The Steamtug Blog

On the cusp of the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking, we decided it was such a lovely evening that instead of going to the pub, we should take the little yacht for a sail. So with eskies (cooler box) in hand, we boarded Adaqua and headed over to the yacht moorings where we recently moved Meridian, to begin her new life at the Western beach boat club. But as we approached and made ready to fend off and board, I had some trouble locating her. Where could she have gone???

Then I spotted the shortest boat on the grid of moorings, with just a bit of mast sticking out of the water! Had she been stuck by a stray iceburg? How could she sink? I had only been there 4 days before to show some work mates our lovely little yacht, and nothing seemed a miss… I had even driven past on the beach road and looked out to see her there only the day before, and now she was resting sadly on the bottom, about 6 metres below the surface while her owner John, was on holiday 1500kms away in Northern NSW. How was I going to tell him? It even made the Geelong Advertiser!

http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/article/2012/04/05/318081_news.html

And for us? It was back to plan “A” at the pub, but not to drown our sorrows, but to refloat our spirits!

So last night I dived down, opened the door and went inside. It was quite spooky down in the dark, murky water with everything floating on the ceiling. I had thoughts of the Titanic movie with hands suddenly appearing through the darkness, but after a while realised I was the only one there. Then my scuba tank jagged the door going out and I imagined what I would do if I got stuck down there and could not get out. Hmmm not very happy thoughts.

With Casey’s big work boat waiting on the surface I unhooked the mooring chain which luckily was not tight on the deck cleat, but letting it go saw the float marker rise quickly to the surface but unfortunately through the bow railing! I had to winch it back down bit by bit, puffing through my dive regulator until I managed to poke it through and release it again. It shot to the surface so fast I thought how lucky I was not to have it tied around my leg!

We then attached the rope and Casey had a go at lifting the bow. She was very heavy and was not going to surface easily, so we towed her back into shallow water, with Adaqua also assisting with the towing. As darkness fell and the tide rose, she was half submerged near the shore. Today we might go down and have another go and see if we can start pumping her out at low tide.

Latest Update! She’s afloat!!!

Those idiots at our local paper have reported again on page 5 that a second yacht in a week has sunk at the same place! Could they not have thought it might be the same one? All we did was move it to shallow water where it can be seen at low tide and apparently it’s another yacht!

Well today we went down at low tide and dropped the suction hose of the big pump we borrowed into the skylight I had opened when diving inside and started pumping. It was going great until it sucked up a rag and we had to clear it and start again. Then the tide started to come back and John announced “I think we have missed it by 30 mins!” as he held his leg across the hatch to stop the waves splashing back in. But we didn’t give up! After putting up with a lower flow than expected, I got fed up, stripped off and jumped into the forward hatch and waded through the cold oily water inside. The hose was half sucked onto the galley sink and I moved it into clear water which improved the flow greatly.

In a short period of time, the level had dropped 6 inches and I could feel the waves bouncing her about as she started to level out and the hatched moved higher above the waves. It stunk inside of diesel and it was funny to see the waves outside lapping against the window with the level inside now half a metre lower. We were winning!

Eventually she floated enough to clear the bottom and I used Adaqua to tow her back to the pier at the boat club where just on dusk we pumped the remaining water out. She doesn’t look too bad outside, but inside is like the local tip with oily rubbish strewn everywhere. The big clean up can now commence. It appears the bilge pump had stopped working….