"We heard David Worlledge had bought this thing and was going to turn it into this restaurant. He ended up getting it towed up as far as Malpas and then they brought it on up with a small boat to the other side of the main bypass to Town Quay.
I actually said to them look what we need to do basically is lighten her down as much as possible, take everything off you can. So they stripped everything including the paddle wheels to make her as narrow as possible, because we knew with those on it was too tight. So all they were left with was a framed back where the poop deck was and a little bit upon the bow section. And then what we did was calculate the tide.
David Worlledge's dad owned Lark Construction. John Polkinghorne was like the site manager and he and I worked together. With Compton waiting at Town Quay we could take details of the tide and see what she'd float at. We couldn't have a spring tide 'cause it would rise too quick.
So she's one side of the bridge, and she's got to come afloat, as light as possible and then she's got to be pulled under the bridge and be clear of the bridge before she can catch against the underside.
So what we did was calculate what time we had and we chose a neap tide when there is the least difference between high and low water. We calculated when she would come afloat then I worked out we had approximately 14 minutes to get her from one side of the bridge to the other, but we obviously didn't worry the County Council who own the bridge too much, because they might have said,' no way it's not going to happen.' But I was quite certain 14 minutes was long enough to actually do it.