EXTRAORDINARY SALVAGE FEATS.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 3 April 1914, Page 7

EXTRAORDINARY SALVAGE FEATS.

REMARKABLE ENDURANCE

One of the most remarkable cases of endurance was that of a diver named Trapnell, who remained at a depth of 22 fathoms for no less than five and a half hours. Even in half this depth of water the men seldom remain for so long a spell. At 20 ft. the pressure per square inch is 8§ lbs. It increases at the rate of 4J lbs. for every 10 ft. descended. At 132 ft., j therefore, Trapnell was bea'in?, a pressure of 56 lbs. on every square inch of his body. And for 330 minutes ! There- is a case on record of an English diver reaching a depth of 204 ft. This was James Hooper, engaged in recovering copper from a ship sunk somewhere off the South American coast. But the pressure was so exhausting that had he remained at that depth for more than twenty minutes at a time the blood would have been flowing freely from ears and nose. The great feat which is the amMtion of every diver to perform is the recovery of treasure from sunken ships. For ordinary harbour ,and dock work the pay of .a diver is from £il to £2 a day ; but in the case ot special deep-sea salvage the fees are a good deal more, and frequently a percentage of the value recovered is allowed the diver. Diver Smetton earned £B,WO bj> a plucky piece of work. He was the man chosen to explore the wreck of the Esmeralda, which sank, with £105,000 aboard her, off Gibraltar in 115 feet of water. Eight divers had tried the job, but the depth was too great. Smetton was promised 10 per cent, of what he crauld recover. The intrepid diver found the-vessel lying across a sandbank. He was obliged to use a blasting charge to get at the hold, which was choked by wreckage. Going down again after the explosion, he reached the hold, when the vessel suddenly broke in two, and the diver sank, to the bottom of 140 feet of water, a depth at which a diver can ordinarily w<*rk for only six minutes at a time, owing to the pressure. As he fell a piece of timber fell upon him, broke his lifeline, and rendered ' him unconscious. He lay for over an hour at the bottom before his companions managed to rescue him. Yet, not in the least daunted by this awful experience, he went down again the very next day, and eventually recovered £80,000. When paid his share he abandoned his work, and in the quietude of a rural life enjoyed the fruits of his daring exploit. Another notable feature was accomplished by Alexander Lambert, who made £d,OOO by his work on the Spanish, mail steamer Alphonso XII., which sank with £100,000 of treasure off Point Cando, Grand Canary. He and two others brought up £60,000. The treasure lay in a *room about 160 feet below the surface. Confronted with enormous difficulties, Lambert had to work long and hard before he got both scuttles open, and made his way into the magazine. The operations were persevered in for six months, box after box of specie being safely sent up, and testifying more than anything else to the splendid success of a job which is still reckoned as something unprecedented in the history of salvage. It was this same Lambert • who won such universal praise for the exceedingly daring feat of stopping the flooding of the Severn Tunnel a number of years ago. A certain door in the drainage tunnel had somehow been left open. It was situated a quarter of a mile from the shaft, and the brave fellow, equipped in his diving dress crept that distance through a narrow passage full of water, and closed the door. This daring act enabled the pumps to overcome the water which was flooding the pit, and the completion of the tunnel was proceeded with.

The perilous nature of the diver's vocation was also strikingly illustrated in the case of the wrecked Vanguard, which went down in the Irish Channel in 1875. It was ultimately destroyed by dynamite, but not until many gallant attempts had been made to salve her. The divers who undertook the work did so for £7 a day, but the current was so powerful they had to cling to the rigging for safety. Two men, named Ingledon a nd Rowe, narrowly escaped, with their lives. The former slipped on the Vanguard's bridge, and fell to the deck, but after two hours of seeming lifelessness he recovered. Rowe, rendered unconscious by a too rapid descent, became entangled in some rigging, but, although much exhausted when pulled out, soon came round.

