People living near the spot where a burnt-out boat sank say its removal after eight months is a "Christmas present" for the town.
The narrowboat, which was moored on the River Lea in Hertford, was ravaged by fire in April and residents have been calling for its removal ever since.
A solution was found after the local MP got councils and other organisations together to come up with a plan.
The craft was raised from the deep on Thursday and pushed from the town centre by another boat.
Although the circumstances of the fire remain unclear, it is believed to have been accidental.
Although someone was living on the boat at the time, no-one was hurt.
The burnt-out shell of the abandoned barge gradually sank until it was barely visible, but there were rumours that children had been jumping on to it from the bank.
The local Labour MP, Josh Dean, organised meetings between local councils, the Environment Agency and the Canal & River Trust.
"The real issue here was that the boat sank in a part of the river where you know there's no-one with clear responsibility and so it took a lot of bringing people together," he said.
While removal of the boat would normally be the owner's responsibility, it is believed the owner could not afford the cost.
Hertford Town Council agreed to foot the bill for the operation.
Contractors arrived at 07:00 GMT on Thursday to cover the boat's windows and pump water out so it could be refloated.
It was then pushed along the river by another boat to be removed from the water further downstream.
Several residents watched the operation from the bank.
Sue Reeve said: "It's like a Christmas present for Hertford, because this is such a lovely spot and it's been an eyesore and now it's going. Wonderful."
Alan Scarisbrick said: "It's been really unsightly, but the more worrying thing has been the pollution that must have been generated when the whole thing sank.
"There's usually loads and loads of ducks, swans and geese here which is lovely for the kids to see and that's all been denied them recently because we've had this horrible old barge."
Amy Bendall, who has two children, added: "It's so dangerous, we couldn't let them anywhere near, it was absolutely awful", while Peter Thorp was "glad to see the back of it".
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