SCAPA FLOW SALVAGE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 14 November 1924, Page 2

SCAPA FLOW SALVAGE.

FOURTH GERMAN DESTROYER RAISED. ®

ahe fourth German torpedo-boat destroyer of the sunken enemy fleet in Scapa Flow was successfully raised recently by Messrs Cox and Danks, Ltd., the salvage contractors and steel merchants, who have purchased the scuttled vessels from the British Admiralty. - . iwenty-two or more 1 *destroyers still remain at the bottom of the Flow, and these it is hoped to raise at the rate or two a month. Work is meantime also proceeding on the far more elaborate preparations (required for ca!vmg the German battleship HindenLurg, or 25,000 tons, and her companion the Beydlitz, the former of which, it is anticipated, will be raised early next year. The fighting-top of the Hir den•hurg is visible at low water, and so is ;a section of the Seydlitz, which, is lying on her side.

. It is interesting to note that, by the irony of fate, the converted floaling dock, which is being used by the sab vage contractors for raising tin-: destroyers was itself a wonderful piece of German marine engineering, 400 feet in length, Avhich carried an enormous cylinder, intended- for ilie testing of German submarines under water. It was constructed during the war. When the huge dock passed into the possession of the British Admiralty, Messrs Cox and Danks recognised its ■enormous lifting capacity, md bought tor salvage purposes, it was successfully towed from Hamburg, and adapted to its new work by being cut into halves, which are placed on edhtr side of the sunken destroyer, and at right angles to it. Powerful steel wire rapes, nine inches in Circumference aie placed on either side of the sunken destroyer, and by means of a series of pulley blocks on each half of the dock and powerful winches, the vessel is slowly lifted at low tide, wlvjh men haul on the winches as tli e rising tide bears the dock upwards.' Simultaneously the. dock, with its captive, draped in seaweed, resting on the cables between two sections, is towed to Mill Bay, two miles dir.l-ant. Ihere the destroyers are put r. shore, and after they have been patched up and their sea-cocks closed, they are towed a short distance to Lyness, which was the Admiralty’s depot head-quar-t's during the war. They are then broken up, and when this harvest of the sea has been all gathered m ,it will probably be found more piofivable to this country than the German navy anticipated when its officers cast, their battleships under the waters for us to find after many daj's.—-Observer.