The BETTY Effect

" When you approach towns and villages through rivers, you see them totally differently. You wouldn’t think they’re the same place. Rowing a river, you’re starting high up and working your way down every day; there’s always a different vista, always something different. It’s the loveliest way to see the countryside and nature. I’ve lost track of the birds, waterfowl, dragonflies and damselflies we’ve seen, everywhere.”

Jacqui Price is speaking on the banks of the River Dart in Devon, England, where she and her husband, Chris, keep their 13′ 6″ rowboat, BETTY. Since Chris built the boat in 2010, they have rowed her down three of England’s major rivers—the Thames, the Severn, and the Great Ouse—and have traversed dozens of estuaries, lakes, and even some open coast; in the process, they have clocked up about 700 miles. To their surprise, rowing their “little boat” has developed into as much of a passion as sailing their “big boat”—a 28′ sloop tugging at a mooring on the other side of the river.

It all started when Chris retired from their business, making point-of-sale displays, at the relatively young age of 60. He was looking for a project to keep him busy and stumbled across the idea of building a boat. The couple met while working as volunteers at the Exeter Maritime Museum back in the 1970s, and have owned several boats together over the years, starting with a dinghy, progressing to an 18′ wooden Hillyard sloop, a 27′ wooden East Anglian sloop, and finally SOLENT BREEZE, a fiberglass Great Dane 28 (their current “big boat”). Along the way, Chris acquired the necessary woodworking skills to maintain their boats himself—not least replacing the frames on the Hillyard—but he had never built a boat from scratch. It was time to fulfill a long-cherished dream.

Nic Compton

Jacqui and Chris Price rowing on the River Dart near their home in Devon, England

After an extensive search on the internet, Chris eventually homed in on the Tammie Norrie designed by Iain Oughtred, which he decided to build in solid wood, using Sitka spruce for the planking, African mahogany for the thwarts and transom, and oak for almost everything else, including the frames, keel, and laminated stem. Mostly, he stuck to Iain’s plans, apart from adding a small foredeck and forward locker for storage. The result was a little jewel of a boat that is admired wherever she goes.

BETTY was launched onto the River Exe, in Devon, in September 2014. She was named after Jacqui’s mother, whose grandfather was a fisherman from Looe, in Cornwall, and had also named a boat after Betty, when she was a child. Betty died before Chris’s boat was launched, but her name lives on and, along with it, Jacqui’s sailing ancestry.

Chris hadn’t really thought about what he was going to do with the boat once it was built. The whole point of the project was the build; they still had SOLENT BREEZE, and any cruising trips naturally revolved around her. But both he and Jacqui had long been interested in rowing. At age 16, Jacqui had taught herself to row in a collection of Thames skiffs at the Exeter Maritime Museum. So, the first thing they did after BETTY was launched was grab an oar each and pull away together. To their relief, she was a joy to row, although it took them a while to get the most out of her.

Chris Price

On the Thames near Oxford, Jacqui tidies the boat for an overnight stop. The river offers a variety of stopping places from marinas and rural tie-ups to bankside moorings near locks.

“It was a huge learning curve,” says Jacqui. “When we first launched her, we had one set of oars, which we rowed with one oar on each side. A few weeks later, we took BETTY to Looe and were rowing against the tide, making no progress, when I said, let’s try two oars each. It made all the difference, of course, and we’ve never looked back.”

Over the next few years, Chris and Jacqui rowed BETTY extensively up and down the rivers and estuaries of Devon and Cornwall, including trips up the Exe, the Teign, the Dart, the Avon, the Fowey, the Fal, and the Helford. They took her to lakes along the Tamar River and even found a lake on Dartmoor to launch her into. Within a few years, there was barely a patch of water in the West Country they hadn’t explored. It was time to strike out, farther afield.

Roger Siebert

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From Oxford to London

On July 1, 2019, Chris and Jacqui set off with BETTY from Bossoms Boatyard on the outskirts of Oxford. Ahead of them lay a 124-mile journey down the River Thames, through 34 locks, into the heart of London and on to Rotherhithe, the capital’s former shipbuilding center. They had been planning the trip for months, calculating distances, finding pubs and hotels to stay in, and preparing BETTY for her big adventure.

