TIMARU HARBOUR.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 11 June 1924, Page 21 (Supplement)

TIMARU HARBOUR.

A BETBOSPECT. (By Wm. Evans) What is now known as the Timaru Harbour had previously been an open roadstead, the foreshore of which was early taken up by Messrs. Bhodes Bros. They bought 100 acres of the land—the original town of Timaru. It is stated that the price paid for this land was 10/- an acre. They cut up their 100 acres into small sections for sale. Some emigrant ships arrived in 1869 and later. Gabriel’s Gully Diggings started in the year 1861, which caused a big rush of people from all the adjacent colonies, on gold digging bent. Many of them retired from digging life and settled down to other lines of business and took up farming pursuits in South Canterbury. The population of Timaru, like that of other New Zealand towns, gradually increased. A Government boat service was started and all cargo and shipping business to and from vessels in the roadstead was carried out by surf boats, which men hauled by ropes attached to huge anchors—a very slow process. Great delays to the working of the ships took place, as it was not considered safe to work the service in the slightest rough seas, and small craft and large were often delayed in the roadstead for weeks at a time. Besides this, there being no shelter for vessels, or a steam tug to haul them free of danger, many wrecks occurred. That would have been avoided if precautions had been taken to construct a breakwater, years before the present one was started. When at last the people woke up to the fact that something must be done, the first Harbour Board was elected, about 1877. Sir John Coode, an eminent English marine engineer, and later other engineers, were asked to send in to the Board plans for a

brea’.v.;ffer r.v’\ They were li-.-ited by the Beard to start the mole at the foot of Dt"atV allan Street, which a minority of the Board objected to, as they considered Strath all an Street boundary was too much north, and deeper water could be obtained at less expense further south. One contractor’s plan showed a rough rub Us breakwater much further south, where a ledge of stone and rocks stood out opposite what was at the time Cain’s service. Had that plan been adopted, much deeper water would have been secured at a shorter distance from the shore, and many thousands of pounds would have been saved in procuring cement, besides finding work in our splendid quarries for our labouring men.

There was much difference of opinion about the best plan to be adopted. Sir John Coode proposed that a 600 ft. viaduct should be left between the shore and the commencement of

the proposed mole. All the other competitors suggested a mole directly from the shore. Finally Mr. John Goodall’s plan was adopted, which started from the shore at the end of Strathallan Street. The tender of Allen and Stumbles was accepter for carrying out the first contract and the tender of John Anderson, of Christchurch, was accepted for the first crane. It was guaranteed to lift 60 tons, but 25 tons was the largest block required to be lifted. The crane was fully capable of this lift, and was doing its work well when one or two of the members of the Board insisted that the machine should be tested to the 60 tons limit. The result was that the crane broke down and the works were stopped for about three months. Meantime all kinds of future trouble were anticipated by the engineers and others opposed to the construction of a mole from the shore. One leading marine engineer of that day anticipated an encroachment of the sea inland all along the beach from Caroline Bay to Temuka. Another engineer (I believe it was Mr Blackett) who was then Government Engineer of Bailways, suggested and advised that the portion of the mole already laid down should be blown up, so as to allow the shingle to take its former course along the shore. Other engineers suggested and recommended that all shingle coming along to the south of the breakwater from the Waitaki river, should be shovelled across the breakwater into the hopper of a steamer and carried out and discharged in the roadstead. The required machinery for this purpose was provided and afterwards scrapped. The shingle meantime had been gathering along the main mole towards the outer end and hundreds of tons of shingle had gone into the harbour and had to be taken away to sea by the suction dredge. The outer kant of the mole to the north was almost eaten through by the shingle driven by each heavy sea. At last the then

onr Board members decided to go in for a?.i car/' srn extension rough rubble mole, and requested me to accept the chairmanship and take the responsibility of obtaining the loan and carrying out the work. This I agreed to do in consideration of all the members of the Board being unanimously in favour of the rough rubble extension. A contract was let but there were some financial difficulties in the way of the contractors carrying out the work, so that it was unnecessarily delayed for some months, until the contract was finally broken, and the Board themselves carried it out and subsequent additions to the extension by day labour. Previous to the eastern extension coming into existence, wool, hides and other goods that were ready for Home shipment were being railed to Lyttelton as agents and owners of the larger steamers declined to allow them to come here, as they considered the port of Timaru unsafe;

but after a few hundred feet of the extension, had been constructed there has been no further objection, until the s.s. Botorua failed to ente'r the port owing to heavy nor’-east seas. It is to be hoped that the Boyal Commission of Marine Engineers will furnish a report on the north mole extension that will prove satisfactory to all concerned. The eastern extension has paid for itself many times over iand since its erection as all Home and other cargo can now be shipped direct to and from Timaru instead of (as formerly was the case) all Home goods arriving in New Zealand being transhipped to and from other recognised safe ports. We must all recognise that to make an artificial port reproductive money must be spent on it to keep it up to requirements.