‘Be More Pirate’ Takeover. Onboard Raybel, St Katharine Docks, London
Curious about pirates? Join us for an afternoon of interactive talks and workshops to explore why we remember pirates the way we do.
Led by Alex Barker from Be More Pirate, she’ll take you through some of the untold history of piracy and explore what we can use from the legacy they left.
We’ll explore:
3 - 4pm:
The history of piracy on the Thames: we only ever hear one version of the pirate story the river has secrets to tell, many pirates plotted their mutinies in the spots along the Thames… Our river was a collaborator in the pirate rebellion.
What is responsible rebellion in 2026: if pirates were the rebel activists of their day, what can we learn from their tactics and ethics about causing good trouble? In the face of climate catastrophe and an AI driven future
4 - 5.30pm
Write your own pirate code: in the 1700s every pirate lived and died by the code of their crew. These principles guided their day to day decision making. In this session you’ll have a go at creating a code for yourself, your team or even your family.
Explore the Edges of your Map: pirates knew that off the edges of their known maps lies untold discovery, excitement and possibility. Yet too many of us stick to our day routines, unaware of what gold might be beyond the horizon. In a series of mini challenges, you’ll be asked to navigate into the unknown
‘Remembering the Rights of Rivers’ with Friends of River Medway. Onboard Raybel, St Katharine Docks, London
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel - St Katharine Docks
🌊 Remembering the Rights of Rivers 🌊
Join us for a unique exploration of the Rights of Rivers, hosted on the River Thames and co-hosted by Friends of the River Medway, Raybel Charters, and the river itself.
Together we will explore what it means to truly feel the river as alive; to listen to it, and speak for it; to learn about the rights of rivers movement from leading expert Paul Powesland; and to discover what it means to give back to the river.
🎧 12-2pm: Listening to the River & Letters from the River
In collaboration with the Museum of Consciousness, we will return to what indigenous peoples - the very communities who inspired the Rights of Rivers movement - have done for thousands of years. We will listen to the river. The session will be split into three phases:
1. Hydrophone Listening w/ Karina Townsend: using underwater microphones we will literally hear the river's voice: its currents, its creatures, and its hidden sound world beneath the surface.
2. Embodiment & Stillness: coming back into our own senses, we will sit quietly with the river, and allow space for whatever arises: sensation, image, feeling, or memory, without needing to shape it into words yet.
3. Letter From the River: The session will end with an invitation to write a letter from the river; tuning in and feeling into what the River Thames might say in response to the problems it faces.
🥪 2-2:30pm: Light Refreshments. Please bring a packed lunch.
⚖️ 2:30-4pm: The Rights of Rivers Movement: What It Means for Rivers in the UK
This talk explores the rights of rivers movement and where it stands today, ending with a 30-minute practical Q&A on how to bring it into your local context. Leading expert Paul Powesland brings the legal lens, while Zofia Page, Director of Friends of the River Medway, brings the community-building lens.
🌸 4-5pm: Water Ceremony
Led by Ellen Kittredge, this session offers a direct connection to ways of giving thanks that have been practiced for thousands of years. Through the Andean mystic tradition of despacho (meaning to "dispatch"), we will send our prayers out to the river, offering our thanks and wishes. Together we'll co-weave a beautiful ceremony with flowers and seeds, gifting to the river in gratitude for hosting our discussions, and planting seeds for the rights of rivers to continue to flourish.
‘For the Lost’ Resonance fm Link-Up. Dee Sada, Rishi Dastadar, Martin Williams. Onboard Raybel St Katharine Docks, London
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel - St Katharine Docks
Dee Sada
Dee Sada is a London-based curator, broadcaster, and musician. She is the creator and host of For the Lost, a weekly Resonance FM radio programme and live event series exploring experimental music, poetry, storytelling and interdisciplinary performance, with a focus on underrepresented voices and independent artistic communities.
Dee curates and produces live events and broadcast programmes, and has collaborated with Raybel Charters, Spanners, Theatreship and Totally Thames Festival, bringing together artists across music, spoken word, sound art and performance. She is particularly interested in radio as both an artistic medium and a public space, creating live broadcasts that blur the boundaries between performance, documentation and participation.Alongside her curatorial work, she performs with the experimental no-wave trio An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump (AEOBITAP). Dee also produces solo work and collaborates with musicians including Massimo Braghieri and Fergus Lawrie (Urusei Yatsura).
As a curator, Dee has programmed interdisciplinary exhibitions and performances with some of the most radical voices in contemporary art, including Carolee Schneemann and Laure Prouvost. Her work has been supported by influential institutions such as CIRCA, Whitechapel Gallery, IKON Gallery, and Cafe OTO. Her practice explores memory, migration, myth and identity through sound, live performance and collaborative projects. She has curated events at Cafe OTO since 2015 and recently collaborated with Pop-Kultur Berlin on a series of workshops and panel events on DIY communities.
