BAFFLING TASKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 102, 1 May 1937, Page 21

BAFFLING TASKS

WORK OF THE SALVOR

Salvors are artists, as any who have had practical experience, or'who have read Mr. Desmond Young's delightful book "Ship Ashore" must know. Every new case offers a different problem and some of the problems appear insoluble to the layman. When the history of raising the German fleet, sunk at Scapa Flow, comes to be written, the world will marvel at the ingenuity of those who laboured in the face of such tremendous difficulties. Take the case of the Egypt's .gold—too well known to need relating in detail —and 'compare it with the raising of £9000 in gold from the Alfonso XIII sunk off the Grand Canary in. the eighties. In the earlier case the giant diver Lambert brought eight boxes, each containing £1000, to the surface with such superhuman effort that he eventually collapsed and was paralysed for a long time. -' In the case of the Egypt modern methods of deep-sea diving enabled the crew of the Artiglio to bring to the surface over £1,000,000, -while new devices, such as the sealed cylinder which drew sovereigns.'into it by suction, performed what- seem to be miracles to the layman. ■ ■ • ■ Then'there was the case of a tanker loaded with palm oil sunk in seven fathoms of water. More than one third of the valuable cargo was salved by buifding a cofferdam through which the oil could be raised after it, had been liquefied by steam coils placed in the tanks. In another case a tanker loaded with benzine was unapproachable because of the fumes from the escaping spirit, while the danger of explosion was very serious indeed. The ship was salveabJe. but how to set about

it? Eventually the benzine in the tanks was blown out of the ship by compressed air which was subsequently used to give the vessel sufficient buoyancy to allow her to be towed to shallow water. These were exceptional cases, but the ingenuity required to refloat a ship that has stranded in comparatively easy circumstances is not less. Patching a hole would be beyond the invention