PACIFIC CABLE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 91, 17 April 1923, Page 7

PACIFIC CABLE

NEW DUPLICATION ROUTE

AVOIDING INTERRUPTIONS.

AUCKLAND, This Day,

By the middle of next "■ August the Pacific cable will be duplicated between Auckland and Suva and between Sydney and Southport (Brisbane), and users will know that in the event of a break on the southern triangle formed by Sydney, Suva, and Auckland, there are now ample alternative routes to make it practically certain that total interruption 'in the triangle will be impossible. H.M. cable ship Iris returned to her moorings off Devonporfc yesterday after four weeks' surveying, etc., in connection with the new cable. Leaving Auckland on the 20th of last month, the Iris carried out the important work of locating the route over which the duplication will bo kid. A depth of 2300 fathoms, just abotit two miles and a half, was the deepest spot the Iris found in the duplication route. Soundings every twenty-five miles or so' were taken on the voyage up. Every time a sounding was taken the ship is stopped., to the work takes some considerable time. At Suva the Iris did some surveying work at the eastern entrance through the reef in Laucala. Bay, through which it is intended to lay the duplication instead of through the usual steamer entrance to westward.

Mr. John Mihvard, manager of Pacific Cable, came down from Suva in the Iris. He Enid the result of the surveywas most satisfactory. The bottom was an. excellent one for the cable, and the route would be good in every way. The stretches that were being duplicated, said Mr. Milward, were from Sydney to Southport (near Brisbane) (500 miles), and from Suva to Auckland direct .(1200 miles). The cost of the work will be £300.000, and both 1 cables should be laid by l4th August next, possibly enrlier. The Telegraph Construction aiicl Maintenanca Company, which had secured the contract, is a well-known British, company, and the cable was manufactured at Greenwich. It is interesting to know 1 that the steamer to be used, the Stephen, : a vessel of 4635 tons, was formerly a German cable ship and was handed over in connection with the reparation settlement. She is much smaller than the big cable ship Colonia, the 8000-tpnner that-was used in laying the main part 'ci the original cable. The past year was a wonderfully busy one for the Pacific cable, and when he was asked if the duplication would increase its capacity, Mr. Mihvard said it would not lor the moment, as the question of duplication beyond Suva through Fanning Island to Canada was in abeyance; but duplication would ensure an absence from interruption from Fiji downwards. Referring to wireless experiments the board was reported to be making, Mr. Milward said they had nothing to do with the question of duplication. While the hoard was waiting for the result of ' the "continuous load cable," it was using the interval to carry on experiments in wireless both in Fiji and Canada. ! Mr. Milward intends to spend about a week in Auckland attending to board I business, at the end of which he will I return to Sydney.