NIGHT LONG VIGIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1943, Page 4

NIGHT LONG VIGIL

TASMANIAN BRIDGE IN PERIL. DESIGNER’S ANXIOUS TIME. SYDNEY, December 19. A young Tasmanian engineer, Mr A. W. Knight, of the Tasmanian Public Works Department, kept a night-long vigil on Saturday when one of the worst storms for years threatened to sweep away the £400,000 bridge he built across the Derwent River at Hobart, the capital. Mr Knight staked his reputation as a bridge designer on the success of the bridge,' which is built on floating pontoons, and is the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. At the height of, the storm it was feared that thousands of tons of steel and concrete would collapse into the river five of six bolts hinging the pontoon section to the main abutment snapped as though they were dry twigs. All depended on whether the sixth would hold. Improvisations were made to lift the stress from the hinge. The bridge is still in danger, but experts now hope that obstacles threatening the practicability of its design will be overcome, and that it will be able to withstand all types of weather. The storm weakened on Sunday, and the pontoon section is still clinging to the abutment.