Better luck attended the salving of the Hamilla Mitchell, which was wrecked off Shanghai, having a heavy cargo, and specie to the amount of £50,000 on board. It was lying in a peculiarly dangerous position, and in water to the depth of about 160 feet. Lloyd's agent, who was instructed by the underwriters to visit the scene of the wreck, reported that it

was impossible to do anything with it.

In spite of this discouraging report Captain Lodge undertook the job, and for this purpose engaged two noted divers named Ridyard and Peuk, from Liverpool. Tremendous in-deed were the obstacles which they had to overcome, but, with a pluck and determination beyond all praise, the men held grimlj to -their work, and eventually (but for the interference of piratical junks) would have recovered the whole of the treasure. As it was they recovered £40,000, and the remainder, £10,000, was brought up at a later date.

■ The diver has need to be a m^n of

iron nerve, superb constitution, and exhaustless resource, and it is to the* combination of these qualities that; so many extraordinary deeds stand' to his credit His record' in the domain of salvage engineering is one' of which he has reason to be specially proud, for more than one wrecked ship has received a new lease of life from the dauntless individual whose workshop is the ocean deep. The Philadelphia is a case in point—a fine, upstanding boat yet, and which once, as the steamship Paris, held the speed record for the Atlantic. A SPORTING EFFORT. Many will remember how one dark night she ran upon the dreaded Manacles, and lay there in an apparently hopeless position, with great rocks piercing her steel bottom. A German firm undertook the task of salving her on the "no cure ao pay" principle. If floated, they were, we believe, to have half the value of the vessel. It was a most successful gamble for the salving firm, but great credit must be given to them for the skill which they displayed. In a few weeks divers had bl.-wn away the rocks and patched every hole, and then the water was pumped out, big tugs laid hold of her, and presently he was hauleJ out of her rocky bed and towed safoiy into Falmouth Harbour. It is said that the cost of salving operations was less than £,4,500. As the value of the liner was certainly not less than £.150,000, the profits from the job are easily reckoned. What was referred to at the time by the Chairman of the Liv»rt>' ol Salvage Association as '>. record in salvage work," was the cai*? of the steamer Veronese, which, with a valuable carg.o, sank with a hole ._ her bow. The question was whether the old method of discharging the carg.o and patching the vessel from the inside would have to be atiopted or whether it could be avoided. Tt was decided to repair tho. damage under water, utilising pneumatic tools, which have come into use within the last few 5 ears. . • Divers took the measure of the damage, and a steel patch was made on board the salvage steamer. Working on a platform 28 feet below water, divers drilled the necessary in the ship. The plate was then sent down and fixed at once by pa, tent bolts invented by the Association's surveyor. The cargo was not disturbed, and the ship was brought back to Liverpool through the Bay of Biscay, in variable weather, witb^ out starting a leak. AN INGENIOUS SYSTEM. A few years aeo underwriters at Lloyd's were very much interested in a new method of refloating sunken ships., and which, it was believed, would revolutionise salvage work. The idea was conceived from the "compressed air" method of building piers below the water line. The vessel to be worked upon has all her upper works made perfectly tight, and then air, under great pressure is forced into the holds. By this means the water is gradually driven out at leaky holes, and the vessel, thns being artificially and temporarily lighter than water, rises to the surface. The new process was first successfully adopted with the Allan Liner Bavarian, a vessel of 10,387 tons burden, worth £130,000, and which was wrecked in the St. Lawrence River at the beginning of November, 1905. For many months underwriters had employed every known salvage process, but in vain. The pontoon method had been tried for weeks together without success. Lighters and chains had been used, but had quite failed, and the stowing of empty air chambers in the holds had also been tried without effect, until underwriters had at length abandoned hope, and had settled a total loss upon her.

Then the dieeoverers of tbe new salvage method asked to be allowed to work upon the Bararian, and at the expenditure of only £6,000 she was safely brought off, after lying stranded on the rocks in the St. Lawrence for more than a year.