MARINE SURVEY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 71, 25 March 1938, Page 12

MARINE SURVEY

ENDEAVOUR'S WORK

RECTIFYING MISTAKES

The most important area so far surveyed by the Admiralty survey ship Endeavour, which is in port for a few days for coaling, is at present engaging the attention of the ship's personnel, states the "New Zealand Herald" of today. The vessel has completed the third section of her work, the surveying of Mercury Bay, and has started a survey of Cuvier Island and the surrounding waters. ■ For years mariners have urged the necessity for completing soundings in the vicinity of Cuvier, charts of which are based upon a survey made by H.M.S. Acheron over 80 years ago. In 1904 H.M.S. Penguin made a more comprehensive survey of the Cape Colville area, and other points in the main approach to Auckland, but discrepancies exist in latitude and longitude because the Acheron's charts were based on earlier longitude determinations. " Attention has been drawn on many occasions to the handicaps confronting mariners not familiar with the New Zealand coast when approaching Auckland. When the Federal steamer Wiltshire was lost on the Great Barrier in 1922 complaints were made on behalf of the captain that inadequate soundings near Cuvier could easily be responsible for disaster. MISTAKES IN CHARTING. This position will now be remedied by the Endeavour. It is already known —as a result of the completion of the New Zealand land survey and because many modern liners are equipped with better safety equipment, such as echosounding gear—that the position of the Great. Barrier is wrongly charted, but the completion of adequate soundings in the area between Cuvier and the Great Barrier will be greeted with considerable satisfaction by all mariners who have to rely either upon their own experience or imperfect charts. The commander of the Endeavour, Captain A. G. N. Wyatt, hopes to complete thY Cuvier Island-Great Barrier section iof his work by June, when the ship will be laid^up at Devonport for refit. Already some positions have been tentatively, .plotted, but any error in the existing charts that may have been found in the position of Cuvier Island has yet to be checked up by calculations with reference to the Barrier, since that part of the work which has been finished has been done with reference only to Cape Colville. MERCURY BAY CHARTS. It is not thought likely, however, that shipping is in any danger because of the present imperfections in the charts of the main approach to Auckland. If a discovery is made that should be communicated immediately to shipping, Captain Wyatt will take the normal course of promulgating a notice to mariners, if necessary by radio. Several alteration's will have to be made to the present charts of the Mercury Bay area as a result of the Endeavour's work. It has been proved, for instance, although this has been known to fishermen for some time and was found by the land survey, that the Mercuries shou-ld be about threequarters of a mile further inshore than they are shown. It has also been found that there is less water o\|er a shoal off Cape Colville than is marked. By far the most important alterations, however, will be those which will probably be effected'to charts of the main approach to the harbour past Cuvier. Island, which is the landfall for all ships coming from America and the Panama Canal. • A definite statement about these alterations cannot be made until the Endeavour has completed her. soundings of the area between the island.and the Great Barrier.