CANAL boat owners Jeff and Doreen Selby were close to tears looking at their narrowboat Inglewood lying in six feet of water at its mooring at All Cannings, near Devizes.

The couple, from East Gomeldon, near Salisbury, were alerted to the crisis by a telephone call from a British Waterways official on Monday morning.

Mr Selby said: "We left the boat on Sunday night and then on Monday morning we had a call to say that the boat was sinking.

"We managed to bail her out so that the front was out of the water, but we couldn't level her. The rear was still under water.

"We had to leave her and when we came back on Tuesday she had slid off the bank and is now deeper than she was before."

Mrs Selby said: "When we bought her she was just a shell. We have renovated her over the last three years. We have built the furniture, made the curtains, everything and now it is all gone. I just can't believe it."

None of the other boat owners moored at All Cannings could remember a boat sinking at its mooring.

It is not known what the problem was. British Waterways officials were yesterday trying to raise the boat.