The big lift

Of course, nothing ever happens quite to plan or on time, so on our lifting day it took far longer than anticipated to fit the long ropes and the first series of bags, just to get her rising off the bottom. Fighting current and exhaustion, we finally managed to get her floating but only about three metres off the sea bottom. We then drifted and dragged her just over a nautical mile towards the Coromandel before the tide began to ebb and she started snagging.

So, we put her down on the bottom again in 40m of water, releasing most of the surface lift bags and leaving the straps and submerged bags in place. While it was disappointing, I was also very happy – my lift bag design had proved itself up to the task and I now had a good idea of how many bags were required to get her up off the bottom. (Seven, as it turned out.)

It was a few weeks