RAISING THE ST. PAUL.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 24 October 1924, Page 6

RAISING THE ST. PAUL.

r GREAT SALVAGE UNDERTAKING. DIVERS’ DIFFICULT WORK. The St. Paul was a well-known passenger steamer belonging to the American Line, and for years she passed to and fro across the Atlantic. The European War saw her changed to a troopship, and on April 25, 1918, tugs were manoeuvring her beside the quay in New York harbour. On a sudden, and no one can certainly say why, she began to heel over, her masts smashed off against the quayside, and the St. Paul calmly rested on her side in the water, with, thousands .of tons of squishv mud flowing in through her open ports. Truly, she presented a horrid picture to Mr R, E. Chapman, the salvage engineer deputed to- raise her, for there were thirteen thousand tons of St. Paul lying down in the mud and precious little room to get at her. Divers were sent down to cut away funnels and all top deck tackle; burrowing deep in the slime, other divers managed to close all the ports and other openings in the ship; bulkheads (generally blessed as preservers of safety) were blasted .through or cut through so that- a free flow of water to the pumps should be secured. "VVhile these things were going on “downstairs,’ 5 along the exposed side of the hull a long line of 21 legs, letter A shape, and 30 feet high, were erected in steel girders. Then 21 huge blocks ot concrete were buried in clay along a trench dredged at the bottom of the next quay, and from these blocks powerful steel cables were led over the tops of the legs to 21 steam winches set on the quay. Aided by pontoons and floating derricks, all the winches .started to haul at once, and in time the liner was levered to a position in which a coffer dam could be constructed over her. At long last it proved possible to set pumps to work, and the St. Paul, emptied of her naughtiness, resolved to become upright once more. The nastiest job of all, perhaps, was the removal of 200 tons of decayed meat from one of the liner’s refrigerators. The stuff was no nosegay.