SWEEPING UP THE MINES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 12, 28 July 1919, Page 6

SWEEPING UP THE MINES

Navy experts have now, it is stated, Bucceeded in solving the greatest problem in connection with minesweeping—that is. by airships—and this method will be used very largely in the work of clearing the 5000 square miles of mined waters between the Shctlands and the Norwegian coast. The'ro are -more than 50,000 mines to bo accounted for. Some of - them have naturally been exploded already by contact with U-boats that wero trying to thread their way out to the Atlantic. The Navy Mine Clearance Section hopes to be able to recover and render harmless a very high percentage of thoso that remain. The use of airships for sweeping up mines, says the "Daily Express," has certain obvious advantages, nnd they would have been employed on the work before but for 0110 great technical difficulty. The minesweeping hawser was so heavy that when it was towed through the water the strain on the frame of tho airship was too great. Lighter hawsers, on tho other hand, were not strong enough to tear tho mines from thoir anchorage. The strain of the hawused for minesweeping was about three tons. Tho one now produced by tho naval officers who have been experimenting with the problem has a strain of only 18 hundredweights. Tho great advantage of an airship eweoper is that it cannot touch a mino by accident and be blown up itself.