NEW TELEPHONE CABLE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 29 March 1926, Page 6

NEW TELEPHONE CABLE.

ACROSS COOK STRAIT.

By Telegraph—pircs* Association, WELLINGTON, March 26. At 0 o’clock this morning the final touches were put to the splicing of the new Cook Strait telephone cable, and at a. point a tittle distance off Blind River the last loop of the joined-up line was dropped over the bows of the Tutarekai, the Government . cable-laying steamer. As it disappeared in the sea, cameras clicked, and l the. weary but happy cable laying staff heaved sighs of relief that, the job—the biggest yet attempted by tile New Zealand Telegraph Department had been carried through without a hitch. • A short length of cable had been laid from the South Island terminal on Monday, and buoyed offshore. Then the Tutanekai returned to Lyall Bay, intending to make a start at daylight on Wednesday with the main portion of the work—the laying of 30 miles oE cable from the Wellington end. Heavy southerly weather, however, precluded any chance of proceeding satisfactorily with such a tick, and the steamer waited tor the sea to go down. Yesterday (Thu rsduy) niorninK* found the gale gone, and the sea wonderfully quietened, with a light northerly breeze blowing. At 0 o’clock the Tutanekai put the Lyall Bay end of the cable over, nnd t]ie siiip’s launch, and a surf boat snaked it shore word. As the cable was paid out over the bow a sheave of barrels were lashed to it, to keep it from sinking to the bottom, and so making tlm haul too heavy when the surf was readied. The launch east off. and left the work of getting the cable through the broken water to the boat. It was heavy pulling, but the boatmen are expert at this sort of thing, and under Mr Williams, one of the ship’s officers, the cablo was brought to shore, where a staff of telegraph men were waiting to tail it on to the ban - ing lino and drag the cable up the bench, where it was made fast. The end was then opened up for connection to the instruments, temporarily installed in <i shed for the purpose of noting 'tlm conditions in the cable, to which reference will presently he nmde. The ship’s party then went aboard the Tutanekai, having a damp passage through tlie surf. At 8.30 the ship heaved up the anchor, and began the 30 mile journey to the other side of the Strait. The cable passed from the bod, m

which it had been carefully stowed, around th e drum of a rotometer, winch measured the length, then through another instrument, which recorded the tensile strain exerted by the length depending from the ship, and over a largo sheave at the forecastle head, whence it trailed away into the Tlie officers on the bridge, took frequent observations of various landmarks, so that the ship’s course he plotted exactly on the chart, and tlm line followed by the cable permanently recorded. The ship end of the cable was <*"- I nected up with the testing instruments, i by means of which imperfections in the i cable, if any developed, could be do- : tected and measures taken to locate t and remedy them. = 'These tests were made every feq \ minutes, and at intervals the telephone

e was substituted for the delicate testing : apparatus, and speech could be held = with Lyall Bay watchers. I hi: iboih (volume dind) clearness of S sound despite the necessarily imperfect I makeshift nature of the connections the £ words came wonderfully well over the 1 cable to tlloso on the ship out in the = Strait. , . -i = About 5 o’clock the ship, bavin,, I come almost exactly to the desircn § spot, the buoy mnrking the end, the £ cable was picked up and hauled aboard. I Two exports were put ashore to eo- § operate with the ship’s staff, m inak--5 ing the final tests, and as the weather 5 held fine, it was decided to go straight = ahead with the work of joining up the i main cable, of whi'h the portion that | remained in the slop’s hold, was cut and | the armouring and protective coverings § of the actual telephone conductors m £ the centre were laid back for exhaus- | tive tests of these conductors, , four I small copper wires, about No. 13 stand- % ard gauge in size, followed to see that 1 everyth ng was in thorough order, and 3 the ‘work of splicing began. 5 jt vras a delicate task, which conI tinned throughout the night., and early n this morning, the outer coverings were II replaced and rtrongly 1 reinforced by iiddit onal heavy iron wire armour. That done the cable was dropped overboard ami the ship returned to Wellington, after winking n call out at Rvnl! Bay to pick up the mark buoys, ;vllir-Ii had been left there yesterday. This in brief, is the story of the laying’of the latest Cook Strait cab e, winch is intended primarily '.or fe enlione work only, though at a pinch it con'd bo used for ordinary telegraphic traffic. . , 'Pile slice connections are not yer complete but it is expected that by next week two conductors will be in oosition to maintain telephonic communication between Wellington B-en-hoim nnd Nelson, during the wlio.c 24 hours of the day. Later on all the North and Sout.i Island telephone stations will enjoy this, advantage. . Captain J. BoTons. master of the Tutanekai, was in charge oi the w*or of Invitin' the cablo, ass.sted by Captain W. WhUetord. of the Marine Depart mont whose special task. was. to make constant observations, fixing the ship s C °The Telegraph Department’s tc'linical staff had a very arduous tme of it, and‘are to bo congratulated upon baying carried the job through without anything m the nature ol a troublesome bitch.