After two weeks of being stranded in lock
10 of the Kennet & Avon canal, nb Langton was raised in a two-hour refloat
by River Canal Rescue on Friday 14 November, 24 hours after the emergency
assistance firm was called in to help.
On the day of its call-out, RCR sent a
team to assess the boat and submitted documentation to the Canal & River
Trust’s third-party works engineers to secure approval for the recovery. Both parties worked into the evening to
ensure all health & safety issues were addressed and a refloat could take
place the next day.
Despite earlier recommendations to use
lifting equipment or heavy plant- solutions, RCR was confident the recovery
could be made with manpower, ropes and pumps.
As the vessel was caught on the cill and
lying at an angle, it was secured and stabilised prior to raising the lock’s
water levels. The rescue team entered
the lock, sealed all water entry points and used tarpaulins to cover or ‘bag’
the front of the boat. They also cleared
the environmental spillage so the lock could be used as soon as they finished.
Having pumped out the water in the boat,
the lock was re-filled under the watchful eye of RCR’s Rescue Co-ordinator,
Trevor Forman, and the lock keeper to ensure water was at the correct flow for
a steady refloat. Once recovered,
Langton was moored in the lock for checking and any remaining water
removed. It was then butted to another
boat and taken to a nearby base by its owners.
Trevor comments: “We used ropes to
restrict movement without any undue stress on bollards and the natural water
movement in the lock to support the refloat.
This was a ‘text book’ rescue – we were four hours on site with a
two-hour recovery – which proves with the right experience and expertise
refloats can be achieved quickly and without too much disruption to the
navigation system. There were planned
closures for this area of the K & A, so the incident affected very few
boaters.”
Carl Cowlishaw, Anglo Welsh Operations
Manager, concludes: “We can’t praise RCR enough – we were very impressed with
their work and although we hope not to have to use them again, we wouldn’t
hesitate in doing so.”
Ends
