I found out the other day that something called the Great River Race was setting off from the Millwall Slipway which is only walking distance from my house. So on Saturday afternoon I wandered over shortly before the start to see what was going on.
When I first got there teams were still ferrying their boats across Westferry Road to slipway.

The staging area above the slipway was packed with teams and boats of all different kinds.

These Hawaiian Outriggers are some of the fastest boats in the race according to last years results.

Lots of boats beach on the tiny shoreline while they are waiting for their start time. Different classes of boats start in different batches.

Although getting up and down to the shore is quite a fearsome climb.

I knew very little about the race before I turned up so I was surprised by the variety of boats and crews on display. For example, apparently this is a Cornish Pilot Gig:

and this is a Dragonboat.

There were crews from abroad like these chaps from Rotterdam,

and local crews like Sisterhood from Hounslow.

And even some heavy metal fans.

By the time I left the only crew still waiting to launch were the Row2Recovery crew in their Transatlantic Four.

You can find the rest of my photos from the afternoon on my flickr account.