LARGER DOCKS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18904, 20 January 1927, Page 13

LARGER DOCKS.

FOR BIGGER SHIPS. [THE PBESS Bp«clai Service.] DUNEDIN, January 19. ' Mr J. McGregor Wilkie, engineer to the Otago Harbour Board, has just returned from a visit to America and Europe. Referring to the shipping tonnage of Great Britain, Mr Wilkie said it was to be regretted that many British steamers were now being constructed on the Continent, where the building costs were much cheaper. Moreover, during the coal strike, a number of British firms had had to import steel from the Continent in order to complete their contracts. In Glasgow and Liverpool, he said, very large now docks were being constructed. The port authorities in those towns were evidently paying attention to the trend in shipbuilding, and making provision for the accommodation of larger vessels than thoso now in commission. The impression would appear to be that vessels of 40 feet draft would soon be more in evidence, but that that draft would be the maximum for some years to come. In no port he had visited were they providing for vessels of a greater depth.