A Passage from Greenwich to Woodbridge on board Sailing Barge, 1900 Tjalk “Trouwe Hulp”

Passage on board 1900 Sailing Tjalk “Trouwe Hulp” from Greenwich Yacht Club, London to Woodbridge in Suffolk with friend, longtime partner-in-crime & Barge Owner, Jago, old friend & skilled sailor Robin and new friend & Expert Mariner Beth (aka Youtuber “Tiller Queen”) who navigated us safely up the East Coast.

Leaving at 8:30pm, heading out against an incoming tide, through the Thames Barrier and into the Thames Estuary. Sailing through the night, so that we would reach Woodbridge at High Water (1pm the following day) with enough water to get onto our mooring, otherwise we would have a 13-hour wait in the deep channel until the next High Water.

Out into the North Sea and North up the Essex Coast towards Suffolk. At 6am, Thames Sailing Barge “Will” (formerly “Will Everard”) was sighted in with all sails set, bright in the light of the rising sun.


Past Ipswich Docks and Into the River Deben – a bar at the river’s mouth make entry into the river time-restricted and sometimes tricky. Up the river towards Woodbridge, the deep channel is narrow and winding within a wide & sometimes shallow river, with plenty of opportunity for grounding. Extensive boat moorings make the channel sometimes tricky to navigate, and at times we found ourselves in the wrong place. At one point, we were the other side of a group of moored boats and rapidly running out of water on the Depth finder, so Robin took the helm and skilfully directed the big beast of a boat through the moored pleasure craft and back into the channel, at moments with only inches to spare on either side of the heavy Barge, the rest of us literally fending off boats both sides to avoid contact.

After a cold night and grey early morning, by now the hot sun was beating down upon us as we sighted Woodbridge quay, which was a huge relief. The final manoeuvring of the large vessel into the narrow mooring was made more difficult by absolute exhaustion, the fact that none of us had seen it before and the ticking clock which meant we only had a few minutes to successfully get the Barge onto her berth. This was successfully achieved and toasted with Champagne.

A magnificent end to a fabulous voyage on a glorious old boat.

Links within film showing this vessel on Dutch canals and crossing North Sea to UK.