A GIANT DOCK

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 146, 17 March 1934, Page 18

A GIANT DOCK

Handling a Mammoth Liner

A man’s hand closed over the electric switch, fast steel chains grew taut. Then the great mass of the gate—l7oo tons of steel —began to move, sliding backwards while the water swirled around it. It sank home Into the socket, a space looking like a small swimming bath ’when the gate is closed. So was the largest graving dock in the wojld opened for its first commercial use. Only the Royal yacht had previously entered this great basin—the George V graving dock at Southampton—for the inauguration by the King last summer. Now six little tugs have dragged the biggest liner in the world, the 56,598 ton Majestic—beflagged from stem to stern—away from her berth on the new quay towards the dock. An aeroplane flew overhead and the sound of the liner’s siren echoed far across the dun ■water.

Four-Inch rope hawsers were seized and placed round the mooring bollards. Winches on board the Majestic turned and the liner, taking 50-fobt strides

from one set of bollards to the next, “walked” into the dock. There was a ■space of less than twenty feet to spare ■on either side as she passed through the entrance.

Now came the turn of the man at ■the pumping house control board. ■Before him on the wall was an electric “map.” Red, orange and green bulbs and strips of light shone to show him water levels.

His thumbs pressed knobs on the control board—and the whirring of the pumps filled the building. The four centrifugal pumps were turning at 272 ■revolutions a minute. The electric ■power driving them was 6,600 volts. Despite her size the Majestic only displaces one sixtih of the volume of water in the graving dock, which holds a total of 70,000,000 gallons.

But the water sank and sank until the Majestic dropped on to the keel blocks. For three hours and fiftyfour minutes, the pumps drew out 1000 ■tons of water a minute—a fine feat, for four hours is the regulation time for emptying the basin.

At last all the water was gone. All was ready for the Majestic to undergo her annual overhaul.