Harbour Rock Blowing

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 23, 20 February 1948, Page 5

Harbour Rock Blowing

Navy Team Gets Away To Successful Start Complete success attended the Navy’s first rock-blowing effort in the Harbour channel yesterday morning. A 4001 b charge of T N T reduced the top of the dangerous pinnacle rock near the inner beacon of the Eastern channel to a heap of rubble. Further blasting inside the Heads was done today. Though the actual time of the operations had been kept secret until residents in the immediate vicinity were warned on Thursday night to keep windows open and keep out of the way, a substantial crowd had gathered by 8 o’clock yesterday morning. A number got tired of waiting and wandered off before the charge was detonated at approximately 8.40, but most vantage points as near as safety and the police would permit were occupied when the explosion took place. Free Fish There was little of the ’ possibly destructive blast anticipated in the Harbour Board’s warning to residents, and the noise was muffled by the water, which spouted geyser fashion and hung in an iridescent •pillar 200 feet high, before drifting shower-like with the breeze. There was a rush for the dead and stunned fish that lay in shoals on the surface of the sea and drifted to the groyne, where eager hands reaped rich harvest. Preliminary Survey The team of Navy experts under Mr R. Ansley, Naval Torpedo Officer from the Devonport Base, arrived here on Tuesday in the Fisheries Patrol boat commanded by Skipper A. Sellars, and surveyed conditions on Wednesday’s low tides. Petty Officer Wickham, in salvage diving equipment, went down to find the most suitable spots for the charges, while Mr Ansley watched from the Port Whakatane’s dinghy with a special device to cut out ripple effects in the water. Juggled Into Place Satisfied that conditions were right, they waited for yesterday morning’s low tide and Capt. Carey moored Port'Whakatane close up to the pinnacle rock with the Navy men and their equipment aboard at slack water. The steel drum with its deadly contents was lowered to within a foot of the spot previously selected, and the diver went down again to juggle the charge, now fitted with its detonator, into place. That fixed, the wire that was to carry the electrical impulse to the detonator was paid out and taken ashore where the firing apparatus was set up near the signal station. Fishing Boat Warned Port Whakatane then dashed out of the entrance to warn a fishing boat that was heading inshore. She came back to a safe distance up jriver, and the signal to touch off was given. Most of the spectators expected more noise. Many were disappointed they felt no blast and saw no flying pieces of rock. A waterspout was sensational, but not sensational enough, some felt. However, Mr Ansley had not come here to run a circus. He came to do a useful jojb, had succeeded in the first part of it, and he and his men were satisfied.