Yacht defies salvors’ winch

Press, 4 June 1984, Page 6

Yacht defies salvors’ winch

A final attempt will be made to bring the submerged yacht Karelia to the surface of Purau Bay this Friday, after a second unsucessful attempt to float it was made yesterday. A barge was towed from Lyttelton and positioned over the sunken yacht in yesterday’s attempt to winch it to the surface. However the yacht’s owner, Mr Les Savage, said the attempt was made when the tide was too high, and the barge could not be posi-

tioned properly. “We managed to lift the bow up, but then the chain snapped,” he said. “The lines were too slack — we should have positioned the barge when the tide was low.” Mr Savage bought the 14m yacht after it struck rocks and sank in 4m of water on May 24. He had salvaged the yacht’s masts and motor, which he has since had running, and on Saturday divers put 36 40gallon drums into the hull and filled them with air to

attempt to float the boat. “The yacht weighs 18 tons. We have stripped everything off the hull to lighten it,” he said. The fishing boat Mr Savage is using to raise the yacht is not available again until Friday, and he said a third and final attempt would be made at low tide early on Friday morning, using the fishing boat and barge. “You can’t do these things on an endless amount of money, or at least I can’t. If we can’t get it on Friday,

we will quit,” he said. “It’s a tiring thing — I have had a week of it, on three hours sleep a night.”