Macrocarpa Falls On Lifeboat Shed

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30287, 13 November 1963, Page 10

Macrocarpa Falls On Lifeboat Shed

As well as doing more than £7OO worth of damage a big double-trunked macrocarpa tree proved the Scarborough Boat Club’s forebodings right when it fell in Monday morning’s gale. The 70ft to 100 ft tree fell across the crew’s social room at the Sumner lifeboat building. Mr H. J. Kerr, skipper of the lifeboat, said that the Scarborough Boat Club had been alarmed about the macrocarpa and had decided 18 months ago to ask the city counici to top it. The council had not agreed that this was necessary. The acident was pinpointed at 4 a.m. by the fact that the social room's electric clock was found to have stopped then. Mr Kerr said the power was cut off. so that although the lifeboat could easily put to sea to answer a distress call, it would not be able to be winched up the slip again. If necessary it would be moored at Lyttelton. Apart from that, the worst damage was done to yachts moored in the Estuary. Several broke free from their moorings, and one was so badly damaged as to be considered irreparable. Others were overturned and masts were broken. The gale which did the damage .began at 1.10 a.m. and produced its strongest gust of 52 miles an hour two minutes later. It blew strongly from the south-west for most of the morning. It was brought 'by a cold front ivhich moved up very rapidly from a long way south of New Zealand and sped across the country.

There was only one incident of damage to power lines. A tree fell across an 11,000-volt line in Hills road about 5 a.m., disrupting power to Burwood for a short while. Supply to Burwood Hospital was affected and had to be brought through another circuit while the Hills road line was repaired. Supply was back to normal long before most persons were astir. No damage was done to young fruit, which is not yet heavy enough to become windfalls, and the city council’s parks and reserves department heard of no damage. “That is thanks to. the good work we have done in the last few years,” said the director (Mr H. G. Gilpin). “We’ve had a systematic programme of pruning and shaping for the last five years, in spite of the critics, and it is paying dividends now.”