UNDER TOW: The yacht that drifted into a mud bank in Batemans Bay on Friday is towed to a mooring.
SUNK: A yacht sinks in Batemans Bay.
SUNK: A yacht sinks in Batemans Bay.
It's not the Titanic, but the sinking of a yacht in Batemans Bay on Friday has left its owner Michael Skuse mystified.
As yet, it’s not known what caused the 26-foot yacht to sink, as it was still attached to its mooring and didn’t appear to have any holes when it was salvaged later that day.
The sunken yacht and another yacht that had slipped its mooring were first spotted at about 8.30am on Friday by a Batemans Bay Fire and Rescue crew.
For the salvage operation, Batemans Bay Dive Charters owner/operator Wayne Smith placed flotation devices under the vessel before it was lifted by crane and pumped out on the low tide later that evening.
“Once we got it floating, we took it down to Hanging Rock and pumped the remainder,” Mr Smith said.
“We couldn’t find any holes or anything; it’s a bit of a mystery as to why it went down.”
Mr Skuse, a Batemans Bay real estate agent, said he wasn’t as devastated as he would have been if his previous boat had sunk.
“If it was my old timber boat, I’d still be crying about it,” he said.
“This is just a plastic yacht . . . there’s nothing unique about it.
“We’ll just fix it and get it back into the water in time for summer.”
Bay Mooring and Barge Service’s Paul McDonald, who helped with salvaging the sunken yacht, went to the rescue of the yacht that had drifted 100 metres from its mooring into mud near the rock wall on Beach Road and towed it to a temporary mooring.
He said the two incidents were unrelated and that it was a coincidence they occurred on the same morning.
Batemans Bay Fire and Rescue personnel examined the sites of both mishaps but found no evidence of any contamination.