UNIQUE SALVAGE WORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1928, Page 1

UNIQUE SALVAGE WORK.

TO FLOAT BATTLESHIP IN SCAPA FLOW.

Salvage work said to bo unique in engineering history is being carried on at Scapa Flow by Cox and Slianke, who, having already raised twenty-six destroyers of the German fleet, are now engaged in the gigantic task of floating the battleship Scydlitz. The Seydlitz lay upon her side. To turn her over and raise her upright it lias been estimated would have cost more than 300,000 dollars—too much to show a profit on the transaction. Tlie salvage engineers, therefore, have worked out a plan to float tlie Inigo simp, weighing 25,000 tons and having a length of 656 feet on her side, and to tow her in this position to breaking-up depot six miles away. Slie lay at a depth of more than eighty feet. Air Cox, describing the method of operation, said: “AVe work by pumping compressed air into the ship and at the same time filling up with concrete one by one the openings through which tlie air escapes. The biggest opening we have filled so far measures 44 by 6 feet, and required ten tons of concrete.” The raising of the whole German fleet, lie said, would “probably be more than a life’s work for most of us now engaged on it.”