Client: Boats Ltd
Contractor: MMC Diving Services
Date posted: 25-03-2020
A Narrow boat owner awoke to the crashing of his home as it collided into a listed bridge in Barrow-on-Soar the owner was fortunate enough to be rescued by the local fire brigade in the middle of the night as they lowered a ladder down onto the roof.
This incident happened following some of the worst flooding the UK has experienced in years, the narrowboat broke its mooring lines, floating downstream and jammed itself up against the bridge, as the water levels receded the vessel wedged itself between the abutments and some steel piles fenders making for an almost impossible tow.
Our divers put sets of chains around the hull and tightened these up using a series of chain pulls, 5 tonne lift bags were then attached to the chains and inflated to raise the bow off the steel pile fenders, a track dumper was hired in with x4 winches totalling 68 tonnes of pull, this was set up on the opposite bank, once the vessel was pulled across the river and onto a shallow bank she was pumped dry and winched back across the river onto her mooring upstream.
