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The
replica Bronze Age boat fails to float

It was meant to be a historical launch, toasting a great Bronze
Age discovery - instead, the organisers watched as their replica
boat began to sink.

A team of craftsmen and archaeologists had been working for
several months to build a half-size replica of Dover's Bronze Age
boat, using the same tools and the same methods as their ancestors
would have used when the original was built more than 3,500 years
earlier.

The champagne was on ice, the band was ready and Time Team's
Tony Robinson was there to record the historic event.

But time was against them. They only completed the task a couple
of hours before the launch was due to take place and there was no
time to test it.

A team of rowers, complete with life-jackets, were waiting to go
on board - but they were not needed.

The replica of the Bronze
Age boat is lowered into Dover Marina

As the boat was gently lowered into the water at Dover Marina,
it soon became clear there was a problem.

It started listing to one side and after a few minutes had
to be hoisted back out again. Water had got into the boat
and - as it made its way back on to dry land - water
was dripping out of it again.

But the team, though disappointed, were undeterred, and said
they would continue their work.

"We are hopeful that we can think again and make the boat good,"
said archaeologist Peter Clark. "We have come an awfully long way
in the past three-and-a-half months and we think we are nearly
there."

Paying tribute to all those who had worked on the boat, Mr
Clark named it Ole Crumlin-Pederson after a Danish
archaeologist who had worked on the project, but died before it was
completed.