Grande Havre boat broken up and cleared from beach

The Scuba Cat was built at Marine Craft – now Boatworks+ – at the Castle Emplacement in the 1980s.

It was principally used for diving, salvage work and fishing.

Dave Sebire, who runs the Boat Exchange, owned the vessel for about a year. He carried out renovations on it before selling it about four years ago.

When the new owner moved to England the boat fell in to disrepair on its mooring.

It would take on water and Mr Sebire said he would pump it out every couple of weeks or so to prevent it from sinking.

‘People knew it had been mine and I was always being contacted about it,’ he said.

‘In the end I contacted the owner in England and he paid me to clear it. You’ve got to be careful with things such as insurance and if it had broken free and collided with something else there could have been trouble.’

The keel, he said, was fairly solid but the deck was in poor condition, which was why it was leaking.

It took Mr Sebire 40 hours to break the vessel up with the help of Bobby Rowland, from Boat Mechanical Repairs.

The engines were taken out about two weeks before the rest of the boat.

The railings and the wheelhouse were then removed.

‘The intention was that we would pull it on to the beach, cut it in half, and then each piece could be craned off,’ said Mr Sebire.

‘But the crane could not lift that weight at such a distance so we had to break the boat up.’

It was found that two pieces of the keel, each about 6ft long, had a combined weight of about 400kg when they were taken for disposal.

Mr Sebire said that Guernsey Harbours, Guernsey Police, and Agriculture, Countryside and Land Management Services were aware of what was being done.

The craft superseded another Scuba Cat which was built by Palzeaird at South Quay, St Sampson’s, in the 1970s.

That one was used for divers working on Asterix – the Roman wreck which Richard Keen discovered in the mouth of St Peter Port Harbour on Christmas Day 1982.