FLOATING DOCK

Hokitika Guardian, 29 April 1931, Page 8

FLOATING DOCK

GOOD PROGRESS MADE Id BE LAUNCHED SOON Good progress is being made with the biii dug of the Wellington Harbour Board’s 17,000-ton floating dock at the Wnllseiid-on-Tyne yard of the builders Snail, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd. It is expected, according to an English shipping journal, that the dock will be launched about the end of this month. At last week’s meeting of the Wellington Harbour Board the general manager and chief engineer (Mr J. March banks) reported that he had been advised by the consulting engineers, Messrs Clark and Staiidfiold, that with the exception of a small amount of plating for the side walls, till of the steel, which comprises 4222 tons of Hull material, had been prepared. Approximately' 33fio tons bad been erected and 2770 tons riveted. All tin; pipes for the main pumping system of the dock had been delivered and 10 per cent, of them had been placed and joint'd. This indicated, he said, that the work was well ahead of schedule dates. The “Syren and Shipping’ in its issue of March 13 stated that the construction of tin' dock had been carried on so expeditiously that it was expected that the launch would take place about the end of April. It is understood that the structure will he floated in sections. ..c safe delivery of this 17,000-ton ’ock to its distant destination will he in a way even a more remarkable feat than the delivery two years ago of the “>O,OOO-ton dock for Singapore. ‘Whereas I lie latter was towed out to its destination in two sections, the Wellington dock is to he sent a bond complete, and it will be 100 feet longer than the larger of the two portions of the other The voyage will also be a good deal longer than that to Singapore. Provisional arrangements have been made for the dispatch of the dock from the Tvne in the English summer. The towage contract has been given to the Rotterdam firm of L. Smit and Co. The voyage hi New Zealand will take about seven months, and the prospect is. that the dock will pass through the Suez Canal about the same time of the year as did the Singapore dock—in the month of August—and that Wellington will be reached in February.