Me, A, and 4 probation clients were out today and we decided to tackle the ‘tree’. A called the National Trust and got permission from him to remove it. We tackled the top half of the tree before lunch, chopped it up and put it on the boat to dispose of at St Catherine’s. So far so good. The afternoon turned out to be a bit more eventful.
The lower half of the tree was still attached to the bank. With much too’ing and fro’ing involving ropes, loppers, a pickaxe and several saws we finally pulled it loose. We now had a 30 foot section of tree including quite a large root stock dangling off the back of the boat. We then proceeded in a zig zag manner to St Catherine’s lock where we hoped to be able to hoist the trunk out of the water. Alas, 5 burly men were not enough, even with plank levers in place. After a call to the lovely O who promised he would bring his chainsaw tomorrow (thank you!) we decided to tie the tree alongside the boat and take an extremely gentle journey back to our usual mooring.
The boat is now moored facing downstream with the trunk still tied to the port side of the boat. Unfortunately in the process we managed to lose the wrecking bar, so Friday’s joyful task will be to go magnet fishing at the point where we lost it.
A big thanks to the probation lads who worked well past their allocated hours to get the tree and the boat safely back to the mooring.
V
You can find out more about our Swingbridge Community Boats here.
