The Isle of Wight’s MMC Diving Services has assisted in completing the salvage of a 750-tonne sunken restaurant in Essex.
The Miller and Carter ‘steamboat steakhouse’ was situated on a paddle steamer at the Lakeside shopping centre’s lake and went down 2 days before Christmas 2022.
The restaurant began tilting into the water on December 23rd, fully laden with food and beverage for the upcoming festive period but thankfully everyone was evacuated before she came to rest on the riverbed.
With 6 months of delays waiting for insurers to appoint a salvage company, nobody was permitted to remove anything from the vessel, meaning the restaurant was full of rotten food, floating bottles and furniture.
Isle of Wight lead diver Joe Reeves was tasked with blanking off 14 of the inspection hatches, on 17 of the integral buoyancy tanks, while also assisting the lift by running lifting strops under the hull to attach lifting bags to the aft end of the vessel.
Once these were secured the vessel was pumped out and re-floated under her own buoyancy. It’s unsure what will now happen to the vessel. 2 of the ballast tanks are damaged and the costs to reinstate her back into a restaurant may be too costly.
Joe said:
“Working in zero visibility in black contaminated water was much better than being stuck on the surface with the horrendous smell of rotten food in the heat. At least I was breathing fresh air!”
Looks like the 17 buoyancy tanks weren’t very effective!
There is always one here making idiotic comments on something they nothing about.
Nice one Joe – It’s good to see a small Island Company with proper expertise doing really well.