It was a boat that came upriver for the 'draw off' ( the draw off happens usually for the month of november , it's where the PLA , who control the downward side of our lock , leave their weirs open. This drains the downward reach and any boat without a deepwater mooring has to come through the lock )
Anyway , this boat turns up , none of the regular staff are on duty , and the relief lets it up without paying ( they said they would come back ) , they never did and it sank one night.
It was as rotten as a pear , when i went to put a payment notice on it , i fell through the deck , as i fell i grabbed onto the handrail round the wheelhouse and pulled the side of the wheelhouse off
The owner could never be traced ( as it wasn't registered ) and it was a hazard as it had sank on our head layby , so the Agency 'lifted' it ...
People have these great ideas 'Oh we'll fix that up when it comes up' , they don't realise that rasing sunken boats isn't like in the films .... the big grab barge comes along and 'nom , nom , nom' .....its gone.
We've had a couple of boats on our weir this winter , but we have big guard booms across the front of it , Teddington weir is the biggest on the river and any boat the actually got pulled onto it would be smashed to pieces.