Rishi Dastidar
Rishi Dastidar's fourth collection of poetry is Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak (Nine Arches Press, 2026). His third collection, Neptune's Projects (Nine Arches Press, 2023), was longlisted for the Laurel Prize, and a poem from it was included in The Forward Book of Poetry 2024. He is chair of Wasafiri, the magazine of international contemporary writing, a trustee of the Wordsworth Trust, and a regular poetry reviewer for The Guardian (UK).
Neptune's Projects
What do you do when you are a god – but powerless and unable to prevent one of your favourite species from their insatiable, accelerating death wish? Do you try to shout louder and more insistently, or instead reinvent yourself as a troubadour of romantic ruin, a barkeep, even a football manager? Such are the dilemmas posed by Rishi Dastidar in his third poetry collection Neptune's Projects, a reshaping of mythology for the climate crisis era which gives bold consideration to the stark choices we face.
Martin Williams
Martin Williams is a London-based musician, sports announcer and DJ. He is the frontman of Lost Movies and formerly of the band Absent Kid—whose releases appeared on the independent label, Fierce Panda Records.Martin is also an experienced live announcer and presenter, bringing theatrical energy, humour and improvisation to sporting and cultural events. His practice combines music, storytelling and performance, with a passion for creating memorable live experiences that connect audiences through entertainment and spectacle.
Mataio Austin Dean - ‘Songs from the Docks’. Onboard Raybel St Katharine Docks, London
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel - St Katharine Docks
Mataio Austin Dean sings folksong primarily from the South of England. He is best known for his work as a member of the nine-piece folk group, Shovel Dance Collective. He sees his singing of folksong as part of a decolonial process: centring notions of locality, class solidarity, and international exchanges. Mataio will perform work based on his artistic research and ground breaking work on sea shanty songs and their African origins. Expect acapella, critical discussion and poetic reflections on the politics of folk music in contemporary culture.
‘A Thames Magic Lantern Show’ - Nicole Mollett & Frog Morris. Onboard Raybel, St Katharine Docks, London
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel - St Katharine Docks
The Art of the Magic Lantern is a collaborative art project which re-purposes antique projection equipment to create new live performance pieces for contemporary audiences. Based around a river theme, both original slides from the 19th century and new handpainted slides will be projected using refurbished lanterns and accompanied by live storytelling in a wonderful light show suitable for all ages. Duration - 40 mins to one hour.
Eve Atkinson + Sam Watson + Cirenne. Onboard Raybel, St Katharine Docks, London
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel - St Katharine Docks
EVE ATKINSON
A multilingual (English, Italian, Arabic) spoken word artist and fervent lover of language, Eve will run a writing workshop that sources words from the many languages spoken along and introduced via the Thames estuary, using spoken word and poetry as a means of cultural exchange and collaboration. Blending the found languages of the participants in the room with proverbs and wisdom from many cultures and countries, (Cockney to Yoruba, Patois to Arabic) the resulting poems will resemble the melting pot of the city and the people whose lives are parallel to the river's.
SAM WATSON
Tamesis explores the ancient feminine archetype of the river as She appears reflected in our lived experiences of sovereignty and subjugation. Tamesis complicates these narratives by casting environmental extractivism as misogyny.Fey Hound splashes alongside this narrative of the goddess, conjuring Her waters with yearning epithets awash in timeless tides of melody. The Fey Hound heralds a mystical thinning of the veil upon the bough, combining haunting, ethereal vocals and the winding, hypnotic drones of the hurdy gurdy. (This piece will explore sensitive themes including femicide and sexual assault. Viewer discretion is advised and the space operates as 16+ plus.)
CIRENNE
Duo Caelia and Celeste perform original music for violin/viola and trumpet/electronics/found objects, taking an experimental approach that draws on klezmer, jazz, free improv, and chamber music. The result is rich and varied, journeying between worlds, spanning the evocative and atmospheric, dancing and rhythmic, sometimes brooding, and frequently funny. While the music is instrumental, compositions address real-life themes, from ecological change and the generational legacies of climate emergency, to crossing oceans during journeys of forced migration.
Climate Emergency Screening - Onboard Raybel, King George V Lock, North Woolwich
This film brings together leading evidence on the climate and nature crisis, and what it means for the UK. It is designed to be watched together in communities like this one, creating space for honest conversation and constructive civic engagement. Across the UK, people are now coming together to ensure these risks are properly understood, openly discussed, and responded to with the seriousness they require
The National Emergency Briefing is building support for a government-backed televised emergency briefing to the nation on the climate and nature crisis. The initiative began at Westminster Central Hall, where more than 1,200 MPs, peers and leaders from across UK society heard directly from senior experts about the scale of the risks facing the UK and the response now required.
