Afternoon:
8°c
Soggy end to canal cruise
1 Sep 2009A bank holiday canal cruise turned unexpectedly wet when a Londoner's narrowboat sank.
The 36ft Muskrat was being piloted along the Kennet and Avon Canal in Berkshire by owner Henry Hammondand two friends when it sprang a leak and began to sink.
Firefighters and police were called to the banks of the canal at Padworth on Sunday, and found one of the three men standing on the roof of the £30,000 vessel, which had sunk.
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said: "The occupants all swam to safety and spent the night at a hotel in nearby Newbury."
Mr Hammond, who lives in Hampstead, north London, later returned home with his friends to await salvage operations on the boat.
Mr Hammond, whose family owns the boat, was with friends Thomas Beckett and Drew Prosser at the time.
They had been in Aldermaston Lock when one of them opened one of the paddle gates with the boat too close to the lock gate, causing water to pour into the vessel.
"We thought it was okay to proceed," said 29-year-old Mr Hammond. "The water was seeping away. We went along about 400 to 500 metres but the water had obviously got around a seal point somewhere and once we saw it coming around the fittings I went straight for the bank.
"We jumped off with ropes and tried to keep it up. It took maybe two minutes to sink."
The trio swam back to the narrowboat, which the Hammond family has been using for the last 18 years and used to belong to a family friend, to retrieve belongings before heading to a hotel.
They had been heading from Theale to Aldermaston on a weekend outing when disaster struck.
Mr Hammond described Aldermaston lock as a "dangerous" but added: "I should have been more aware."
Crews from the Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service were called at 9pm on Sunday but the boat had sunk before they arrived.
Crew manager John Rumble said: "We called the Environment Agency in case there was any fuel leaking from the boat. They have the task of removing the boat now because obviously it is in the middle of a very busy waterway."
A fire service spokesman said: "We sent the standard two crews and one extra because it was dark, as well as a rescue support vehicle and a water rescue unit.
"We weren't needed because they were rescued before we arrived. We just received the message that it was a sunk narrowboat."
A British Waterways worker at the scene confirmed the canal was due to be closed around 3.30pm yesterday while a salvage operation was carried out.
He said: "We will have to put airbags around it and pump it out and lift it."
Other narrowboats were yesterday able to pass the sunken craft but wider pleasure cruisers were instructed to wait at a nearby lock until it was refloated."
