FAST REPAIR WORK

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 772, 19 September 1929, Page 10

FAST REPAIR WORK

IRIS BACK AT DEVONPORT MOORINGS After having done some fast work in the laying of more than three miles of cable on the Norfolk Isiand-Suva section of the Pacific Cable Board’s cable, the board’s maintenance ship Iris arrived back at her usual mooring place off Devonport at 10 o’clock this morning. _ The vessel cleared port at 9.30 o’clock last Thursday morning and proceeded to Norfolk Island. On the way she made a fair wind of a cyclone, thus increasing the headway she was making, and arrived at the island at S o'clock on Sunday morning. No communication was made with the island. A big swell was running that day and it was impossible for the Iris to make a start on her work. However, conditions had abated by Monday morning and she left her anchorage at the island, going to a position about five miles out, where she started grappling for the cable at 6.30 a.m. In ten minutes the cable was hooked, but it was found impossible to take it aboard on account of the bad condition it was in. This portion of the cable lies on a coral bank and had not been renewed for 14 years. It was consequently in a badly chafed and corroded state, and when any strain was put on it, parted from the grapples. It was not until the fifth drag that they managed to take it aboard. The fault that the Iris had gone to repair was in this corroded section and, killing two birds with one stone, the vessel laid more than three miles of new cable, replacing the worn portion. The work was finished and the last splice slipped at midnight on Monday, the vessel setting out for Auckland at once. On the return trip she enjoyed good weather throughout arid made a smart passage of two days and ten hours. The Iris, while lying idle at Devonport, maintains a skeleton crew of 36 officers and men, but when she puts to sea on repair work she takes a com plement of 82, the extra men being engaged casually. The vessel is commanded by Captain H. It. Hughes.