Sunken Boat Recovered From Welsh Canal

The Boatbreakers team were in south wales to collect and scrap a sunken boat. It had gone down near Pontypool (north of Newport) and had been recovered to a nearby slipway. We believe that the boat sunk due to a submerged post puncturing through the hull and flooding her with water.

According to the owner some wooden posts on the canal side were due to be removed. Instead of removing the whole post only a section above the water was cut away. This meant that when the owner tied his boat up he didn’t realise he was just above the submerged post. The water level dropped and the post punctured up through the hull. She quickly flooded and was soon a write off. Luckily the owner was alerted to the incident and managed to get there to salvage the engine from the back. Just before she became submerged for too long.

Her owner managed to get her off the post, pump her out and relocate her to the nearby slipway. There they patched the hull up with some fresh fibreglass so she could be re-floated. This meant that when he called our boat disposal team we had a much easier collection. Usually a sunken boat is a tricky collection.

Our team took our roller trailer and headed for the slipway in South Wales. On arrival we reversed the trailer down into the water and popped on our wading trousers. Thankfully the owner and his friend were on hand to help too and between the four of us we gently manoeuvred the boat round onto the rollers. With the boat lined up and the winch hooked on we then floated/winched her further onto the trailer.

Once the sunken boat was in the perfect position we pulled it all up and out onto dry land so we could strap her down. There was absolutely nothing worth saving in the boat as her time under water had rendered everything useless. But we don’t mind that as it was a straightforward collection.

Her owner was happy to see the boat go as the Canal and river trust had been putting him under pressure to sort the boat. As collections go we couldn’t be happier as it was a ten minute job. We’re sure the Canal and River trust will be happy to see the back of the boat. Finally other boat owners or locals will be glad to see the back of a wreck on a beautiful part of the canal.