NEW HARBOUR WORKS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29245, 1 July 1960, Page 12

NEW HARBOUR WORKS

Test Section Of Breastwork By the building of a test section of breastwork, another phase of the construction of the new £3,500,000 eastern harbour extension at Lyttelton will be entered. The first pile has been successfully driven by the harbour board’s staff. It is' the outermost one of 18 to be driven in the breastwork section, 26 feet wide, close to the breakwater running out to the dredged channel from Sticking Point. The pile was driven 57 feet into the bed, which had been drilled earlier. The harbour bottom is variable, being of soft grey clay to 66 feet down and then layers and patches of silt, sand and clay. The rock bottom is 175 feet below water level. | The area is still consolidating from the dumping of rock for the reclamation. Rock at the top of the reclamation will be removed when settlement is complete. The first pile is in two sections of 50 feet each. The base of the top section was trimmed and shaped by hand and was lowered into a five-feet ferrule, 12 inches in diameter and three-eighths of an inch thick, bolted on to the lower pile. The first section of the pile was driven down with a dolly in the ferrule. Each blow of the hammer on the floating pile driving pontoon drove the pile three to four feet into the clay. The test sections will be part of the completed breastworks, behind which will be built the transit goods sheds. The stripping of clay overburden to extend the Sticking Point quarry eastwards has begun. About 250,000 yards - of clay will be removed, the depths varying from five to 40 feet. Two-thirds of the hard fill of the harbour extension reclamation has 'come from the Sticking Point quarry.