SCAPA FLOW SALVAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 3 December 1924, Page 4

SCAPA FLOW SALVAGE

fourth german destroyer RAISED. The fourth German torpedo-boat destroyer of the sunken enemy fleet in Seapa Flow was successfully raised recently hy Messrs Cox and DankS. l.t’d., the salvage central tors and steel merchants, who have purchased the scuttled vessels from the British Admiralty. Twenty-two more destroyers still remain at the bottom of the Flow (says the “Observer'!, and these it is hoped to raise at the rate of two a month. Work is meantime also proceeding on the far more elaborate preparations required for salving the German battleship 11 indcuhurg, of 2o,(K)l) tons, and her companion, the Koydlhx, tht* Humor of which, it in anticipated, will he raised early next year. The lighting top of the Hindonburg is visible at low water, and so is a section ol the Seydlitz, which is lying on her side. It is interesting to note that, by tlie irony of late, the converted limiting dock which is being used hy the salvage contractors for raising the destroyers was itself a wonderful piece of German marine engineering, -100 left in length, which carried an enormous cylinder, intended for the testing of German submarines under water. li was constructed during the war. When the huge duck passed into the possession of the British Admiralty. .Messrs Cox and Dunks reeogilised its enormous lilting capacity and bought it lor salvage purposes. It was successfully towed from Hamburg, and adapted to its new" work by being cut into halves, which are placed on either side ol the sunken destroyer, ami at right angles tn it. Powerful steel wire ropes, nine inches in circumference, are passed underlie,alb the hull of Dm destroyer, and b v aI is of a series of pulley blocks on each ball ol the dmk and powerful winches, ike vessel is slowly lilted at |o*v tide, when men haul on the winches as the rising tide hears the limiting dock upwards. Simultaneously the dock, with its captive draped in seaweed, resting on the cables between its two sections, is (owed to Mill Bay. two miles distant. There the destroyers are put aslmrc. and after they have been patched up their sea-cocks closed, they are towed a short distance to l.yucss, which was the Admiralty's depot headquarters during the war. I hey are then broken lip. (mil when this harvest ol the sea has been all gathered ill. it will probable be loiiiid more profitable to this ((unitry than the German Navy anticipated. when its otlicers east their battleships under the waters for us to find after many days.