“We planned the trip to take roughly a week,” says Jacqui. “We had no idea how far we could row and, more particularly, if we could row day after day after day, and how that was going to pan out, or whether our hands and muscles could cope with it.”

“Or whether our arses could cope with it,” interjects Chris.

“Once you’ve done it for a day…that’s the worst bit,” resumes Jacqui. “It gets easier after that. Your muscles get used to it.”

Nic Compton

Over the years Jacqui and Chris have brought some comforts and conveniences into BETTY, from the simple two-layer thwart cushions to the custom-made canvas drink holders strapped to seat risers and strategically positioned to be easily reached by the rowers.

Their target was to cover about 16 miles per day, though the availability of accommodation dictated that one leg was 23 miles long, while the final sprint on the tidal Thames was a daunting 25 miles. Their journey started in rural Oxfordshire, where mile upon mile of empty countryside was punctuated only by the occasional farm building and waterside residence. Willow trees drooped over the water, in the manner of The Wind in the Willows, and the riverbank was lined with reeds and water lilies.

From the outset, Chris and Jacqui were amazed by the tranquility of the journey and the wildlife they encountered.

“Slow travel is what BETTY is all about,” says Jacqui. “You get to appreciate the wildlife. We saw motorboats hammering down the river, scaring everything away, but when you’re rowing you don’t miss anything. Traveling slowly means you’ve got the time to focus on nature. There were grey herons on almost every corner. We saw geese gathered sometimes in their hundreds. They always kept in formation and tucked neatly into the side of the river to let us past. Because it was June, there were a lot of young birds, and [the mature ones] looked after them very well. The swans, too, would take their young to the side.”

“Once, the geese were so unaware of us that I accidentally knocked one of them with my oar!” remembers Chris.

As well as the larger birds, they saw moorhens, coots, kingfishers, ducks, cormorants, black-headed gulls, red kites, swifts, and thousands of dragonflies and damselflies. Livestock sometimes lined the riverbank to watch them go pass. “Mostly cattle,” says Chris. “Cows are quite inquisitive and tend to follow you along. There were sheep too, but they weren’t very interested in us.”

Jacqui and Chris Price

The variety in architecture on the Thames was as interesting to the Prices as the wildlife. Near towns such as Oxford, Henley, and Reading they passed boathouses old and new, large and small. Here, in Caversham, near Reading, a grand Edwardian house with boathouse beneath stands tall beside a much smaller boathouse, its accompanying house set back from the riverbank.

It was hot and sunny for most of the week, and Chris and Jacqui soon found themselves setting off from their lodgings at 6 a.m. every day, to make the most of the cooler mornings, and sometimes rowing on into the evenings to keep to their self-imposed schedule. They fell into a rhythm of having two or three breaks per day, usually just pulling over to the riverbank to stretch their legs and have a snack.

“That’s the joy of a small boat,” says Jacqui. “On SOLENT BREEZE, if you see somewhere lovely, you can’t just stop. She’s deep-keeled, so you’ve got to anchor off and sort all that out. But with BETTY, if you think somewhere looks interesting, you can just put her into the reeds, tie her up to a branch, and wander off, leaving her quite happily.” And the joys of non-tidal waterways were not lost on them either. ”You can go back in two hours’ time,” says Jacqui, “and she’ll be there [just as she was]—unlike a dinghy we once tied to a quay, which was hanging from the painter by the time we came back!”

The trip downriver wasn’t just about nature. Chris loves architecture almost as much as Jacqui loves plants, and there were plenty of architectural gems along the way. On their first night, they moored the boat at a campsite next to an elegant red-brick bridge with Gothic arches at Clifton Hampden, and on the second day they wandered the streets of Dorchester-on-Thames with its two medieval coaching inns and abbey church dating back to the 1100s. Two days later they would row past Temple Island with its elegant temple folly designed by James Wyatt and built in 1771 as a fishing lodge. Later, they passed by Windsor Castle (clearly visible from the river) and Hampton Court Palace (hidden behind a raised bank).

Chris Price

Waiting for locks to open slows progress but offers often-welcome opportunities to stop and rest. Here, on their post-Covid-lockdown trip down the upper reaches of the Thames, Jacqui waits for the Godstow Lock, near Oxford, to open.

