DREDGE WRECKERS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 July 1932, Page 7

DREDGE WRECKERS

AT ALEXANDRA. DUNEDIN, July' 19

Once aghin the winches on the Molyneux electric dredge, last of ,thc line that worked the Molyneux and Kawarau Rivers, ' are working, but the clanking is the death rattle oi the old machine.

At the “Grayeyard,” the beach dock below the Alexandra bridge, a spot where motorists now camp on a. site pf great activity in the dredging boom era, the Molyneux Electric is being dismantled. Securely moored fore and aft with * lines to both banks, the dredge is vending liei\ days at the place of her ’birth twenty-four yearo ago,' a natural dock ’ where nearly all the Molyneux dredges were Constructed and demolished. - ' - In the heyday of,;idredging the Molyneux Electric 1 nvai' one- ; of-’trie( fleet- cl seventeen, machines working on the river: between Alexandra and Roxburgh, among Her (more 'famous companion dredges (being the 1911, Manuherikia, Good Chance, Sailor’s Bend, and Island Bcsin. Of that fleet' only 1911 \ remains on the river, es « memorial of those busy times, and sin lies bottom up’ near the, falls, where she clink some years ago. ( The Molyneux Electric’s plant was purchased recently for a mere song, and the machinery and gear have beer sold for.use on the. West Coast. New pontoons are to be constructed on the coast./ ' ■ , ; :U(■‘•.(';:,■(> '•