SHIPPING SAFEGUARDS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1922, Page 2

SHIPPING SAFEGUARDS

WIRELESS DIRECTION-FINDER. MIGHT HAVE SAVED THE WILTSHIRE. In the course of conversation with an Auckland Star representative a mercantile marine officer pointed out that a very simple addition to the New Zealand wireless station equipment, or for that matter to the wireleSh equipment of the Wiltshire herself, would certa’.ily have averted the loss of the ship. He referred, he said, to what was known as. direction-finding apparatus. It was a simple apparatus, running to a cost of £BO per annum per ship, which had been developed during the •war in the stress of £he submarine campaign, and had now been made available for the mercantile shipping of the world. The ships of all the big lines in Britain, such as the Mauretania and others of the Cunard line, and the Khiva, of the P. and 0., and the Lalande and La Place, of the Lamport and Holt line, were fitted with these direction-finding outfits. By means of them the ship in dirty and foggy weather could always find her position by reference to other ships equipped with wireless or to land wireless stations. The equipment had been thoroughly tried out by the Lalande and La Place and had proved a complete success. It was so accurate that ships 800 miles at sea could find their position to within a mile. Off the coasts of France, Belgium, Germany, and the United States a ship with this equipment could get her position at any time to within a yard. Ships equipped with the ordinary wireless could also ascertain their exact position off those coasts by reason, of direc-tion-finding stations having been established there for the purpose of directing ships within range during foggy weather. For this purpose three D.F. stations had to be within call to enable the position to be worked out by triangulation. But with the D.F. equipment on the ship itself the ship became independent of shore assistance. Had the Wiltshire had one of these equipments, or had the Awanui, Auckland and Wellington wireless stations been equipped with D.F. instruments the fact of the captain not having been 1 able to take a bearing for two or three ‘ days would not have mattered, for he could have got his position at any time, and, further, could have detected any deviation of his compass. The officer narrated a striking instance of the value and effectiveness of the D.F. equipment on a ship as illus-, trated recently in the North Atlantic. ’ A Norweigan steamer, the Mod, struck heavy weather, and in distress sent out 5.0.5., which was picKcc up by a large steamer, the George Washington. The George Washington steamed to the position given by. the Mod, but could not find her, and had the message repeated, which gave the same position. Meanwhile the message had been picked up by the wireless of a smaller vessel, the Fanad Head, whose operator heard that the George Washington could not find the Mod at the position given. At once the Fanad Head, which was equipped with D.F. apparatus, called up the Mod to send out a few dots and dashes, and. :by the bearing thus given on its D.F. ! chart went straight to the rescue, sav--1 ing fourteen men from the sinking I steamer. The point is that the wireless direqtion-finder proved absolutely accurate, whereas there was a percentage of error in the Mod’s calculation of her own position.