Submerged Bulldozer Hauled From River

Press, Volume C, Issue 29634, 3 October 1961, Page 14

Submerged Bulldozer Hauled From River

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN. October 2. A major amphibious attack was mounted at Duntroon on Sunday before the Waitakj river was forced to release a bulldozer, submerged in the river for almost a week. Two Dunedin members of the Otago Underwater Club, Messrs G. Watkins and C. W Tall, slipped hawsers round the submerged vehicle, so that it could be dragged to the bank. After efforts to retrieve the bulldozer last week had failed, the Ministry of Works arranged an all-out effort on Sunday. .The release of water from the Waitaki dam a few

miles upstream was held to a minimum, while four other bulldozers laboured in the river bed to build a coffer dam to divert the flow from the deep channel into which the bulldozer had fallen Completion of the dam at 10 am. cut off th* swift current which had hampered earlier salvage attempts. Before Jong, the level had fallen a foot, so that the uppermost pert of the bulldozer was just beJow the water.

Using a Ministry of Work* jet boat, the two diver* were then able to place three hawsers around th* eubmerged bulldozer. The bulldozer waa then dragged out of the river, although not before one wire cable broke.

The actual salvage operation took little more than an hour, and was finished by 11 am.

It It understood th* bulldozer was due for a complete overhaul before it fell Into the river.