Today was the allotted day for raising "Elton". She's been down for a couple of weeks and previous attempts to refloat her failed. This time we assembled every pump that we could.
With them all running the water level in the boat started to fall, but it stuck at about 9 inches. I knew there was a big hole in the side just above the normal water line. In the summer I might have jumped in and stuffed something in it, but the water is cold at this time of year. On the cabin top a lightweight tarpaulin was folded up. I started to unpack it and dropped one end into the water roughly where the hole was, then used a lightweight ladder, which just happened to be handy, to press it against the hull. It worked. The pressure of water held it in place over the hole, which it effectively blocked.
She began to rise. As she rose the leaks reduced as they cleared the waterline. With the depth inside diminishing I decided to wade in and try to stop some more leaks. This was a bad move. As I tried to plug a minor leak by pushing a plastic bag into it a piece of rotten wood fell away and I suddenly had a big leak to deal with. Annoyingly this was just where the work that we did at her last docking, after she'd been rammed by a steel boat, had finished. I slowed it down by filling it with a wodge of cloth.
Gradually she came up. I made some temporary repairs to the troublesome holes and Nessie set up the electric bilge pumps so that, fingers crossed, she'll stay afloat for a while.
