UNIQUE ENGINEERING FEAT

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 75, 23 December 1918, Page 6

UNIQUE ENGINEERING FEAT

SALVING A DBEABNOUGHT. In a harbour of Southern Italy there is a warship that floats upside down, writes the naviil correspondent of a London paper. It is the hull of the battleship Leonardo da Vinci, and-its present posi. tion is a great testimony to modern Italian engineering. The ship was sunk by an internal explosion more than two years ago, and in sinking 6hc turned upside down. Her grea't gun turrets sank moro than lGft. into the soft mud of tae harbour bed and anchored the wreck there are firmly 'as if it were bedded in concrete. There seemed to be-nothing for it but to break her up for scrap iron. Certain men, howover, had a plan. They built queer little houseboats and placed them all round the wreck. Into these I they put masses of machinery. __ They brought miles nnd miles of gigantic, piping. They brought GO expert divers. Then they proceeded to pump compressed air into'the- wreck. The divers put patches on where they were needed, Week after week tho work went on without apparent result. . • Then it was decided that the gun turrets must be amputated. A great slij'g was passed under the wreck to hold the weight, and the two ends were supported by strong tugs. Divers chiselled ana sawed away at the thick armour, and at lust released the hull from the anchored turrets. It floated gently to the surface upsido down. ' . I have walked on the keel of tnw uncommon casualty of tho war. (treat air bubbles sizzle round the sides from small leaks in the piping that carries the compressed air. The engines in the houseboats throb and pound away hour after 'hour. Small towers stand out of the rusty null here and there, and out of one of (hem I saw a figure emerge moro horrible than ever was -imagined by tho most decadent draughtsman. It was a. diver, con ted from helmet to leaden eole in a slime of ooze, oil, and seaweed. He had been down in tha interior by means of one of the air locks, and had walked alimit the deserted docks—on the ceilings and not on (he floors—making repairs. Presently the upside down ship will lx> taken into dry dock to be rebuilt, sr.d in the end the Italian engineers export to float her out right side up and ready to take her place in the firing line.