NAVAL DIVERS AT ROXBURGH

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28981, 24 August 1959, Page 12

NAVAL DIVERS AT ROXBURGH

Site On Lake Bed Being Cleared

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 21. Working with artificial light in the gloom 180 feet below the surface of the Roxburgh hydro lake, a team of nine divers are completing one of the most unusual jobs undertaken by the Navy. Led by Lieutenant H. R Honeycombe, R.N., who is a qualified diving instructor, the team is working at the invitation of the Ministry of Works clearing a site on the lake bed, into which a stop-log caisson will be lowered to permit maintenance of a sluice gate.

The silt is being cleared by a huge aluminium siphon which the diver operates like a giant vacuum cleaner. This exposes the rubble into which a channel 25 feet long and four feet wide is being hacked by hand. Because of the depth the work is slow and laborious. A diver can spend only 20 minutes on the bottom and he must return to the surface in easy stages which are spread over 30 minutes. Even then it is 12 hours before his body tissues are entirely free of nitrogen and he'can dive again. As a result each man can make only one dive a day. The team has been working 10 hours a day, as long as the daylight lasts, since the beginning of last week. Yesterday for the first time they took a Naval “make and mend” and finished at 3 p.m. In traditional fashion they spent it doing their washing. They will make their last dive tomorrow, pack their equipment on Sunday and fly back to H.M.N.Z.S. Philomel in Auckland on Monday.