Update 6 January
The incident has been highly distressing for the boat owners affected, with footage online showing the situation unfolding. Heartbreakingly, two boats were washed into the breach hole.
Our teams, working with our contractors have managed to pull a narrowboat back from the breach hole using a specialist tracked winch. Dams have also been put in either side of the breach site meant that six further boats, initially grounded on the canal bed after the water beneath them ran out of the canal, have been carefully refloated
Our engineers and the local canal team have been on site over Christmas and New Year working to ensure that pipes and pumps are in place to safeguard a continued flow of water around the breach site so boats downstream are kept afloat. This is also important because of the role the Llangollen Canal (along with others across the UK) plays today in moving fresh water for public water supply.
We've started investigations into the likely cause of the breach however the cause of earth embankment failures is not always clear. They can be complex structures, and whilst there are a number of possibilities as to what might be the cause, it is still too early to be certain. The repairs would take much of the year and cost several million pounds.
This week attention we will turn to recovering the three remaining boats: narrowboat Pacemaker, winched away from the breach hole before Christmas, and narrowboats Sefton and Ganymede which were washed into the breach hole.
Pacemaker will be refloated by winching the boat into a section of dry canal before installing a dam and refloating it with canal water.
Sefton and Ganymede are also likely to be winched from the breach site before they are assessed and hopefully refloated. Before that is possible, we need to bring in an excavator and carefully reprofile the steep side of the breach hole so that there is a gradual slope that the boats can be winched along.
