WELL-EQUIPPED.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18516, 19 October 1925, Page 5

WELL-EQUIPPED.

A MODERN WHALER. SIR JAMES CLARK ROSS AT LYTTELTON. It i? many years i-ince a whaling ship lias been seen in Lytte'.ton. but oue ! which arrived at the port yesterday I morning is entirely different from anyi thin" in the whaling line ever seen ! there previously. The arrival was the I Sir James Clark Ross, named after the ! disedverer of the Ross Sea-, whir.her the vessel is hound on her annual whalehunting exitfxlitinn. The vessel left her home port ot Sandei'jo-d on August loth for Virginia. The weaklier aross the Atlantic was moderate, with strong westerly winds. At Norfolk, where she arrived on September :2nd. 80CO tons of hunker coal were taken in. and the shin sailed again on the •3th, At Colon the whaler remained four days, while tht ship's surgeon, who was sick, was i in hospital. Leaving Colon on Septem- j her ISth the vessel had an uneventful! vovai/e to Lvttelton. „ ; Captain (). Nilsen is in command or the Sir James Clark Ross. Dr. Rish- , ovd the surgeon, and the radio oper- , a tors are Messrs L. Jensen, and E. AYestergaard. • X A Thirsty Ship. The Sir James Clark TC-oss called at Lvttelton to take in -21)00 tons ot fresh •water a quantity which will tax the Lvttelton waterworks to some extent, hut which will l>e the means of adding a. substant'nl amount'to the borough. | receipts. As soon as the ship !>e-rthed four hoses were connected from the high nressure mains on the Gladstone Pier. I It is hoped to complete watering this j afternoon when the vessel will sail lor J Stewart Island. She expects to le-rvo ihe hase there about Sunday next tor J f'e Ro*s Sea. where she will work until the end of February. The whaler is a .vessel of 8224 tons cross, and was formerly a cf-.ngo stealer. In addition to the huw tanks on deck and other equipment for dealin:: with the whales, a, most noticeable feature is the wooden shield builtaround the vessel's bows as a. riroiect'on against the ice. ThU sheathing: extends from a. few feet above the-water line to 15 feet below it ruul consists of thick planks of African greenheart timber, loosely held in r:,n iron frame, so tha,t when it is da.maged by the ice, ne\y : pieces can be inserted. Modern Whaling Methods. "With the advent of huge steamers like the Sir James Clark Ross in the trade, most of the romance lias gone from whaling. The business now is just scientific: whale-lranting and slaughter on a large scale. The vessel itself does not actually chase whales. That is done by half a dozen whale-chasers, small steamers or about 100 tons, which have been in winter quarters down at- Stewart Island, while the. Sir James. Clark Ross tbok last year's catch home to Norway. As the whales are killed, the chasers take them in tow until each has as much as it can pull, and they then take their catch to the mother ship. The latter vessel is reallv a huge factory, equipped for rendering down thfi i whale blubber. The whales are cut up alongside the ship, and the huge strips of blubber are hoisted on to the deck to the chopping machine which quickly cuts them into smaller lumps. Thence the lumps are conveyed by elevator into \>one of the ten open steam-heated boilers where it is melted down, and the oil run off into one of the many tanks in the depths of the ship. Nothing is wasted. The residue left in the vtaiiks after each, boiling is conveyed by another elevator to one of four small broilers, where it is again boiled and more oil extracted. The'carcase from which the blubber has been stripped is then cut into sections, and the sections hoisted aboard. Here it is cut up further, a steam saw being used to cut the "bone, and the whole is boiled again in digesters, under pressure. About 150 barrels of oil is the yield from a mftdium-sized whale. "* Factory and Store. Besides being a boiling down factory, the motor ship is store ship for the fleet of chasers, and is fully equipped to meet all emergencies. There is a hospital on board, with a surgeon in charge, and there are machine and repair shops. The crewis composed .of a dozen firemen and a like number of deckhands, but the total number on board is 150, the remainder being made up of whale .workers, flensers, as the blubber strippers are called, and boiling down hands. The vessel also carries a few new hands for some of the chasers. The chasers* this year number seven. Formerly there were five, but this | j season -two new ' and faster chasers were sent out to Stewart Island. It is predicted that ,+b.e season will be a good one. Tho first season was poor, only 17.C00 barrels being secured. Last season was very successful j when 32.000 barrels were taken back to Norway Strange as it may seem, much of the oil is used for goods of an edible nature. Margarine, and table oils are made from'it. Of course, that is after it has been refined at home, when it becomes very clear and devoid of the .fishv taste and smell. ' The coarser oil is used for soaps and lubricants. Badio Installation. Afhat should interest ratio enthusiasts, both professional and amateur, are the wireless sets used in the Sir James Clark. Ross. There are really three or four sets. There is first a Marconi 3 kw set, which can receive from any high power station in the world. This set has a normal sending range of 2000 miles, but when in I the Ross Sea.last year, communication J was established with San-Francisco, a distance of 7000 miles. This set can be transformed in a moment into a telephone set, by the mere, changing of a switch, and, telephone messages can be transmitted up to 1800 miles At that distance Awarua was' spoken on the radio 'phone. This set has a G valve high frequency detector and a two-valve low frequency amplifier. All the chasers are equipped with small sets, and the mother ship is thus in constant communication with all the fleet. On-this voyage, for the first time, the vessel carries a short wave set, working on 57 metres, for experimental purposes, and for communication with amateurs. New Zealand- amateurs will doubtless hear more of this set during the next few months. Rather a novelty for sltips in these waters, but one which has been found of immense service in the Antarctic, is the direction sending and receiving set carried by the whaler. With this : she can receive direction, and can also ! send direction to the chasers In the . far south there is considerable distur- ; bance of the magnetic oomnass but ' every hour the Sir James Clark Ross I sends out direction waves to the chasers. On Saturday night, when off Banks Peninsula, in a -dense fo°- the >■ vessel received her bearings from the j Wellington station, at a distance of 180 miles.

A bov and a pillow twig, out of which a willow-bark whistle had been cut, were responsible for the failure of the electric fight in the Hutt Valley last week, and almost responsible for the cutting-off of the supply to Wellington "City as well. The boy. having taken off his whistle, evidently threw the twig on the supply line, with the result that a fuse blew out and when replaced Khandallah station was affected. The twig when found was almost burned through. The trouble in this instance took place near the Stlverstream Public School.