New voyage crew joined at lunch time, with the watch leaders joining the day before as instructed. Once all the voyage crew of 418 were assembled on board the permanent crew introduced themselves .The rest of the day was taken up with briefings for safety and evacuation drills. Later in the evening we were hosted by Norton Rose Fulbright who sponsored Lord Nelson on her circumnavigation. From the venue we could see the height of the London Shard, the Tower bridge and the lights from the masts of Tenacious – what a sight!

Sunday 21/9/14

We left the London dock after lunch. We had the tide running with us and at one point had a speed of 9knots.On our journey down we had an interesting view of the buildings which makes up the  history of London. This was particularly exciting for some of the voyage crew who had never been to London before coming from as far away as New Zealand. We finally made a stop at Tilbury landing stage where we would remain until the following day for a dive team to check our propeller.

A nautical animal quiz was set on Sunday night to be handed in on Monday. The quiz was set by Tony and Richard the mates. The winning team was won by Forward Port. The evening was lot of fun as we all got together in our watches.

Monday morning the dive team came and removed some rope wrapped around our propeller.

This was fixed lunchtime today Monday 22nd, a great cheer was heard  and now we are motoring to France. Dieppe perhaps. Some more climbs are currently happening while we pass Southend bathed in sunshine. To our port side the mate Richard pointed out the masts of the sunken ship SS Richard Montgomery. On 20th August 1944 she dragged anchor and run aground on a sandbank around 250 metres from the Medway Approach channel, and there she remains today.

According to a survey in 2000 by the Maritime Coastguards the wreck still holds munitions which are too dangerous to remove. So all vessels in this area give her a wide berth.

FWD STARBOARD

Aft Starboard (Joyce and crew members)