There were also private buildings aplenty, from elegant old boathouses to dramatic modern architect-designed homes, and everything in between.

“There would be an ultra-smart house, with an immaculate lawn and a docking area for boats,” remembers Chris, “and then right next to that was almost a shed—an absolute shambles that someone had owned for years and still hung on to for their river frontage. And loads of houseboats, of course. Some were narrowboats, but also there were purpose-made floating houses, with two stories and a balcony on top. You could see all that from the river; you’d never see it from the road.”

Reading from the Water

On the third day, they reached their first major conurbation: the commuter town of Reading, population 178,000. But still the scenery was unexpectedly verdant.

“We thought by the time we got to Reading,” says Jacqui, “it would be totally industrial and all built up, but it actually wasn’t at all. We hardly noticed Reading as we rowed through. There was a big embankment as we came in, then a park.” Beyond Reading was Maidenhead, not so big, with a relatively small population of 67,000, but says Jacqui, “when we visited on business it seemed to be just lots of roads and ugly buildings.” Now, as they pulled up in BETTY, the town had “a continental feel…. We tied BETTY up there and wandered off to have breakfast—and to look for [band-aids] for our blisters!”

Chris Price

On their final day on the non-tidal section of the Thames in 2019 Jacqui rows BETTY into Sunbury Lock. They would reach Teddington Lock and the tidal Thames late in the afternoon.

Mostly they ate ashore—an all-day English breakfast being a particular favorite—but they also carried basic provisions on board, along with an ultra-efficient camping stove for making coffee. “We asked a friend who knows all about survival techniques what food we should take,” remembers Jacqui. “He mentioned various freeze-dried foods and fancy energy bars; but in the end, he said we’d do just as well taking bags of nuts and raisins, which are ideal for snacking.” Which is what they did—along with their beloved Yorkshire parkin (a traditional ginger cake) and several pots of Wolfy’s Nutty Porridge.

To interrupt the gentle progress of the days, there were the locks—an average of six a day. Each was different, which was intimidating to start with, but they soon found their rhythm, with Chris disembarking at the drop-off point and, if no lockkeepers were on hand, opening the lock. Jacqui then rowed BETTY into the lock using her “short-oar” technique—pulling the oars in to reduce their length and rowing with crossed hands. Once inside the lock, they looped a pair of extra-long lines around the bollards, and Jacqui held the boat in position while the water drained. The fall ranged from 2′ 7″ at Iffley lock to 8′ 8″ at Teddington. Some of the locks were mechanized, so all Chris had to do was press a couple of buttons to open and close the gates, but others had to be winched up and down by hand.

Once the lock had emptied to the downstream level and Chris had opened the lower gates, Jacqui rowed out and Chris hopped back on board at the lower drop-off point.

Although the locks slowed them down, Jacqui and Chris enjoyed the rowing breaks and being able to admire the lockkeepers’ well-tended gardens and socialize with passers-by. In turn, BETTY was also much admired not only for Chris’s fine craftsmanship but because, they discovered, she was apparently unique on the river. They came across paddleboards and canoes aplenty, but no other long-distance rowboats. Wherever they went, people asked about her and offered to keep an eye on her, should they want to leave her…they called it “the BETTY effect.”

Chris Price

BETTY made it through London without incident. Tower Bridge was the last bridge they passed under before arriving at their destination—the South Dock in Rotherhithe.

The fifth day of the trip proved to be the toughest: Over the course of eight hours, they rowed 23 miles and traversed nine locks, all with the wind on the nose, as usual. “There’s something about the Thames,” says Chris. “Even though the river wriggles around in all directions on the map, the wind always blew against us. It’s very obvious with the ensign: you see it lift up and start fluttering and you think, here we go again!”

Navigating the Tidal Thames

Finally, after six days and nearly 100 miles of rowing, they arrived at Teddington lock. The most nerve-wracking part of the voyage now lay ahead: the tidal Thames. It was 26 miles from Teddington through the city center and out to their final stop at South Dock in Rotherhithe, on the south bank of the Thames just upstream of Greenwich. And they had to get there by lunchtime, before the tide turned and the flood came in against them.

