Of the many remarkable salvage feats performed during the war, that
concerning the s.s. _Araby_ is of more than passing interest. Driven
ashore on the French coast on December 21, 1916, owing to an accident
to her steering gear, she was towed off two days later and by Christmas
Eve arrived at Boulogne. The tugs were shepherding the cripple into
harbour when trouble overtook her once more. The towing hawsers parted,
and she was swept by the strong tide broadside across the harbour
mouth, her bow being jammed against the end of one quay and her stern
against the end of the other quay.
The excitement was intense, for she was blocking our most important
port of entry into France. To make matters worse, the tide was almost
at the full, and unless she were got off at once it was obvious that
her days were numbered. As the tide fell she was sure to ground at the
bow and stern, and a deep channel between the quays left nothing to
support her amidships, so she would be lucky not to break her back.
[Illustration: HOW THE ARABY BLOCKED THE ENTRANCE TO BOULOGNE
HARBOUR]
[Illustration: AS THE TIDE FELL, THE ARABY BROKE HER BACK. THIS
PHOTOGRAPH CLEARLY SHOWS THE FRACTURE BETWEEN THE BOW AND THE STERN
WHICH LED TO HER FALLING COMPLETELY IN HALVES]
Despite the utmost efforts, the _Araby_ remained wedged between the two
quays, and as the tide ebbed, her huge cargo of oats began to make its
weight felt. Slowly she sagged in the middle until her keel was unable
longer to support the strain. She broke her back and settled down right
across the fairway, doing very effectively to Boulogne what the British
Navy so gloriously succeeded in doing to Ostend and Zeebrugge.
It was a desperate case, calling for prompt measures, for somehow,
anyhow, Boulogne harbour had to be cleared, and that quickly. Its
urgency led to the happy co-operation of army and navy, so while the
divers were jettisoning the cargo, in order to lighten the ship,
Lieutenant-Colonel R. V. Jellicoe, D.S.O., of the Royal Engineers, was
planning to make history by salving the first ship with the aid of
ferro-concrete. Never before had anything like this been suggested. It
seemed an impossible sort of dream.
The engineer was determined to prove that the seemingly impossible was
possible. So on each side of the fracture, which was amidships, wooden
moulds were deftly built up in the form of bulkheads stretching right
across the inside of the ship. Cement and gravel were carefully mixed
in certain proportions laid down by the engineer, and into these moulds
the concrete was thrown. It set as hard as rock, forming two watertight
walls shutting off the bow and stern of the ship, and leaving the
fracture between them open to the sea.
The rapidity with which the work was carried out was so remarkable
that by January 11, just eighteen days after the _Araby_ was wrecked,
the flooded compartments were being pumped out. To the joy of the
salvors the rising tide lifted the ship clear of the bottom, and
clever manœuvring enabled Captain H. Pomeroy, the salvage officer, to
clear the harbour entrance and haul the ship into position practically
parallel with the quay. By the end of the day she had been worked
some little distance up the harbour and ships could pass in and out.
The falling tide let her down again in the middle of the channel, but
although she still interfered with traffic the salvors had carried the
work a big step forward.
The hauling and the towing, however, had subjected her to a tremendous
strain, as a result of which the crack across her keel began to extend
up each side of her hull. This necessitated two strenuous days being
spent in strengthening her, before she could again be pumped out and
lifted a little farther into the harbour. Again she grounded at the
fall of the tide, and once more as the tide rose she was lifted higher
up the harbour. Throughout it was only possible to keep her afloat by
continuous pumping, and once the pumps stopped she soon sank under the
inrush of water.
[Illustration: BOTH HALVES OF THE ARABY BEACHED IN BOULOGNE HARBOUR,
WHERE THEY LAY FOR MANY MONTHS]
During these operations the crack had been creeping higher and
higher up the hull under the alternating strains to which she was
subjected. The mighty steel plates were rent and wrenched open until
the greatest calamity of all overtook her and she broke right in two.
