RAISING SUNK SHIPS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 19 August 1918, Page 7

RAISING SUNK SHIPS.

ROMANCE OF SEA SALVAGE

The Admiralty Department for th» salvage of merchant ships did not exist before the war. From January, 1915, to the end of December, 1917, it recovered 260 merchant ships sunk by the Germans in our home waters. This year up to the end of May 147 ships were recovered. The increase is due to more efficient methods, and not to the greater activity of U-boats. Many of the ships salved were over 1200 tons. One salvage vessel was torpedoed while engaged on a wreck. Work which has taken days to perform is sometimes swept away by a heavy sea. Men have lost their lives from gases which have been formed by rotting cargoes in the holds of sunken vessels. Gases from bad grain sometimes included sulphuretted hydrogen, which \ caused semi-blindness and violent sick- | ness until a chemist discovered a process for making these gases harmless. A brilliant achievement was the lifting of a large collier, partly filled with coal sunk in 72ft of water and blocking an important channel and anchorage. It meant a dead lift of 2500 tons, and the difficulties were increased by the fact that another large vessel had sunk on top of the wreck, forcing the hull deeper into the sea bed. Four lifting vessels, with 16 wire ropes 3in thick, were engaged. Divers sealed up part of the wreck. Successive lifts, with the aid of the tide, patching by divers, and much pumping, enabled the vessel to be gradually dragged so that she was high and dry at low water. She was repaired in port, and made many trips until her career was ended by an enemy torpedo. _ A ship has been raised by compressed air from a depth of 90ft. No cargo can be raised from a depth of over 120 ft, as at this depth the pneumatic tools used for cutting and drilling the ship's side refuse to work. Another feat was the salving of our largest oil-tank steamer, which, with a cargo of benzine, was mined and caught fire. Salvage vessels rushing to the rescue fired 40 shots into the vessel's hull to sink her and put the flames out. While the tugs were alongside an explosion took place, hut the ship was successfully raised and repaired. Recently a 14,000-ton ship, valued with her cargo of foodstuffs at £3,500,000, was torpedoed in deep water, but was taken in tow by a rescue tug which got her into shallow water before she sank. By means of electric pumps, which were placed by divers m the stokeholds, and the sealing of the hatches, the ship was drawn farther and farther on to the beach, the cargo meanwhile being removed deck by deck. A hole 40ft by 28ft was then patched, and the ship towed to a repairing port. The new pump, dropped overboard into the sunken ship and connected with the salvage vessel by an electric cable, will lift water 75 to 80 feet against the 28-foot lift of the ordinary plunger or rotary pump. Many ships have been saved solely by the'use of this pump.