Through London, the rules of the road are straightforward: inform the Port of London Authority of your intentions beforehand; stick to the middle of the channel wherever possible (don’t be tempted to pass under the side arches of bridges where there may be hidden obstructions); carry a VHF in case you need to communicate with other river-users; and wear a life jacket.

“When you get to the tidal bit, you’re committed. It’s all about timing,” says Chris. “We decided the Sunday would be a good day because the tides were just right to start early in the morning—at 6 a.m., one hour before high water. We had brought charts and a book of bridges with their heights and the position you should go through. But we didn’t look at any of it. Once the current picked up and we were on the move, everything went so fast, we didn’t have time.”

Courtesy of the Price family

A few years after their first Thames expedition Chris and Jacqui explored the River Severn. Here, Chris pulls them into the Gloucester Lock, where the river connects with the Sharpness Canal via the Gloucester Docks.

“It was disconcerting,” adds Jacqui, “because you’ve got to navigate around several islands, but by the time we spotted one approaching and looked at the chart, it was already too late, and we were committed to going down one side or the other.”

Richmond, Twickenham, Hammersmith, Wandsworth, Battersea, Chelsea, Vauxhall, Westminster, Waterloo, Blackfriars, London Bridge, Tower Bridge…the history of the great city swept past them like a flipbook animation. It was a helter-skelter ride through one of the busiest waterways in the world, negotiating 30 bridges, dodging high-speed Clipper ferries, and keeping clear of multiple tourist boats and other commercial traffic.

As they whistled through, the tidal current sweeping them downriver at 6 knots, Chris and Jacqui barely had time to appreciate their surroundings and the sites, including the elaborate decorations on some of the bridges, which are mostly only visible from the water. And, they noted, they passed under the oldest (Westminster), the newest (Millennium)‚ and the longest (Waterloo) bridges in central London.

They made fast progress, arriving at South Dock after five and a half hours of non-stop rowing. They finished with a flourish, throwing in a “handbrake” turn to avoid being swept downriver for an unscheduled visit to the CUTTY SARK.

Chris Price

Almost as soon as they entered the Gloucester Docks, Chris and Jacqui found an empty corner beneath the imposing Georgian warehouse buildings where they could tuck in for the night.

“There’s something about the Thames,” says Jacqui. “It’s an iconic river: it starts in mid-England then goes down to the capital; it has an extra grand feeling about it. And it’s so much more beautiful and there’s so much more nature than we expected.”

They learned several valuable lessons from that cruise: The 16-mile daily target to get to their accommodation every night set too tight a deadline and meant they were too tired to do anything else when they arrived. Better, they decided, to row shorter distances, be more relaxed and able to explore the various places they visited. Instead of booking into paid accommodation every night, they decided a few nights’ camping would give them greater flexibility.

Jacqui Price

In 2024, Chris and Jacqui ventured down the River Great Ouse where, on a wet day, Chris operated the sluice gate of one of the many locks.

They also discovered (thanks to the crane that lifted her onto her trailer at South Dock) that BETTY weighed 300kg (661 lbs). For future expeditions, they would try to reduce their gear to the minimum. They settled on a cargo weight of 60kg (132 lbs) which, including their combined weight of 120kg (265 lbs), added up to an overall weight of 480kg (1,058 lbs).

For future trips their gear would include: a shore tent, mattresses, sleeping bags, boat cover, ropes, block-and-tackle, padlock, fenders, folding bucket, inflatable rollers, pump, cushions, tool kit, binoculars, VHF radio, Primus stove and spare canister, picnic rug, toiletries, waterproofs, Wellington boots, books, maps, notebook, ensign, and lights. One of their best buys was a pair of sou’wester hats, which allow them to look around and see where they’re going while also being highly visible to other river users. Jacqui made a pair of cushions to sit on, to save their bottoms, as well as a pair of fabric storage lockers that hang under the thwarts and keep BETTY looking neat and tidy. They also bought some cycling gloves for Jacqui, to prevent blisters, and a pair of waterproof gloves to keep her hands dry (and clean) when handling mucky lines in the locks.

