{"id":27676,"date":"2026-05-03T12:51:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:51:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/27676\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T12:51:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T12:51:05","slug":"freak-london-weather-moment-rare-waterspout-rips-across-thames-in-close-shave-for-veteran-sailor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/27676\/","title":{"rendered":"Freak London weather: Moment rare waterspout rips across Thames in ‘close shave’ for veteran sailor"},"content":{"rendered":"

A veteran sailor has told of his \u201cclose shave\u201d after a rare waterspout<\/a> tore across The Thames<\/a> near his boat.<\/p>\n

Warren Gordon, 68, was at the helm of his blue-sailed Enterprise sailing<\/a> dinghy when the whirlwind hit the river in south-west London as he was taking part in the Minima Yacht Club\u2019s Sunday afternoon handicap race.<\/p>\n

He told how he was \u201cvery apprehensive\u201d as water was whipped up by the mini-vortex.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never seen anything like this in the 41 years of sailing on the River Thames,\u201d he told The Standard.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A waterspout struck the Thames near the Enterprise sailing dinghy of veteran sailor Warren Gordon (Minima Sailing and Paddling Club)<\/p>\n

The freak weather incident happened on Sunday April 26, shortly before 3.30pm, in the Kingston<\/a> section of the Thames.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Mr Gordon recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water was spinning like a garden sprinkler.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spout then started to move towards the middle of the river.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Gordon recollected how he felt: \u201cI was very apprehensive as I did not know if the spout was going to come towards our boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cA close shave indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Assistant<\/p>\n

Assistant Race Officer Zoe Van Den Bosch (Minima Sailing and Paddling Club)<\/p>\n

The first sign of the whirlwind, which can strike in calm weather,<\/a> was when the race bell started ringing by itself.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so strong it rang the bell,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked up the river to where the boats were nearer the opposite bank and past the dinghy park.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said to (race officer) Frances \u2018they are going to get a huge lift\u2019 but it never happened.\u201c<\/p>\n

As she watched: \u201cBoats were all head to wind and not moving. I thought that was weird.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I looked down and saw this swirling spray rising up from the Kingston side of the river.\u201d<\/p>\n

Race officer Frances Southall remembered: \u201cIt was quite exciting because it was funnelling up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see the spiral vortex and part of me was wondering how big it was going to get.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt swerved quite quickly across the river and then flattened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Keith<\/p>\n

Keith Payne, Commodore at the Minima Sailing and Paddling Club (KP)<\/p>\n

A waterspout is a narrow column of rotating air<\/a> that occurs over water and is part of the same weather \u201cfamily\u201d as tornadoes, according to experts at Reading University.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a whirlwind of some kind that has moved across water and sucks up water as it goes across,\u201d explained Keith Payne, Commodore of the Minima Sailing and Paddling Club.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made its way across the river, the diameter getting bigger until it disappeared, narrowly avoiding the Enterprise of Warren.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first official bathing spot on The Thames has been announced, close to Teddington, <\/a>a few miles downstream from where the rare weather incident happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A veteran sailor has told of his \u201cclose shave\u201d after a rare waterspout tore across The Thames near…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[12259,27,12257,12262,1731,12261,12258,12260,12263],"class_list":{"0":"post-27676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-close-shave","9":"tag-london","10":"tag-paddling-club","11":"tag-race-officer","12":"tag-thames","13":"tag-veteran-sailor","14":"tag-warren-gordon","15":"tag-waterspout","16":"tag-zoe-van-den-bosch"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116510738655335259","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}