NOVEL DRY DOCK

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 26, 23 November 1943, Page 7

NOVEL DRY DOCK

WONDERFUL WORK

IJY DUTCH SMlPW'JifCiriS

A nion!4 those who were ordcrtfil by the Netherlands Indies. Government to leave Java immediately prior to the Japanes, , occupation, was a party of naval .shipwrights who. be To re leaving, had destroyed the naval base at Sourabaya. After being harassed by enemy aircraft and dodging Japanese naval units, tlie.se men •eventually reached South Africa. There they found work of a different kind. Ships, were literally queuing ii]) for repair in Capetown. At that time a large' proportion of military supplies for the. Middle 'East had to be sent around the Cape and many raiders, were, prowling in the Avaters of the 'South, Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. One fairly large ships which was urgently . required by the British could not be repaired, as its chances of getting dry-dock facilities were remote , . Damaged Vessel Repaired Then the naval architect in charge of the Dutch shipwrights evolved a novel method Avhich would enable hi.s men to effect the necessary repairs witfiout the help of a dry-dock. The fact that the ship had bee confiscated from the Germans in Netherlands. Indian waters at the time of the German invasion of Holland perhaps stimulated hi.s brain to unusual effort, and the possibility of repairing this German vessel for service, in the Allied cause made the job all the more interesting. Some 200 Dutch shipwrights were put on to construct a pontoon shaped to lit the underside of the vessel. The watertight tanks of the pontoon Mere, then flooded to enable it to be pushed under the ship. This done, the tanks were blown and the water emptied from the bottom of the pontoon,, thus lifting the forepart of the ship and leaving a>- dry chamber between the floor of the pontoon and the bottom of the ship. The vessel had struck a mine on the high seas, and the damage consisted of a buckled keel and a huge hole in the side, with extensive damage for 75ft from the bow. With the forepart of the >hip high and dry, inside the pontoon a sectional dry dock had, in fact, been provided. The whole forepart of the ship was. rebuilt and this one-time German vessel is now carrying military supplies for use igainst the German armies in JJtaly. To-day some of the shipwrights ire in Madagascar salvaging ships unk in the harbour of Diego Suarez* md repairing others, whilst those rho remained in Capetown are apilying the yet "dry dock" system r> other vessels and reducing the umber of ships awaiting their turn i> be repaired and made ready for •rvice in I lie Allied cause.