SINGAPORE FLOATING DOCK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20338, 21 February 1928, Page 16

SINGAPORE FLOATING DOCK.

VOYAGE TO THE EAST. A HAZARDOUS UNDERTAKING. i (From Oua Own Correspondent.) LONDON, January 10. Messrs Swan, Hunter, and Richardson have almost completed the monster Singapore floating dock of 50',000 tons for the British Admiralty, and this has been done within 11 months of laying the first keel plate. Before the war the firm built an 11,000-ton floating dock for Stettin in seven months and a-half, and also the 33,C00-ton dock for the Medway, but the new giantbeats all records in rapidity of construction, for it contains 20,000 tons of steel and 3,600,000 rivets and had to be built and launched in seven sections. During September, rivets were worked into the dock by an army of workmen at the rate of 140,000 a week. Now comes a task of another character (says the Wallsend correspondent of the Sunday Observer), and that is the towing of this mighty structure to the Far East, a feat calling for masterly seamanship, and likewise unending anxiety, over a distance of 8500 miles, including the passage of the Suez Canal. It is stated that the Admiralty intend placing the towage contract with the wellknown Dutch firm —Smit, of Rotterdam—who have much experience in this kind of work of an international character. There is no disputing the ability of the Dutchmen to undertake thoi* long towage jobs most efficiently, and this particular journey will probably occupy three to four months. EIGHT TUGS EMPLOYED. Not fewer than eight tugs must bo employed, but before the arduous voyage can bo undertaken it is necessary to complete the electric installation which operates the completed dock, one portion of which involves the connection of cables of a total length of over 100 miles. The sinking and raising capacity of the dock has also to be tested, so that it may well be May before the mighty structure passes out of the mouth of the Tyne and turns southward for the Straits of Dover and then for the Mediterranean. The passage of the Suez Canal will form the most hazardous part of the voyo,ge (storms excepted), as there will be but a small margin to port and starboard (it must be borne in mind that the completed dock covers an area equal to a football ground). The danger, however, would not be from grounding, but from touching the hanks. Traffic through the Suez Canal must bo stopped while the dock makes its way to the Indian Ocean at a speed that cannot exceed a mile an hour. It is understood that the voyage will bn undertaken with the dock in two sections, the whole structure intact being too unwieldy. The builders state that the dock itself could accommodate over 60,000 persons standing upon its bottomland a considerable marine and engineering crew will be towed with it and live on its steely sides.