She just fell apart, as a sliced apple falls apart, and sank to the
bottom.
[Illustration: TOWING THE STERN OF THE ARABY BACK TO ENGLAND. THE SIGHT
OF HALF A SHIP AFLOAT AT SEA IS SELDOM SEEN]
Such a disaster would daunt most men, who would probably decide that
the only thing to be done in so parlous a case was to finish the job
by blowing the ends to smithereens and then to dredge up the pieces
and throw them on the scrap heap. But the men tackling the case were
in no wise disconcerted. If the problem had been complicated in one
way, it had been simplified in another. For one thing, a ship breaking
in halves required more delicate handling than one broken in halves,
because the salvors would naturally try to prevent the worst from
happening. Once the worst had happened, the salvors could go ahead
without any thoughts of impending disaster. So, wasting no time,
Captain Pomeroy brought some giant pontoons into play. Each was capable
of lifting a weight of 800 tons, and by their aid, after a tremendous
tussle, the two ends were lifted and beached out of the way of traffic
in the inner harbour.
For weeks the tide washed in and out of them, leaving behind a foul
sediment, and the remains of the _Araby_ gradually became part of the
landscape of Boulogne harbour--two ends of a broken ship, rusted and
scarred, with the boilers in the engine-room exposed to sea and air.
A year passed, during which the German submarine campaign kept the
Salvage Section busy day and night, then the _Araby_ was found to be
interfering once more with our war activities. It was essential to
extend the landing-place for flying boats and seaplanes at Boulogne,
and the only available space was the strip of beach occupied by the two
ends of the _Araby_.
In July, 1918, the frequenters of the harbour saw figures again at work
on the wreck. The job of preparing the two ends to enable them to put
to sea was carried forward with vigour. Then, unwittingly, came one of
those tragedies which are fortunately rare in the annals of salvage.
The ends still contained quantities of oats quite spoiled by the action
of the sea. Grain in these conditions gives off fumes so poisonous that
any one caught in them is instantly gassed and killed. Generally the
fumes are kept down by spraying with chemicals, a procedure adopted
during these operations.
One of the divers, however, penetrated too deeply into the hold without
his diving dress and somehow got into a foul pocket of this gas. Almost
at once he was overcome and fell in a state of collapse. No sooner had
he fallen than his mate was also stricken by the fumes and rolled over
unconscious.
[Illustration: THIS TORPEDOED SHIP WAS THE FIRST IN THE WORLD TO BE
PATCHED WITH CONCRETE. THE TIMBER FRAMEWORK COVERING THE HOLE IN THE
HULL FORMS THE MOULD INTO WHICH THE CONCRETE WAS POURED]
Followed one of the gallant deeds which add fame to Britain’s name.
Discovering that the two men were in difficulties, and knowing full
well the deadly danger that lurked below, a salvor lowered himself in
an attempt to rescue them. Instantly the gas attacked him, and he, too,
went down. By the time the three men were hauled out they were all dead.
[Illustration: THE CONCRETE PATCH FROM THE INSIDE OF THE SHIP, SHOWING
HOW THE CONCRETE WAS REINFORCED WITH STEEL RODS]
Marred as it was by this sad tragedy, the work aboard the _Araby_
was pushed ahead with unabated zeal. The concrete bulkheads, erected
as described under the direction of Lieutenant-Colonel Jellicoe some
fifteen months earlier, remained solid walls, impervious to the
encroachments of the sea. So the Admiralty salvage officer completed
arrangements for removing the remains of the _Araby_, and about the
middle of July powerful tugs were hauling on the after end of the ship.
At high tide they succeeded in towing the end off the beach into deep
water, and the sailors of the Dover patrol later witnessed the strange
sight of half a ship floating serenely to England. They were more
astonished a few days later to see the other half being towed across.
