GENERAL NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 90, 13 October 1934, Page 14

GENERAL NOTES

IN PORT AND OUT

It costs New Zealand sqmething approaching £21,000 a year to keep in good order the lighthouses and beacons on the Dominion coast-line.

One of the longest periods a ship has been bar-bound on the New Zealand coast for some years occurred in September, 1933, when the little auxiliary scow Fairburn was delayed at Wanganui for four weeks.

The first large vessel built in New Zealand is stated to have been a 140----ton ship, constructed in or about 1832. It. was built at Waikawa by a certain Peter Grant and afterwards used by Bishop Selwyn. Native timber was used in the construction. Another ship of 370 tons is reported to have been built in New Zealand about the same time,

The contract for the erection of the Waitangi Wharf, Chatham Islands, has been satisfactorily completed. The wharf is a timber structure 202 ft long and 26ft wide, of brush box decking carried on stringers, caps, braces, and wales of ironbark supported on ironbark piers. The approach is 385 ft iong,

and is built of similar timbers. At the shore end a shed 97ft long by 30ft wide has been erected; The contractors for the Waitangi Wharf have undertaken to erect a jetty at Pitt Island, and all the materials are on the site.—Marine Department advice.

Last Monday was the seventy-eighth anniversary of the inauguration of a steamer service by the Anchor Line (Henderson Bros., Ltd.), one of the largest British shipping concerns.

Last year the suction dredge Eileen Ward removed 340,875 cubic yards of material from the Westport Harbour bar, 30,455 cubic yards from tho lower river, and 10,050 cubic yards from the floating basin and berthage area. The dredge was overhauled at Westport. on May 4, 1933, and did not resume dredging until August 7. She came to Wellington for annual survey last January. Throughout the year her work was hampered by bad weather and insufficient water on the Westport bar.