PLENTY OF WATER.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1923, Page 4

PLENTY OF WATER.

HARBOR SOUNDINGS. SATISFACTORY RESULTS. BREAKWATER EXTENSION! Soundings made in the New Plymouth harbor show that there is ample depth of water for the berthing of liners at the wharf with perfect safety. In sounding yesterday morning the harbor master (Captain W. Waller) was very much struck by the way in which the material used for forming the foundation to the breakwater extension has spread out and solidified. A calm, sunny day, with scarcely a ripple on the surface of the water, enabled this work to be viewed very clearly, the inspection showing that the stone had spread out fairly flat, almost as though it bad been paved, the crest of the work having been lowered by wave action. From two to three hundred feet out from the end of the breakwater there is an abundant growth of broad-leafed kelp and sea-weed on the foundation, indicating that the material is well settled and consolidated. A very interesting afternoon was provided a Daily News reporter, who yesterday accompanied the harbor-master and his staff on a sounding expedition round the eastern side of the Moturoa wharf. As the motor-launch covered every fifty feet, the lead w r as dropped, different colored strips of cloth, attached to the line at every foot, fabling the expert leadsman to tell at a glance the depth of the water at the spot he was sounding. Hand over hand he quickly draws up the line again and heaves it overboard when the next point is reached. The depths at intervals between the end of the Moturoa wharf and the buoy which marks the approximate head of the Newton King wharf, now under construction, were also recorded, the whter at the site of the buoy swallowing up forty-two feet of line. As it was high-water and the range of tides is nine feet, the sounding confirmed the fact that the launch was above a section of the thirty-three feet “cut” recently dredged out along the western side of the new wharf, where ocean liners are to be berthed.