WHANGAREI HARBOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 364, 26 May 1928, Page 10

WHANGAREI HARBOUR

ENGINEER’S REPORT i BOARD’S POLICY ENDORSED (From Our Own Correspondent) WHANGAREI, To-day. The scheme designed by the engineer and followed by. the Whangarei Harbour Board of developing harbour works by constructing a harbour at Kioreroa, has been endorsed by Mr. F. W. Furkert, engineer-in-chief of the Marine Department. In a report of \§\ investigations regarding the scheme, Mr. Furkert said the board had two objects:—(l).To increase the harbour facilities so as to deal with all business offering at present; (2) progressively to improve the harbour so that eventually overseas vessels of large tonnage might be able to berth and take in and discharge cargo. There being freezing works at the Bay of Islands, where deep wacer already exists, there was little likelihood, said Mr. Furkert, of works being erc;cted in Whangarei for many years. Therefore, the making of a deep-sea harbour below the sandstone bar (the alternative scheme) was not warranted at the present time.

Mr. Furkert recommended the continuation of the scheme of cutting through the sandstone bar and making a channel 150 ft wide, with a depth of 16ft at low water, spring tides, and 25ft for berthage, and the erection of a suitable wharf connected with the railways. This would . cost about £25,000 less than if a harbour were constructed below the sandstone bar. Pending the completion of the harbour at Kioreroa, which would occupy two years or more, Mr. Furkert recommended the strengthening of the Onerahi wharf, and the placing of one or two big cranes to make possible the bunkering of phosphate ships. The cranes could later be transferred to K ioreroa.