RAISING SHIPS FROM THE SEA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3144, 20 November 1922, Page 8

RAISING SHIPS FROM THE SEA.

The sinking of the P. andl O. liner Egypt has set salvage experts a big task, not only to recover the million poundis of bullion on board, but also to raise the vessel herself. Such an undertaking is not so difficult as it seems. An expedition which is to att-enipt to raise tlie Lusitaniai — at much larger ship than the Egypt—has high hopes' of success. Many remarkable feats of salvage have been performed within recent years, but pea-baps the most thrilling was the raising of the great* Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci, wbiich was sunk, by enemy action in the harbor of Taranto in 1916. The vessel turned over and came to rest in mud; at the sea bottom, "from which not even the biggest crane could! lift her. A cable was laid from. Taranto to the ship, and with the electric power thus furnished, holes were drilled to take the rivets which would hold the patches over the great rente in the hull.

Other cables were then carried out from the power-station to work the air compressors:, and immediately the l divers had rendered a number of compartments watertight, the salvage men began to pump compressed air into the vessel, gradually forcing out the water. Divers next cut away the turrets and funnels, which were stuck in the mud. Tho work was carried out slowly and cautiously, but at last the vessel, forced up by the compressed air, rose to the surface. Still turned upside down, she was towed to dry dock along a specially prepared channel out through tho sea bed. After repairs in dry dock, she was taken into the bay, and by allowing the water to run into the compartments on the starboard side, the leviathan turned over slowly and remained floating right side up. The work occupied four and a-half years, and cost £135,000. An incident as thrilling in every respect was the salving of the Kl3, a submarine which went down in the River Clyde. By passing food and air through tubes. the rescue-party managed to keep members of the crew alive until the bow of the submarine was raised above the water and a hole was burned in the plates, through which the survivors were dragged to safety. Fortysix men were still alive, and for fiftyfive hours they had been confined in a prison that might have proved a tomb. No sooner had the rescue work been completed than the wires holding the vessel gave way, and the Kl3 settled down again. Ry means of compressed air the submarine was raised again, this time successfully. One of the most novel and ingenious instances of salvage was provided a,t Folkstone some time ago. A vessel caught fire, and was sunk deliberately dose to the quay. She turned over on her side, and the only difficulty that presented itself in the salvage operations was the question of how to get her righted. This obstacle was overcome by attaching wire to five large locomotives on land. Those,, when all was ready, pulled the ship over. On another occasion a, sunken vessel was cut in two while under water, raised to the surface, fitted with new bulkheads, and brought homo to be fitted together again. If it had not been for the help provided by such inventions as diving beljs and tanks, in which divers can work with safety under water; deepsea telephones; oxy-acetylene flames, which burn even in water, and enable the diver to cut through a vessel's sides; lifting tugs and floating docks; lifting magnets, and innumerable safety devices, the work of raising the five hundred odd vessels which have been salved during and since the war might never have been accomplished.