This film extends that work into communities and businesses across the country, where people are now inviting MPs to screenings, calling for politicians to support a Parliamentary Call for a televised briefing, and helping bring the film to new audiences.
FREE SCREENING AND DISCUSSION
ONBOARD RAYBEL KING GEORGE V LOCK
Find Raybel at Royal Docks Management Authority, King George V Lock, Fishguard Way, London E16 2RG
What 3 Words ///wakes.wisely.face
Irene Fiordilino - ‘The river between us’. Onboard Raybel, King George V Lock, North Woolwich
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel - King George V Dock, Newham
The ‘River Between Us’ will be a participatory workshop for up to 15 people, combining sensory observation, gentle movement, image-making and creative writing. The workshop unfolds as a journey: physically and metaphorically, both within Raybel, and the Thames, and towards the sea. LIMITED PLACES.
Find Raybel at Royal Docks Management Authority, King George V Lock, Fishguard Way, London E16 2RG
What 3 Words ///wakes.wisely.face
Nearest station King Georg V DLR.
Billie Duch Gimenez + Be Manzini. Onboard Raybel, King George V Lock, North Woolwich
A Raybel Charters 'Culture Cargo' event for the Totally Thames Festival. Onboard Sailing Barge Raybel
Billie Duch Gimenez - Our Personal Ballast
Ballast (the material used to weigh down a boat) is weird, both a commodity (could be sold) and a non-commodity (was often just waste, and disposed of as such). Studying historical ballasting practices, especially those of the Thames, tells us a lot about a society built on trade, extraction and expansion. What if we used it to talk about how we build communities? What's our personal ballast? What grounds us? Is it steady? Where do we take it from? If we dispose of it what are we leaving behind? A general intro on the history will be followed by a creative exercise where we discuss these questions, then cut, paste, and arrange images and text to give shape to our ideas.
Billie Duch Gimenez is a museum curator and researcher who has worked at the British Museum and Museum of the Home.
Be Manzini - The River Between Us
A live poetry performance exploring the Thames as witness, collaborator, archive and living body. Through a sequence of original poems, Be will invite audiences to consider the river not simply as a route for trade or transport, but as a keeper of memory—holding stories of migration, colonialism, labour, ecology, belonging and change, including environmental justice, cultural exchange, movement, displacement, regenerative futures and our evolving relationship with the natural world. The performance will culminate in the premiere of a new improvised poem, created in dialogue with a voyage on the Raybel.
Be Manzini is a writer and speaker who is the founder of the Newham Poetry Prize. She has been resident at the Southbank Centre, and is a the director of Caramel Film Club, spotlighting Black talent and supporting diversity.
Her published work appears in various anthologies and she has been commissioned to write for the Theatre Royal, Hoxton Hall, Autograph B, Tamasha; as well as performing for leading poetry organisations such as Apples & Snakes.
Find Raybel at Royal Docks Management Authority, King George V Lock, Fishguard Way, London E16 2RG
What 3 Words ///wakes.wisely.face
Raybel Camera Obscura
Experience the magic of a camera obscura projection on Raybel.
Come below deck on the historic barge Raybel and experience an immersive and interactive performance by artist Ben Judd during a voyage around the Swale and Medway rivers in Kent.
This event for a small audience uses the barge and the camera obscura to create the experience. Explore themes of closeness and distance, belonging and not belonging, inclusion and exclusion through your creative response
Saturday 26th September - one trip 12pm to 4pm
Sunday 27th September - two trips of two hours, leaving at 12pm and 2.30pm
All voyages depart from Queenborough All Tide Landing. Pontoon access from the sea wall.
Access to the barge
There is access from the pontoon at Queenborough Harbour with steps on and off the barge.
Sailing Route
The route for each day will be along the Swale but may vary depending on tides and weather conditions .
What to wear
Bring layers as temperatures can be cooler than on land, wear clothes you can move around in easily, and that you don’t mind if they get a bit marked with tar or grease. Wear shoes that are flat soled and easy to climb stairs in. Bring a sun hat.
Catering
We will not be providing catering on these trips, so suggest you bring a packed lunch if you need. There will be plenty of water on board, as well as cups of tea and some snacks.
Bad weather
The decision to sail is entirely at the discretion of the skipper, and the trip may be postponed up to 24hrs before the departure time. If this happens we will let you know by phone / text or e-mail.
Safety aboard the barge
Raybel is fully compliant with all safety regulations and carries a life raft, life jackets, flares and other associated equipment. Choosing to wear a life jacket is at the discretion of passengers. The barge will be sailed as much as possible. This means there will be numerous trip hazards and working machinery around and above the decks, which can be dangerous. A full safety briefing will be provided at the start of the trip.
Supported by the Royal College of Arts