2 mins
Setting the Stage
PHOTOGRAPHY: BENEDICT TUFNELL
The Port of London Authority (PLA) is the self-funding public trust founded in 1909 for the purpose of governing the Port of London; Britain’s busiest inland waterway. The PLA manages more than 95 miles of the tidal stretch of the River Thames and its continuation on the Kent/Essex strait. Alongside the PLA’s core duties of maintaining and supervising navigation in the port, and protecting the river’s environment, they also play a vital role in the staging and safe execution of the Boat Race annually, traditionally running between Putney and Mortlake on the Tideway.
The PLA has long worked in close cooperation with the organisers of the Boat Race to ensure the safe and proper running of this annual race on the Championship Course, while keeping goods and traffic flowing in the port. According to Darren Knight, Deputy Harbour Master for the PLA and the person in charge of managing the PLA’s Boat Race operations, planning for the race typically begins several months before race day. The PLA takes responsibility for closing the river for around 8 hours or more on race day, as well as installing the stake boats that hold the crews in position at the start.
“Due to the volume of traffic on the course, it’s important for us to put together a safe event plan for the Boat Race each year,” says Knight. “I started conversations in November of 2021 for a one day event in April 2022. But there are of course other smaller events before the race itself including Trial Eights and the fixtures. The week of the race itself is also very busy and really ramps up for us on the Friday when we put the stake boats in that will hold Oxford and Cambridge on the start line so they can practice their starts ahead of the race. Our aim there is to keep traffic moving while also allowing the Boat Race to practice what they need to.”
“On the Sunday – race day – we move into a much bigger scale operation, so we close the river quite early. It gives us time to make sure we do our checks and for the police to do their checks for any security issues. We also do a recce of the course looking for any debris that might affect the crews during the race. We must put the stake boats in again too, so it’s a busy day for us in terms of resources on the river. We have our own command and control centre on the course that links with the Boat Race’s own command and control centre on the bank in Putney. We have a boat either end of the course enforcing the river closure and a boat with a crane to install the stake boats, which require a two-ton sinker -essentially an anchor -that is dropped by a crane from one of our boats to hold them in place. If anything else arises on the day we are there to manage and deal with it in a safe manner -that’s the priority.”
This year the Boat Race returns to the Tideway after the pandemic and safety concerns over the structural integrity of Hammersmith Bridge forced an outright cancellation in 2020 and then a move to Ely, Cambridgeshire in 2021. Knight and his team of 16 or so personnel and a fleet of PLA vessels will be in action, ensuring -they hope -it all runs smoothly.