The Severn, the Great Ouse, and a Return to the Thames

The Covid lockdowns put paid to any further trips for the next couple of years, but by 2022 their daughter and family had moved house to Gloucester, giving them the perfect excuse for a cruise on the River Severn, which passes just west of the city. This time they based their schedule on 10 miles per day, for a total of 60 miles in six days, including only six locks along the way. They opted for a mix of camping and lodgings, spending two nights in their tent, two nights in hotels/pubs, and the last night with their daughter in Gloucester.

The following year they returned to the Upper Thames. They started their trip at the highest navigable point, near Lechlade in Gloucestershire, and worked their way east to Oxford and then on to Reading—70 miles, 23 locks, six days.

Jacqui Price

Two days later and the weather had changed. Jacqui and Chris pulled into the riverbank for a picnic lunch on a quiet narrow section of the Great Ouse. A couple of miles back up the river, says Jacqui, they had been rowing alongside trucks on a busy road.

Four years and one pandemic since their first trip, they found the Thames much changed. Most of the locks were now unmanned and the associated facilities and campsites were closed. Generally, the river seemed more neglected, with abandoned and sunken boats a common theme, along with other floating debris—though whether this was an attempt at rewilding or due to lack of funding was hard to tell. On the plus side, the wildlife was more abundant than ever, and they used a pair of paddles to explore some of the narrow tributaries they couldn’t navigate with full-length oars.

For the first time, they tried sleeping on BETTY. Not having a dedicated boat tent, they used an oar as a ridgepole and draped the boat’s regular cover over it. Then they laid their mattresses on the floorboards and squeezed under the thwarts in their sleeping bags. It was rudimentary and not everyone was happy (Chris found it most uncomfortable), but it showed what could be done.

The couple’s most recent trip, in June 2024, was to the east of England, on the River Great Ouse (the longest of many Ouse rivers in England), starting in Bedford—about 22 miles west of Cambridge—and heading northeast toward King’s Lynn, the great fishing harbor on the north coast of Norfolk, a six-day voyage of 83 miles through 18 locks.

Each trip involves a huge amount of planning—not least working out where to launch the boat, where to recover it, and how to get between the two locations by public transport in order to retrieve their car. But Chris and Jacqui admit they love the planning stage, and spend their winter evenings poring over maps, coming up with their next adventure.

Nic Compton

Jacqui and Chris, seen here on Devon’s River Dart, grew accustomed to rowing into a headwind on the Thames where, says Chris, despite the twists and turns of the river, the wind always seemed to be against them. Jacqui was the first to get gloves, but now cycling gloves have become a much-appreciated piece of kit for both rowers.

Increasingly, cruising on BETTY is taking precedence over sailing on SOLENT BREEZE. Chris finds the maintenance of a 28′ yacht demanding and hopes to hand it over to their son, Alex. Jacqui, meanwhile, “likes to keep busy” and finds the constant activity on the smaller boat appealing. She likes being able to jump ashore and stretch her legs at a moment’s notice, rather than being stuck in a cockpit for hours on end.

When Chris and Jacqui started out on the road to their big adventure, with a simple boatbuilding project, Chris was 60 and newly retired, a time when many people choose not only to slow down, but also to take things a little easier. In the 15 years that have followed, theirs has been a less orthodox approach to aging: they have gone from a comfortable cruising yacht to a simple and much smaller rowboat and from the daily luxuries of hotel rooms to camping by riverbanks. In short, they have not chosen an easier life as they have grown older, but a harder one. Still as sharp as pins and extremely active, Jacqui and Chris show no sign of slowing down or of slipping into a sleepy retirement; rather, they are actively seeking out new challenges. And it’s hard to tell… is it BETTY that keeps them young, or did they choose to have BETTY in their lives because they were already young at heart? Either way, it’s a winning combination.

Nic Compton is a freelance writer and photographer based in Devon, England. He has written about boats and the sea for more than 30 years and has published 16 nautical books, including a biography of the designer Iain Oughtred. He currently sails a 14′ Nigel Irens skiff and a 33′ Freedom cat ketch.

For more adventuring with Nic Compton work, read his articles, “A Man’s Best Friend” and “Wolf Rock Light.”

If you have an interesting story to tell about your adventures with a small boat, please email us a brief outline and a few photos.