Cory Tug Rebelle Through the Pool of London

Aerial photography of the Cory tug Rebelle towing a loaded container barge through Tower Bridge and down the Pool of London.

London's rubbish leaves by river. Cory move it downstream in containers on barges, which takes something like a hundred thousand lorry movements a year off the roads, and the tugs that do it work the tideway to a timetable set by the tide rather than by anyone's diary. On 4 August 2026 we photographed the tug Rebelle bringing a loaded barge, the Gemma D, through Tower Bridge and down the Pool of London. The frame worth having is the one where the tow is passing the bridge with the City stacked up behind it. Two versions of London in the same photograph: the one everybody photographs, and the one that quietly does the work underneath it. From the bank you cannot get both, because the bridge blocks the skyline. From the air the whole thing lines up. The closer frames do a different job. They show the tow line under load, the fendering, the containers strapped down and the wash coming off the barge, which is what an operator wants when the point is the vessel rather than the postcard. Nobody commissioned this. Cory operate Rebelle, they did not hire us, and this is not a client credit.