Unusual vessel built at Nelson

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 2

Unusual vessel built at Nelson

Bv

BARRY SIMPSON

A unique deep-sea-diving vessel, (picture at right), designed and built wholly tn Nelson, was taken to the sea ready for launching at Molaco. Nelson, yesterday. The SIM steel vessel — or diving platform — with dis-; tinctive tiat-bottomed catamaran hulls and heli-pad t<>ove the bridge, was built by employees of Nautilus. Marine. Ltd. in only nine The vessel, the only one of its kind, will be used by the company anywhere inj the world that it is required The company intends to build two similar vessels, end a smaller, more portable. decompression chamber Supplementing the vessel is a $120,000 diving bell and decompression chamber, also built by the company. This will be carried aboard the vessel, named the Little Mermaid. in a compartment in the port hull. The compression chamber has accommodation for two men who, after returning from great depths in the bell, can live in it at the same pressure for up to two weeks. The bell will take divers as deep as 183 metres (600 ft •The whole concept is the “brainchild" of the company's operations superintendent, Mr Peter Palmer. He has used his wide experience in diving to design a floating platform intended to provide maximum efficiency and ease of use. .Mr Palmer served for 15 years in the Royal Navy.) specialising in clearance diving and bomb disposal. After leaving the Navy in 1966 he became a commercial diver and worked in

.32 countries before coming to New Zealand. "1 already had the design tor an all-purpose off-shore vessel and 1 looked around I for somebody with guts’i ■ enough to build it. Mr Dalhoff had the guts, so I [ 1 joined up with him and built I I it." he said. t’ Embodied in the main ..deck are two "moon pools”; (large holes) through which] cargo and the diving beiL can be raised and lowered. r Equipment can be stored i jon deck, and the catamaran's construction makes it espe-1 > dally suitable for carrying] . long pipes between its twin • 22-metre hulls. Thus it ■i would be of great value in. jthe oil industry. I O - her unusual features inL elude twin 149h.p. six-cylin-,jder diesel engines mounted; j J on the deck, and all-hydraul-! . ic propulsion to twin propeliilers. The engines are coupled; j hydraulically to all facilities! ‘on board req./.ring power. : , Cvunte r-balancing the! of the diving bell in ,;the port hull a starboard; I compartment carries at least. , 200 cylinders of helium gas] '! for use by the divers. , The vessel has little ac-l 1 commoda'ion space, mainly because once i‘ is in posi-] tion and the divers are' '■ down, only a skeleton crew ‘; is required. Other crew will ■ be flown to and from shore i • accommodation by a Hughes! - 500 helicopter. 1 The vessel has a beam ofj 119.5 m. a draught of a ’little '’more than Im. and an all-up weight of 129 tonnes. > The bell and decompresj sion chambers equipped for j the latest id diving tech- • niques, are built of 28mm i boiler plate. Included in the ■I bell’s life-support system ilfrom the vessel is a t-|

water unit, the water being htuted by the engines exhausts. This provides divers working in cold conditions with warm water circulating through their diving suits. The Nautilus Company is headed by the New Zealand promoter-financier, Mr J. N. Dalhoff. At a “dry-run” launching ceremony on Friday, he said that the vessel would be particularly valuable for under-water cable work. , Mr Dalhoff said that two big jobs, between S3M and S4M. had already been planned for the Little Mermaid and her divers. But these would come after a small shake-down job for ’the Government. Then, the company would embark on its own treasure search — not for gold, preIcious stones or jewellery, i but lead. i The Port Kembla, which! sank about 20 miles off] I Farewell Spit 60 years agol i after striking an "nemy mine, was carrying about 1200 tonnes of lead. The ship is thought to be tying' I about 120 m down and has' 1 been pin-pointed by an echo- j 'sounder. In 1976 the company obtained salvage rights' I to the cargo. 1 Although it is not a par-! iticularly romantic cargo, it] is certainly a valuable one| and considered well worth' ■the effort. The company has come ai [ long way since the days J !when a few scuba divers got' together to do odd jobs requiring divers about Port Nelson. It now specialises in cleaning hulls of vessels whil" they lie at their berthages discharging or loading cargo, thus avoiding expensive dry-docking. Yesterday, the Little Mer-