THE LYTTELTON GRAVING DOCK.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2019, 13 August 1880, Page 3

THE LYTTELTON GRAVING DOCK.

To the Jbditor of the Oloie. Bib, —I paid a visit to the above work at Port the other day, and am free to confess myself most agreeably surprised at the extent to which the undertaking has advanced. What has been accomplished in the few months thst have elapsed since the work was commenced cannot fail to impress the visitor with a sense of satisfaction that the contractors arc men that understand well how to direct the con* struetion of that important feature of harbor accommodation. Since then I have noticed that the Harbor Board have decided that the dock I saw was not long enough, and to add 50ft. to it, thus making its length 450 ft. Snowing as I do that the members of the Board are gentlemen not given to sanction an alteration of the kind without due consideration, I have revolved their decision in my mind rather carefully for the purpose of finding, if possible, a sufficiently strong reason for the coarse taken, but so far without succeeding, and I am thus brought to the disagreeable conclusion that my faculties are at fault. Being indirectly interested to some extent in shipping, I feel this discovery to be a little humiliating, hence I determined to ask you to publish this, hoping that some of your many readers, better informed, would set me right. My humble opinion of the size of the dock as first agreed upon, was that it was too long—longer by 100 feet than the shipping of the Port either now requires or will require for years to come. At 400 feet, however, I feel sure that its capacity would be found sufficient for the requirements of the Port under the moat favoured circumstances of expected patronage from large ships for many years yet. To build an immense dock with borrowed money, simply in the expectation

that some day a great steamer may come to the Fort and patronise it, is certain to prove a poor investment. For it must bo remembered that every foot that is added to the length will increase the time required for pumping and the labour and expense of working the dock. And these are importimt factors in fixing a scale of dock rates, which, after all, will principally be paid by vessels whose average tonnage will not exceed 700 tons. If it be granted that a Norfolk or a Durham may call in once in way, or a vessel whose proportions preclude its being taken into dock, I contend that that would not justify the Board in spending a large sum of money to provide the accommodation. I am not of those “ direct steamer ” enthusiasts who prophecy -a regular line of P. and O. or Orient leviathans running to the Port in a few months, and I affirm that it would have been quite time enough to lengthen the dock when such expectations gave some promise of being realised. A dock suited to the size of the vessels most likely to patronize it would, to my mind, have been a more prudently devised undertaking, affording as it necessarily would to the owners of it the advantage of fixing the charge to the vessels using it at the least possible fee, and by being divested of all superfluous labour and disproportionate requirements in the work of pumping, thus reduce the time occupied in docking and undocking to the lowest minimum. It seems to me an extremely plain proposition that to take a ship, say of 1000 tons register, whose length would be not much over 200 feet in a dock 400 feet long, nearly doable the quantity of water must be pumped in to what such a vessel would require under a better arrangement, and as this extra pumping has to be done in and out, the expense to such vessel will of necessity be heavy. The same applies even with greater force to the case of smaller vessels, of course —barques, brigs, and steamers —many of which, it is expected, no doubt would require the accommodation. lam aware that the policy of the Board hitherto has been to study shipowners, by keeping down the port charges, and thus induce them to send their vessels to Lyttelton, and the policy cannot be too firmly adhered to. But for the life of me I cannot see how it is to be adhered to in reference to the dock, so as to make it satisfactory to the masters of our ordinary shipping in point of time and charges, and to the Boird in respect of its revenue from this source. Having thus pointed out what I conceive to bo valid objections to the present dock scheme, I would suggest, as a remedy, that the proposal made at the last meeting of the Harbor Board be adopted before the work is finished, namely to divide the dock by an intermediate caisson. The advantages to be obtained by doing so are so obvious as to render it unnecessary to explaia them here. Extra pumping machinery would possibly be required, but its cost would, I feel sure, be trifling compared wih the advantages to. be secured. I may else point out that well-in-formed men on the subject express the opinion that by this means only could two vessels be satisfactory in the dock together, the proposal to pit two in under the other arrangement of thedock having, according to their showing, proved anything but profitable or satisfactory. Apologising for the weariness of this letter. Yours &0., MERCATOR.