A crane had to be brought from Birmingham, a journey taking 5 lorries two and a half days and it took 10 hours to re-assemble the crane on the harbour side.

The re-assembled crane

A Dutch dredger using floating pipes pumped 1400 tons of sand an hour into the breach from Wells Harbour.

Dredger pumping sand from the Harbour

Even a helicopter was given the task of dropping ballast in an effort to hasten the sealing of the defences before the high tides due in the first weeks of February.

Finally the last of the small craft had to be lifted back into the harbour for the Beach Road to be opened again.

The operation began to lift the Function back into the water
Function in the air

while the mammoth task of filling and closing the breach in the sea defences was started
as seen below

lorries tipping ballast from the landward side

Lorries were filling in on the other side of the breach with ballast taken from the old lime works in Wells.

Helicopter over the closing breach

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