Man saves sinking boat with vodka cork

It may not have been a bottle of rum, but a hapless sailor was able to save his boat from sinking by plugging a hole with a cork from a bottle of vodka.

Joseph Lehr (right) Credit: NY Daily Post

Joseph Lehr and two friends were out sailing off Rockaway Beach near Queens in New York when their 30-foot boat started taking on water about 200 yards from the shore, as reported by the New York Post.

The ship, named “Knotta Yachta,” had lost a drain plug.

“We plugged it with a shaft of metal, which kind of stopped it. But the water was still coming in,’’ Lehr’s friend Michael Clapman told The NY Post. “We tried everything, plugging it with socks and other pieces of cloth, but nothing worked.”

The trio limped someway back to shore, using a pump to clear the water, but the stricken vessel was still taking on water.

The water was at least three feet deep by the time the men made it to shore, where they were thrown a cork from an Absolut vodka bottle by partiers on the dock.

As the boat floundered, Lehr dove in to retrieve the cork and swam beneath the ships hull to plug the hole.Amazingly it worked, stopping the boat from sinking into a watery grave.

Crews from the FDNY and NYPD helped them restart the boat and escorted them back to shore to make sure the makeshift plug held.

“He saved us all,” added Clapman, speaking to NY Daily News. “We would have never made it if he didn’t do that.”