A saga has come to an end.
Riverton residents yesterday farewelled the vessel Liane, which has been part of the scenery of Jacob River Estuary since March 20.
It sank as a result of stormy weather conditions and had been partially submerged on mud flats in the river since then.
For weeks, the dive salvage company, local contractors and Riverton and Environment Southland (ES) harbourmasters had been working on a plan to take the boat out of the water.
"Well, it's been fairly frustrating, to be honest.
"[It was] a very complex operation but we are very pleased that we finally got the Liane out of the water after all this — we're over a month now." he said.
"Finally the boat is on the trailer, so that's great. And I think the community in particular will be quite happy that the Liane has been salvaged now."
It was the first time something like this had happened in the region, as there were vessels which had been sunk before but the weather front on March 20 was "something totally different", he said.
"So all together. . . [it] was incident after incident on that day and it's just really quite unusual.
"But just a little bit of a reminder to vessel owners that significant weather events, when they do come down, you need to make sure that your vessels are secured properly to the berths or to their moorings."
Riverton harbourmaster Ian Cord said they spent the last couple of days trying to take the weight of the vessel to allow the crane to lift it from the waters.
Even with about 16 tonnes less, the vessel weighed 28 tonnes, he said.
The condition of the boat was worse than they thought it would be, he said.
"Now that we've got it out of the water and we can see it. All the bow has sprung, the stern round the runner post — it's all just deteriorated over time."
The boat would now be taken to a yard in Invercargill where the owner would take what they wanted off it, he said.
"Then it'll get squashed and buried."
LUISA GIRAO and COLE YEOMAN
