One Cook Strait Cable Fails Test

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30633, 26 December 1964, Page 3

One Cook Strait Cable Fails Test

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, December 25. The third cable across Cook Strait has failed to withstand the required over-voltage test. The fault is about 15 miles from the North Island coast.

The director of research and engineering for British Insulated Callenders Cables of London, Dr. A. L. Williams, who is chief executive of the Cook Strait power cable project, said the two cables laid on November 13 and 24 had to be joined to land cables at Oteranga Bay and Fighting Bay.

These had passed all the tests specified by the Electricity Department, but the third cable, a spare, laid across the strait on December 12, was tested on Wednesday and instead of withstanding the required 520,000 volts failed at 320,000 volts.

Dr. Williams said the cause of the fault would not be known till the affected section had been recovered and examined. Dr. Williams said it was "a disappointment more than anything else.”

He said it had been hoped the cables would be laid without a hitch, but the company was prepared for anything untoward happening. The cable ship Photinia and the Arran Firth would sail early in January to make repairs. If the weather remained fine the repairs would take only a few days “We employed a number ot men from the Post Office in the Photinia. These have all either gone back to their jobs throughout the country

or are on holiday. We have had to call them back and that will take a few days,” said Dr. Williams.

The company had forseen the possibility of having to make repairs to the cables and had developed and rehearsed techniques for the purpose, said Dr. Williams. The ships had brought all the materials needed and there was ample cable available. Because all cables were laid in a precise position, it is not thought that lifting would present too many problems. Dr. Williams said the two other cables, which completed the 600,000 kilowatt circuit, were now ready for experimental or commercial use by the department.