Jan-Feb, Mar-Apr, May-Jun 1965 - Navy League of Australia

den detour from the chartedroute because an iceberg loomedup about a hundred yards aheadas she was coming out of RandomSound, Clarenville. Newfoundland.On one occasion shelaid her cargo' off Rockall inthe north Atlantic. buoying theloose end to mark its positionwhile she returned home for anew load. But on returning sheraninto such heavy weatherthat the buoy itself had beensent adrift and further layingwas impossible. After la\ing-tountil the storm had subsided,she had to grapple to find andpick up the cable and splice-into the new length to start again.The traditional way of testingthe strain when grappling forcable is for the Officer in Chargeto sit on the grappling rope; eachcable man becomes an expert atfeeling the strain but the scat isnone too comfortable as theship rides, perhaps throughheavy seas, over a rocky bottom.The day after the first telegraphcable had been laid underthe English Channel in 1850, aBoulogne fisherman fouled a'foreign object' with his anchor.Drawing it up and, of course,never having seen a telegraphcable before, he imagined itmight be a strange kind of seaweed—ora sea serpent! In fact,he had broken the new cable.Nowadays, trawlers in shallowwater may still foul a shore end.There are. however, other hazards.Pirates have been knownto steal cable from the bed ofthe China Sea. Modern cablescarry heavier protection at theshore ends which have to be laidby lighter as the water may betoo shallow for the big ships.The circuits through a cablemay suddenly be interrupted bya variety of causes. Instead ofKipling's 'blind white sea-snakes'which sound fairly harmlesswhatever they may have beenoutside the poet's mind, theteredo or ship worm, a mollusc,may eat through the armouringuand break the circuit. When acircuit is interrupted, electricaltests can be made from the shoreend to ascertain the approximateplace. A cable repair ship issummoned from the neareststation, and sailing to the area,drops a mark buoy, mooring itto the bottom.Her first task is to find thecable. For this purpose she carriesgrapnels of various types,each suited to the kind of cableand the character of the particularseabed. Having lowered agrapnel at the end of a rope, theship steams back and forthacross the route until the grapnelseizes it. This is no easymatter; the grapnel may be atthe end of three miles of ropeand it must lie slack on thebottom to find the cable as it isdrawn across the route. The cablemay be silted up. Findingthe cable demands infinite patienceand navigational skill, forthe grapnel is being manipulatedin what Kipling called "the dark,the utter dark".Once the cable is found, thespot is buoyed and the grapnelis drawn up with the line in itsjaws. As it rises to the ship'sbows above water, the weight istaken off the grapnel and thecable is hauled aboard for repair.Tests are constantly madebetween ship and shore to ensurethat the circuit is re-establishedbefore the two ends arespliced together — possibly witha new length of cable, an oldlength having had to be cut out—before relaying.In wartime a cable ship is a"sitting target" to an enemv.The present HMTS MONARCHis the fourth of her name; thesecond was sunk by the enemyin 1915 and the third went downin 1945. CS. RETRIEVER wassunk bv the enemy at sea in1941. But CS. RECORDER,then named IRIS, after narrowlyescaping in 1914 from a Germancruiser which had cut theSuva-Bamfield cable, later caughtup with a ship on which a German commander was escapingfrom prison and took her—amhim—to Auckland, New Zealand.CS. NORSEMAN was about 8C0miles west of Jamaica and headingfor a repair 50 miles east olCienfuegos. Cuba, in August,1951. two days before a cyclonehit Kingston, Jamaica. Fivehours before she arrived atKingston a further warning replacedanxiety by alarm. Shechose an anchorage at the extremeeasterly end of the harbourand moored with 90 fathomsof cable on the starboardanchor and 60 on the port anchor.With engines at full speedand using the rudder to keephead to wind, she rode out fornine hours a wind which reachedat maximum a speed of 120miles an hour, her only damagebeing the breaking of her foremostyard, wing bridge windowsand frames, and bent compassstanchions. Out of fourteen shipsanchored in the harbour nofewer than seven were seriouslydamaged. NORSEMAN'S crewpresented her commander. CaptainT. A. Vickers. a silver salver'in appreciation of her qualitiesas a good sailor'.The first cable ship was asmall steam tug. GOLIATH.which laid the first cross-Channelcable, two tons of whichwere wound round a drum sevenfeet in diameter and 15 feet longwhich had been built on herdeck. British and American navalships made the first attempt,in 1857, to lay a transatlantictelegraph cable, but the lateiattempts in 1865 and finallysuccessful in 1866, were carriedout by GREAT EASTERN, amammoth cargo ship which hadproved too big to find adequateemployment on cargo work. Thefirst MONARCH was a smallwooden ship fitted for cablework in the English Channel.(To be concluded next tone)THE NAVTthere's a lot more to BHP steel than its.The most obvious advantage of BHP steel is itslow price, but there are others equally important.Bill' steel is of a hi(di quality. It is also availablein a range that eaters for more than 9(r? ofAustralia's steel requirements. And the Steel• HP tOt ••THE BROKEN HILLPROPRIETARY CO. LTD.AND KUBSIDIARIKbpriceIndustry is a very substantial employer of labourand talent. Right now the number of employeesis just under 4H,(XK>. and increasing every day.There is. indeed, a lot more to BHP steel thanits low priee.Printed by C. H. Miller. 40 Jersey St.. Marrickville