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Times and Tides

The river trip from Westminster to Hampton Court is unique. At 35 kilometres (22 miles) one-way, it is the longest regular scheduled boat service available from London.

On a fiercely tidal river such as The Thames it is difficult and sometimes impossible to provide an exact time of departure and arrival.
The latest sailings estimate departure and journey times based on current tides and conditions

It is worth listing here the factors taken into consideration when preparing the latest sailing timetable

• There are two tides a day on the Thames it takes approximately five hours to come in and little over seven hours to go out
• Each high tide occurs slightly more than twelve hours later than the next
• Near to the new and full moons (about every two weeks) we have spring tides when there is a rise and fall between low tide and high tide of up to 8m (26')
• Seven to eight days after spring tides we have neap tides where the difference between low water and high water is around 5m (16')
• Other factors such as wind in the estuary and land water from the hills, all have a bearing on the time and height of tide.

The most obvious way the tide affects vessels is direction.

Traveling along with the tide ~upstream with the flood and downstream with the ebb, is more efficient than pushing against the ebb going up and the flood going down.