Jo Blo, the champion Sydney runabout which sank on Lake Eppalock during the running of the E.C. Griffith Cup (29th March 1970), has been recovered.

Fortunately, the boat had not gone down into a quarry, as was first suspected, but was in some 65 feet of water.

Divers were unable to locate the boat, because silt in suspension in the water, cuts off visibility a few feet below the surface of the lake.

Keith Nankervis located the sunken boat after days of painstaking work with a depth finder. It was not easy. The area is full of trees, stumps and gullies, which showed up on the trace.

Nankervis put down a marker buoy on every object which looked like as if it could be the boat. He finished up with a dozen or so bouys in the area. Then the diver went down along the line of each buoy.

He found the boat on the second or third dive. Keith described the condition if the champion runabout as "unbelievable."

He said: "You'd think a bomb had gone off in the boat."

Jo Blo reared high in the air, while leading during the first neat of the Griffith Cup, and appeared to disintegrate on impact.

"It seems incredible that water pressure could do all that damage." Nankervis added.

The petrol tank was torn off its mountings, and forced through the hull. The transom was ripped right out of the boat. However, the motor and transmission system - Jack Bullen's greatest worry - was virtually undamaged.

Apart from the exhaust pipe and prop shaft, in fact, the big 427 Corvette should be as good as new.