Stranded narrowboat pulled out of canal hole

The first of two narrowboats left stranded at the bottom of a hole following a large canal breach before Christmas has been pulled clear.

Three became trapped when the hole appeared in the Llangollen Canal near Whitchurch, Shropshire, on 22 December, causing water to pour into a nearby field.

One boat, Pacemaker, was left teetering precariously on the edge but was pulled to safety a couple of days later and was recently refloated.

The operation to rescue the two in the hole began on Thursday and the first, Ganymede, was winched clear while work continued on moving the second – Sefton.

Julie Sharman, chief operating officer at the Canal and River Trust (CRT), told BBC Radio Shropshire it was a "big operation" as a lot of mud and material also had to be moved.

"We need to get it right," Sharman said. "We certainly don't want to make the situation any worse.

"It's been very carefully planned."

The rescue of Ganymede was delayed by about an hour due to it being stuck in some of the mud.

A digger was used to create a ramp leading down to the hole and the boat was winched up the slope to the level bed of the canal.

The operation to pull Sefton clear was still ongoing as of Thursday afternoon and was likely to take at least a number of hours.

Kevin Dodd, who owns the adjacent fields that flooded, told BBC Midlands Today he moved his sheep from the area just days before the breach.

"The people in the boats at the time have been very, very lucky that they haven't been injured or killed even," he said.

"As for the sheep, they've been very lucky as they were moved three or four days beforehand, otherwise they'd have been washed away."

The CRT previously said the investigation into the breach was expected to take a number of weeks.

Sharman estimated the repairs could take about nine months and might cost more than £3m.

"These things happen," she added. "With the old infrastructure we have here, it happens fairly regularly, not at this scale – breaches like this are unusual.

"There are a lot of unexpected costs when you're dealing with the heritage we have in our canals."

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