Whilst the rest of Britain hunkered down to see out the Beast from the East blizzard Boatbreakers were busy in black country.
We were recently contacted by an Insurance company and asked to get up to Birmingham as soon as possible as there was a boat taking on water fast that needed to be disposed of. As you can see from the pictures when we got to her she was starting to resemble a Submarine.
After one of our team in Birmingham had been to conduct a site survey our plan was simple, get a heavy duty water pump into her to, try to patch up wherever she was taking on water, pull her along the canal and get her lifted out at the riverside car park just up from where she was tied.
Our pump made light work of getting the water out of her but because of the mass of rubbish inside the boat it was difficult to get to where the boat was taking on water. The team did manage to move her up close to the carpark which is eventually where she would be lifted out using a Hi-ab.
With the boat needing to be afloat when the Hi-ab was arriving the next day we enlisted the help of the Canal & River Rescue who were more than happy to help us make sure she wasn’t completely full of water when the lorry came.
The Hi-ab driver dipped his straps in and under the boat and lifted her clear of the canal, he must have been so delicate with the lift and delivery as when she got to us in Portsmouth it still had the beer cans and fold up seat laid on top.
The boat has very little if any value left in her and only the outboard was removed for use as spares. The rest will be crushed up and sent to our recycling centre.
