WELLINGTON DOCK AND SLIP.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 281, 5 December 1907, Page 6

WELLINGTON DOCK AND SLIP.

The patent slip was built in the years 1871-3 under a special subsidy from the Government. This sabsidy, which exceeded £2000 a year, was continued for twenty-one years, and was then discontinued, the company being reconstructed in 1894. The share capital of the company stood for many years at £30,520. The present capital, according to fhQ last balance sheet, is £18,312. So far as can be ascertained, the buildings and plant cost £36,000. The property consists of about 10% acres of freehold land below water, and twenty acres above water. Of this about one acre and a half are occupied by the slip and the buildings, four acres are more or less flat land, and the balance is hilly. The assets appear in the last balance sheet as worth £18,530. The slip has been paying for several years past. For the last ten years the number of ships slipped has ranged from 91 to 111, and the tonnage frofh 31,789 to 50,229 tons. Last year 104 vessels were slipped, the tonnage being 45,079. The "Wellington dry dock, which is to be completed on December 31st 1910, will have a total length of 671 ft at the bottom, and a breadth at the entrance of 84ft at 32ft 6in below high-water mark on the sill. The width of the inside of the dock will be 106 ft. The dock will accommodate the largest vessels which visit New Zealand. The lonic, Oorinthic, and Athenic, each 500 ft in length, will find ample room in the dock. The dock will be divisible into lengths of 643 ft, 493 ft, and 383 ft. The contract price is £196,000 for the dock itself and the pumping house up to the ground level In the harbor works scheme there is provision for a smaller and shallower dock of about 360 ft length, suitable for the smaller coastal fleet, and located about two chains and a half to the eastward of the main dock. — N.Z. Times.