Tall ship 'Irene' on Sharpness canal

We have been waiting to see the tall ships which have been visiting Gloucester docks for the last week to be part of a feature film being recorded there. There were four in total and today two of the vessels were due to leave Gloucester at 7am to travel south down the Gloucester - Sharpness canal in order to joint the very tidal River Severn at sharpness and then out to sea on the Bristol Channel.

Helena managed to get the two girls and I up and off by 8am so that we could catch the boats a few miles south of Gloucester. I drove to a spot where I thought they would have reached and then realizing we were a bit late, I adjusted directions at the last minute and we went to another swingbridge over the canal.

As we neared the canal I spotted some mast tops above the trees, so quickly parked on the approach to the small bridge and we raced up to the bankside. As we got there the first boat was just passing through the bridge and I only managed to film its side and rear. A couple of hundred yards behind came the second tall ship 'Irene' and it looked wonderful in the early morning light. We followed its passage through the bridge and down the canal for a short time. Then I drove us off again to the next bridge at Fretherne where we parked again and had more time to await the passing again.

It is now lunchtime and I am going to blip this quickly and then go off to meet my old friend Pip, who is coming up from Bristol and we will meet up at the end of the canal at Sharpness dock. Then we will see the two boats leave their moorings and enter the dock to await the high tide in the Bristol Channel so that they can leave for their next adventures. i may decide to change my blip if I get a better picture, but in the meantime here is this mornings lovely view. I will definitely add a gallery to Flickr anyway to show a range of all of today's pictures.

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I have now added two galleries one from the early morning near to Gloucester, the other from the final approach to Sharpness and then the departure at high tide through the final lock and out onto the Bristol Channel. Their destination apparently was Falmouth in south Cornwall, but I have no idea how long it will take them. No sails were set this evening so they chugged away on their engines and with the benefit of the ebbing tide.

Tall ships going back to the sea – early morning 24th August 2014

Tall ships going back to the sea – evening 24th August 2014