BIG DOCK IMPERILLED

Evening Star, Issue 20988, 30 December 1931, Page 6

BIG DOCK IMPERILLED

MOORINGS PART IN SQUALL QUICK MEASURES RECAPTURE MONSTER [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTOnT December 29. In an exceptionally strong squall at 7 o’clock to-night the mooring wires at the forward end of the Jubilee dock parted. A heavy gusty northerly which had been blowing all day had grown even stronger toward evening, but the tugs and the Harbour Board officials had finished in the middle of the afternoon the job of mooring the dock to a special wharf at tho Tliorndon end of the harbour. The vast surface of tho dock wall was exposed at almost right angles to tho gale, and the strain was too much during the squall in the early evening for tho forward mooring wires to tho wharf to hold. One steel parted, while the other stranded, and the end of the dock began to move slowly away from tho wharf. Aten on tho dock and the tugs rose to the emergency, and an anchor was let go almost immediately from tho forward end of the dock to hold her in position and stop further swing from the wharf. A considerable length of anchor chain was let out, and the dock was finally brought up, still broadside to the wind. Meanwhile, at the after end of the dock additional mooring wires had been run between the dock and the wharf and fastened. It had become dark, and there was considerable anxiety. Harbour Board officials and employees, including the harbour master (Captain J. Spence), were hurriedly summoned, and immense manila hawsers, which, as it happened, were not required, were rushed along the waterfront to the remote Jubilee dock wharf. As evening wore on the wind slackened. When the harbour master arrived earlier in the evening he remarked to a reporter, “We’ll be hero all night,” but he left two hours later satisfied that tho dock would he all right. The present intention is to move the dock early to-morrow morning and moor it along the Thorndou breastwork while certain adjustments are being made to tho moorings. The accident, which occurred just before dusk, was seen from the northern suburbs, and the news spread. The first rumour was that the dock had broken away fore and aft. At present it is holding against a light northerly, and with reinforced mooring wires at the after end and the anchor at the forward end it is considered safe for the night.