"We'd all piled back from the pub for a few more drinks and someone opened the door to leave and all this water rushed in. Once, Toby, now 29 and the youngest Cole, narrowly averted a sinking when he was at home by himself: "It had got to the point where the switch that turned the pumps on and off was under water and had fused … if the tide had been a few inches higher, it would have come over the floorboards."Īnd one Christmas Day ended with a visit from the fire brigade. In later years, the Coles struggled to keep the boat afloat and often had to bale out water. In winter, it was so chilly that Sam used to set his alarm for an hour before he had to get up so he could turn on the gas heater before climbing out of bed. "Jake and I used to joke that as teenagers we did more damage to it than the Germans," says Sam. Motor torpedo boats such as Lunasea were never intended to last, much less be lived in by a family of five. Jake, 36, also lives on Fische, in a self-contained flat. Now 40, Sam has lived on land longer than he has lived on water but he is a frequent visitor to Shoreham-by-Sea, where his parents live on their second boat, Fische – a 150ft German minesweeper, they bought after Lunasea sank for the last time. Photograph: Andrew Hasson for the Guardian Fred and Polly Cole, with Toby (left), and Sam on board Fische.
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