"Shipped it out then and there" - meaning they could have got have got this whole complicated operation underway? A team of knowledgeable volunteers in the water, pontoons, barges, all ready by low tide within a few hours so of their first knowing the whale was trapped up river, with a feasible plan for rescuing it?

It was only 8.45 on Friday morning that it was seen from the London Eye. And remember the whale was a much more lively animal to handle at that time. Trying to confine it would have been potentially fatal for humans and whale. And there was even a fair chance it might have found its own way out the way it came.

This was a miracle of improvised organisation, and the people who set it up deserve to be congratulated. Longshots don't always come off, and sadly this one didn't. That doesn't mean it wasn't worth trying.