HAZARDOUS FEAT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21883, 20 August 1934, Page 10

HAZARDOUS FEAT

GOLD DREDGE MOVED SHOTOVER GORGE JOURNEY DANGERS SAFELY PASSED FLOODS NARROWLY ESCAPED A hazardous adventure in navigating .a £60,000 dredge, owned by the Goldfields Dredging Company, Limited, up a treacherous gorge in the Shotover River, Central Otago, was brought to a successful conclusion last week just in the nick of time before the spring floods came. The dredge was one which had worked Tucker Beach on the Lower Shotover for several years until it was taken over by the company last year. Its recent voyage of one and a-half miles through a narrow and precipitous gorge to a claim at Big Beach occupied 10 weeks. It was accomplished in face of many predictions that floods would send the dredge to destruction on jutting rocks in narrow places of the gorge. Handicap of Intense Cold One of Sew Hoy's dredges, in the days of the dredging boom, was let down with the current and did some dredging in this part, but even it, drawing only a few feet, was reported to have grounded at places. There was intense cold also to be contended with, the temperature dropping below zero, and great icicles, feet long, were hanging to the rocks of the gorge. The dredge has a displacement of 800 tons and draws 9ft. The man in charge of the dredge is Mr. S. Chapman, a veteran of tin dredging in Malay. He pays a tribute to his crew of 11 fearless men, not one of whom was injured at any gtage of the manoeuvres.

The dredge, which is electrically driven, obtains ita power from the company's own power station at Wye Creek, at the foot of the'Remarkables, 13 miles away. Keeping the power cable to the dredge was one of the most difficult and most vital parts of the job. Last April a Jieavy autumn flood was met at the 'entrance to the gorge, and the dredge, which has a hull of steel plating 107 feet long and 47 feet wide, was beached for safety. Power lines were erected for one and a-half miles through the gorge and side and head steel wire ropes attached. No Sun in the Gorge

On April 24 the first stages of the critical part of the journey were commenced. From then on the men worked in intense cold, for the dredge was in between two sheer walls of rock, where the sun never penetrates in the winter months. It was essential that the attempt should be made in the depths of winter as the heavy frosts and snow on the mountain tops keep the river at its lowest level. Metal parts were so cold that, 'if .touched with ungloved hands; they would tear the skin from the men's hands.

During June the dredge, eating its way from side to side, gradually made a channel for itself. Extreme care was essential to keep sufficient tailings above water level behind the dredge, to carry the power line and cable. This heavily-protected cable weighed three and a-half tons, and if let run in the water would have silted up and been lost.

Early July saw the first stoppage on account of heavy snow, nearly 3ft. falling in the gorge and also silting up the dredge paddock. After a week of anxious hold up, the journey was again commenced. A horse was kept each side of the river to facilitate the handling of the steel wire side-lines to new anchorages. Here time and time again members of the dredge crew took serious risks. Often the rock faces would hold the cable and a man would be lowered to clear it, dangling on a rope held by six of his fellows. Dredging for gold was not bothered about, all haste being made while the weather held. Dredge tailings, piled high below Sugar Loaf claim, had to be dredged through. Only Inches to Spare

With only inches to spare on each side between two jutting pieces of jagged rock, the dredge had to be held and brought forward an inch at a time. It was at times such as these that every nerve was strained. A thaw of the snows or the slightest rising of the river would have seen the whole concern battered to pieces on the unsympathetic rocks. Then came the great rocks which were known to lie only a few feet down, and which even the baby dredge of years ago touched when it was being eased down with the current. There was no room to go round and the 9ft. draught hat\ to be lifted over. By feeling the lie of the rock, the dredge buckets were started underneath and thef gravel, bucketful by bucketful, was taken and deposited over the stern. As the bod was dredged away, the obstructing rook slipped down, and the dredge was pulled over, at times its bottom just grazing. Silent evidence of the danger of rocks falling on to the housing of the dredge during its journey was seen in huge dents in the iron. Fortunately, not a man was hit by falling rock, although in ono portion of the gorge a few minutes after the men had left a boat which is moored to the dredge a fall of rock came down and splintered the hull to matchwood.

At length the dredgo nosed its way out of the gorge into the sunlight again. It was hardly its own length away from the entrance when the first of the dreaded spring floods came. Had the heavy rains on tho high country come 24 hours earlier the results might easily have been disastrous. As it was, the flood waters carried away tho tailings into which the last power polo had been driven and with them the power line to the dredge. By that time, however, the dredge was jn still backwater securely anchored. The Big Beach, with three years' work for the dredge, lay just ahead.