COOK STRAIT CABLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16460, 9 February 1917, Page 9

COOK STRAIT CABLES.

DIFFICULTY IN REPAIRING. PHENOMENAL TIDES. Phenomenal tides have been experienced in Cook Strait lately, when under ordin«iroiinißtanceß they should be,at their slackest." ; "thei Tutanekai has been engaged in repairing the'Oterangi cable— one of the five cables that gives most trouble, as it has to traverse the Terawhiti "rip" over a very bad bottom of constantlyshifting gravel and deep ocean valleys, and in doing this work the mill-race tides experienced, together with a lot of westerly weather, hampered the operations considerably. Both -ends of the broken cable were buoyed at the beginning of the week, but on Friday morning it was discovered that one of the buoys had been sunk, probably by a passing steamer, as it was right in the fairway. There are times in the strait when the body of the buoy is swept under and kept there, by the force of the tide, leaving only the basket-top visible, which I object is not so easily picked up, and, the steamer has to stand off and on until slock tide allows the buoy to float normally. ,, »•' Cook Strait is probably one of the worst places in the world tor cables. At its best there is always 'the bad bottom and strong tides, and now and again, as at present, there are periods of phenomenal tides. _ On Friday the Tutanekai, under Captain Whiteford, was steaming slowly 1 ahead, , looking for the buoy, but to glance over her bows at the swirl of I waters that were rushing madly by one would have imagined that the vessel was flying along at a 20-kriot speed. The chasmic condition of certain portions of the floor of the strait has been ascertained by marine surveys, dredging, and by experience in cable work. Cables, and in particular the troublesome Oterangi one, have been bulled up for repair, when it has been discovered that sections are draped with marine growth a foot' in length'; whilst in other parts the cable's armour has been polished bright and worn thin by^tho'ceaseless wash of tho gravelbed where it has chanced to rest so uneasily. • Those parts bearded with marine vegetation are those which stretch across ocean chasms. '""Ocean cables lie quiet in their deep beds. No surge of thetrouMed water* above. disturbs their rest 2000 fathoms deep, and repair jobs are few and far between; "Our- deepest, water for a i Cook Strait cable is 218 fathoms, but I there are holes in the strait that have i been plumbed to a depth of 400, arid even ,600, fathoms. Why thev never fill up | with the masses of shifting gravel that ; jia for,ever on the t roll is perhaps tho I greatest testimony to the force of the " rip", tides of the""great mill-race out- | side Wellington port gates. This action! J certainly accounts for the plentiful sunoly j of sea gravel, so nicely rounded, that forms the beaches at Ohiro Bay and on I towards Terawhiti,