Despite his constant complaining, Townshend never suggested that the advance up the Tigris be cancelled and Force D remain on the defensive. He conceived the idea of the "Regatta up the Tigris" by using some 328 local boats known as "bellums" to stealthily advance his men across the marshes at night to outflank the Ottoman positions. Townshend described using the "bellums" as "practically the same way as punting on the Thames". He wrote that: "The leading feature...was that the infantry must advance in boats, and the only boats available at Basra were the Arab "bellums" or 'balams' on each of which a crew one NCO and 9 men could be placed". He commanded his force from HMS "Espiegle", a Cadmus-class sloop which, together with the sloops "Odin" and "Clio" and the armored tugboats "Shaitan" and "Lewis Pelly", formed a floating battery for the fire support of the "Regatta up the Tigris". He recalled that the "Espiegle" was steered "by the old-fashioned hand wheel between decks", requiring that the officer on the bridge to shout down orders to the helmsman below, leading to the ship often running aground on the Tigris.