THE CREW of a Shetland fishing boat were yesterday (Monday) counting the cost of a leak on board which flooded their new boat at the weekend. The Lerwick-registered Prolific was forced to abandon its plans to go to sea on Sunday when the crew returned to their vessel, moored at Scalloway fish market, to discover her listing over with the engine room lying in six feet of water.
Skipper Colin Robb yesterday blamed a corroded half inch pipe feeding the toilet with sea water. It took a six man fire crew from Scalloway one and a half hours to pump the engine room dry, but it will take weeks for the damage to be repaired. The Prolific is the newest addition to Shetland's resurgent fishing fleet, having been launched just eight months ago.
Mr Robb was returning to Shetland yesterday after hearing of the disaster, and it was first mate Victor Robertson who discovered the listing vessel when he returned with the crew to take her to sea for her first voyage of 2009.
'The insurance man has been aboard and confirmed it was a component
failure. We are not sure whether the pipe rusted or whether it's been put in wrong, but it's certainly corrosion of some kind,' Mr Robertson said. 'The engine room was completely underwater and there is a lot of electrical damage. The water was five or six feet deep.'
He said the boat was still some way from sinking, and the water tight
bulkhead meant the hull and cabins were completely dry. But the engine room had filled up very rapidly, while they were away from the boat between 5pm on Saturday and 10am on Sunday.
Engineers were yesterday stripping down the engines and drying them out, but the electric pumps and generators will all have to be replaced and that is likely to take at least two weeks.
The Prolific was built by Parkol Marine Engineering, of Whitby, North Yorkshire, and arrived in Shetland last May.
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