Sunk boat salvage

Marsali Taylor reports on the salvage efforts to raise a wooden vessel at Aith Marina that attracted spectators despite the mizzle and smirr

- Marsali Taylor

Seeing a mast sticking up out of the water where a boat should be is an awful shock. I’d been off the island. On my first day back I walked down to the marina, and noticed a thick green rope running up the far side of the marina wall. I looked to where it was coming from, and realised that Hope, the bonny wooden fishing boat which sat along the hammerhead, had gone... then I saw her mast emerging from the water.

Salvage attempts began on a day of rain which varied from mizzle to torrential. A team arrived in force and set up a compressor, festoons of yellow hose, deflated airbags and a diving unit with multicoloured plaited tubes wound in figure of eights on the outside.

Naturally everyone involved with the marina was there watching, either from inside their boats (restricted view, but hot coffee and biscuits to hand) or from the grandstand view of the shed doorway. Even the marina seal was there, rearing his head.

Tactics debate

Preparations took a good while: flaking lengths of green webbing across the walkway, shaking out the airbags and getting a line from the compressor across the water to the pontoon. The diver shrugged on his air cylinders and screwed on his helmet.