A BOAT could have become a shipwreck after it began sinking into the Wallis Lake last week.
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The boat’s owner John Colley was travelling from Newcastle up to Forster with his partner Jo and staffy puppy, Cindy. The couple were taking their pleasure boat, a former tugboat turned trawler, to the Great Lakes to be repaired due to damage caused by worms, a common problem for timber boats.
The lengthy journey was necessary as the Newcastle slipway couldn’t be used due to lack of maintenance. Knowing the journey’s length, John was more than prepared – he’d purchased new pumps and a generator but in Jo’s words, “everything that could go wrong, did go wrong”.
“We were coming up to Seal Rocks when the bilge alarm went off, signalling water was entering the boat,” John said.
The pump and new generator had failed - John jumped into action bailing the water out. He soon realised he couldn’t keep up and told Jo to get them to Forster-Tuncurry as fast as she could.
John was blown away by the rescue effort that helped save the boat from sinking. “I have to say thank-you to all the people who helped especially Fire and Rescue NSW,” John said.
John was assisted by Forster’s Fire and Rescue NSW, fisherman and members of the community – with up to 20 people helping him bail out water. Forster fire captain Paul Langley said, “we were involved in pumping the boat out and getting it above water”. When they arrived the back of the boat was well under water – it took four hours to pump it out using three portable pumps and another two pumps. "Once he was back on top he was able to restart his engines but had to wait until 11pm to access the Tuncurry slipway due to the tides and the size of the boat.” John’s boat is now undergoing repairs in the Tuncurry slipway.