque, or, at least, characterful locations. The result of this is an ever increasing difficulty of being able to park near the launching point during opening hours, or even of gaining access to the water once you get there. The yuppies who patronise the London Apprentice at Isleworth park their company cars thickly across the top of the drawdock in spite of all the notices asking them to leave clear access to the slipway.

In late years, I have found it wise to delay my arrival at the Eel Pie slipway in Twickenham until 3.10 pm, when I can usually find a parking space after the pub has closed and the customers start to disperse. A few weeks ago, I arrived at the Eel Pie slipway to find it obstructed. Half the width of the slipway was taken up by a contractor’s pontoon used for floating a JCB over to the island. It was there for several weeks. On the day in question, the remaining gap to the river had been blocked by a nearly new Volkswagen, parked broadside-on by a totally inconsiderate specimen of the ‘Me No’ citizen. Ordinarily, I would have been furious, but on this occasion the gods were on the side of the just, because it was high water, spring tide, and the VW was submerged to the roofline. I launched in the shallow water on the road and paddled out happily over the bonnet of the submerged car. When I got back to the slip a few hours later, and the river had withdrawn to its half-tide level, a rueful owner was being attended to by the AA rescue service man who was radioing for a tow to take the still dripping car to the garage. When it was indicated to the man that he had parked right under one of the several signs — ‘Warning. This area is liable to sudden flooding’ — he complained that he had only gone for a drink. He, like many others, whose cars are submerged hereabouts, did not realise that in the last hour a spring tide rises here at over an inch a minute. A pleasant hour in the pub will see a car, originally left high and dry, now sitting in a few feet of water.

I feel sorry for those whose cars are submerged because the warning signs say nothing about the rising tide, and no landlubber expects a flood on a calm summer day! But a chap who parks across a slipway deserves to be submerged along with his car. This problem of parking at launching-site pubs has been aggravated by the all-day extension of opening hours. Happily, not all publicans have chosen to give up their afternoon break, though how long this will continue, I do not know — I can only hope.