MARVELS OF SHIPSURGERY.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 38, 7 May 1907, Page 5

MARVELS OF SHIPSURGERY.

+ FORTUNES PICKED UP BY SHIPS GOING DOWN. * The most celebrated ca 9« of salvage is that of the great tramp steamer Milwaukee. She was a braud-new vessel of 7,300 tons when, upon her first voyage, she ran hard and fast upon the granite crags of the Scottish coast near Aberdeen. There she lay. jammed hard and fast, and exposed to the send of a heavy swell* which within the first twenty-four hours twisted her bows to pieces. Captain Bachelor, who was entrusted with the task of salving her, saw at first glance that the fore-part of the ship was beyond hope, and resolved upon a desperate expedient. He hung a belt of .small dynamite cartridges around the hull, just forward of the engine-room bulkhead, and by firing these actually cut the vessel in two.

A BIG DREDGER BROKEN IN TWO The broken bows were left upon the •ocks, but all the after-part of the chip, containing the valuable engines wus floated safely off. The saved portion was then towed back to the Tyne, where Messrs. Swan, and Hunter, her original builders, constructed a new fore-part, and splicing this on to the stern section made her as good as new. An immense dredger called the Walter Bibby, which sank in Leith Harbour, was rescued in a similiar fashion to the Milwaukee. Settling ou a large rock, she broke her back. The salvors fastened around her heavy rubber bands containing dynamite cartridges, and firing these electrically. broke her clean in two. The ends were then closed in with bulkheads. the water pumped out, and at once the fore-part rose like a cork. But the stern end, being full of heavy machinery, refused to rise. When it did rise, it was no sooner up than it capsized and sank again. But the salvage men stuck to the work, and though it sank five more times, yet eventually they got it up and towed to shore. The cost of this kind of salvage is naturally pretty heavy. The bill for raising the Walter Bibby was about £5,000. FAST ON THE DREADED MANr ACLES.

Many a vessel which once lay an apparently hopeless wreck upon an iron-bound coast is to-day carrying great cargoes across the ocean at many knots an hour. The Philadelphia, for instance, which once, as the steamship Paris, held the speed record of the Atlantic. All will remember how one dark night she ran upon the Manacles, and lay there in an apparently hopeless position, with great rocks piercing her steel bottom. A German firm undertook the task of salving iter on the ‘‘no cure no pay" principle. If floated they were, we believe. to have half, the value of the vessel. It was a most successful gumhle for the salving firm, but great credit must be given to them for the skill which they displayed. In a few weeks divers had blown away the rocks, and patched every hole, and then the water was pumped out, big tugs laid hold of her, and presently site was hauled out of her rocky bed and towed safely into 1 I almouth Harbour. It is said that J the cost of salving operations is less than £4,500. As the value of the liner was certainly wot less than £150,000, the profits from the operation are easily reckoned. The Montagu is by no means the first warship which salvage companies have tackled. In 1892 H.M.S. Howe, a great 10,000-ton ironclad, ran upon the Pereiro Reef off the Spanish Coast, auci heeling over, lay theiti with her bows clean-under water i and numbers of sharp points of rock j sticking right through her bottom. | She was, in fact, impaled exactly as was the Montagu. A Swedish salvage 1 company undertook to save her. Divers went down and, using very small charges of dynamite, blasted away the rocks that protruded through her sides. In all, 400 cubic i feet of rocks were thus removed. Next, a huge shield of metal was cast and fitted over the broken, part of the hull and tightly bolted oa. At ebb tide immense pumps were set to work, and presently the great ship was seen to be slowly lifting out of the rock rradio in which she had lain so many weeks. As the tide turned the Ilowe rose, and at full flood was to*ved s-vfcly out. To-day, fourteen year* Uter, she still figures upon our active Navy list. The rescue of JI.M.S. Victorious was not, strictly speaking, a work of ship surgery, for the vessels hull was never injured ; hut it is woith rccoroing for the ingenuity displayed by He fnlvagr. pie. On February 14th. 1899. the f etorious. a vessel of 15,000 aground off

•»er own engines ana. by powerful tuge proved unavailing, RAISED OUT OF 57 FEET OF WATER. It was the engineer-in-ahief of the Suez (Janal who solved the problem. He suggested placing a dredger on each side of the vessel to dig the sand away from under her keel, at the same time employing two tankboats to force heavy jets of water under the bottom of the stranded ship and so keep the sand from settling back. This device proved completely successful, and within fortyeight hours the Victorious was safe in 35 feet of water. How dangerous her position was may be judged from the fact that another vessel which rsn upon the same sand-bed’a few years previously sank in it up to the masthead, and lies there buried till the end of the world. What is said to have been the most wonderful feat of salvage engineering of its kind was the raising of the emigrant ship Utopia, in the Bay of Gibraltar. She ran on the ram of H.M.S. Anson, and sank in 57 feet of water. The depth was great, and the currents fierce ; yet divers succeeded in erecting upon her a huge coffer-dam, which raised her sides above water. Her hull was then patched, the water pumped out, and she was floated. Taken back to Scotland, she was reputed to be haunted, and after laying by for years was, we believe, eventually broken up.—“ Answers."