A veteran sailor has told of his “close shave” after a rare waterspout tore across The Thames near his boat.
Warren Gordon, 68, was at the helm of his blue-sailed Enterprise sailing dinghy when the whirlwind hit the river in south-west London as he was taking part in the Minima Yacht Club’s Sunday afternoon handicap race.
He told how he was “very apprehensive” as water was whipped up by the mini-vortex.
“I have never seen anything like this in the 41 years of sailing on the River Thames,” he told The Standard.
The freak weather incident happened on Sunday April 26, shortly before 3.30pm, in the Kingston section of the Thames.
“We were sailing into the wind with the sails close hauled towards the clubhouse when I saw ripples on the water ahead of the boat indicating that there would be a gust of wind,” Mr Gordon recalled.
“I then noticed spray emerging above the water ahead on the left hand side of the bow of the boat by the Kingston bank of the river near Eagle Wharf.
“The water was spinning like a garden sprinkler.
“The spout then started to move towards the middle of the river.”
Mr Gordon recollected how he felt: “I was very apprehensive as I did not know if the spout was going to come towards our boat.
“Fortunately it continued across the river to the Richmond bank where it went upstream and then disappeared. I am not sure what would have happened if the spout had hit the boat.
“A close shave indeed.”
The first sign of the whirlwind, which can strike in calm weather, was when the race bell started ringing by itself.
Assistant race officer Zoe Van Den Bosch was leaning out of the race box window when she felt a rush of wind across the front of it coming from Kingston Bridge.
“It was so strong it rang the bell,” she said.
“I looked up the river to where the boats were nearer the opposite bank and past the dinghy park.
“I said to (race officer) Frances ‘they are going to get a huge lift’ but it never happened.“
As she watched: “Boats were all head to wind and not moving. I thought that was weird.
“Then I looked down and saw this swirling spray rising up from the Kingston side of the river.”
Race officer Frances Southall remembered: “It was quite exciting because it was funnelling up.
“You could see the spiral vortex and part of me was wondering how big it was going to get.
“It swerved quite quickly across the river and then flattened.”
A waterspout is a narrow column of rotating air that occurs over water and is part of the same weather “family” as tornadoes, according to experts at Reading University.
“It’s a whirlwind of some kind that has moved across water and sucks up water as it goes across,” explained Keith Payne, Commodore of the Minima Sailing and Paddling Club.
Paul S, the bosun on duty at the time, tasked with helping boats which got into difficulty, was at the river edge when the mini-twister struck.
“Just after radioing Frances to understand why the bell was ringing, a whirlwind in the form of a waterspout appeared on the water just in front of the race box,” he said.
“It made its way across the river, the diameter getting bigger until it disappeared, narrowly avoiding the Enterprise of Warren.”
The first official bathing spot on The Thames has been announced, close to Teddington, a few miles downstream from where the rare weather incident happened.