In this wonderful way did a soldier, forsaking his own element, assist
to salve a ship that broke in two, and so brilliantly successful was
his work that he was “lent” to the Admiralty Salvage Section. On
another occasion his genius was exercised upon a steamer which had a
vast hole blown in her hull by a torpedo. Taking the case in hand, the
soldier salvage officer determined to prove that ferro-concrete used
under expert supervision would unite perfectly with the steel hull and
make the ship as tight and sound as she had ever been. That concrete
ships were possible was already proved, for there were one or two
afloat to confound the sceptic, but the patching of a steel ship with
concrete was not generally considered feasible.
However, the engineer set to work, and under his supervision divers
built a huge mould over the gaping wound. The engineer himself donned
a diving dress and went to the bottom to inspect the work and see that
everything had been carried out to make the experiment successful. The
concrete, reinforced with steel rods, was rammed into the mould, where
it set almost as hard as the iron with which its edges were solidly
united. Concrete piers were moulded inside the ship to strengthen the
back of the patch and enable it to sustain the force of the waves, and
when the vessel was pumped out and floated officials of the seamen’s
union, calling to inspect it, expressed their approval by certifying
the ship as fit to go anywhere. It was an amazing new departure in
salvage that proved an unqualified success. It was probably the first
ship to be patched with concrete, although it was rumoured that
the German cruiser _Goeben_, which gave us so much trouble in the
Mediterranean, was also patched up with that material.
[Illustration: HOW THE CONCRETE PATCH WAS STRENGTHENED WITH CONCRETE
PIERS ON THE INSIDE OF THE SHIP TO WITHSTAND THE HAMMERING OF THE SEA]
The _Araby_, however, was by no means the first ship to be salved
in halves, for years ago Mr. Tom Armit, one of the cleverest salvage
experts who ever tackled a wreck, undertook to recover the s.s.
_Montgomery_ which had sunk and broken in two in the river Garonne.
Under his instructions divers timbered in the open ends of the vessel
to make them watertight, and eventually each end was pumped out and
raised. They were afterwards taken to dock and joined together again
without the ship being one whit the worse for her adventure.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE CONCRETE PATCH IN THE SHIP’S SIDE AFTER
SHE HAD BEEN PUMPED OUT]
Equally remarkable was the salvage of the steamer _Milwaukee_ which,
going ashore on the rocks near Aberdeen during her maiden voyage in
1898, was held so securely that there was no hope of ever towing
her off again. The salvors who were called in to deal with the case
recognized this in a flash, but, gifted with a vivid imagination, they
determined on an extraordinary experiment. It was the bow of the ship
that was caught by the rocks, but all the valuable machinery was in the
afterpart. Unable to save the ship whole, they made up their minds to
try to save the half that mattered, planning to operate on the vessel
just as a surgeon operates on a man, but, instead of using scalpels,
they sought to cut with dynamite. A belt of dynamite cartridges was
fastened round the ship just forward of the engine-room bulkhead. The
brainy salvage men pressed the button. Scarcely had the sound of the
explosion reached their ears when they saw the ship break in two and
the stern slide into the sea.
They had reason to be proud of their success, for it requires courage
as well as imagination to operate on a ship in this manner. Eventually
they towed the stern of the _Milwaukee_ back to the Tyne, and in due
course another bow was built and spliced on to the stern, thus making a
new ship of her.
This noteworthy instance of ship surgery was duplicated in the case of
the Atlantic liner _Seuvic_ which went ashore on the Stag Rocks on the
ragged Cornish coast. The untiring efforts of the salvors failed to
move her, so they calmly cut her in two with dynamite and brought the
after end to port, where she was made whole again!
Those who get a living by marine salvage need be resourceful, masters
of a hundred tricks to win ships from the grip of the sea. When the
liner _City of Paris_ came to grief on the same cruel coast, the jagged
rocks cut right up through her hull and held her so tightly that her
position from the first appeared hopeless. It seemed that she was
destined to remain there hard and fast until the sea had battered her
to pieces.
Whatever the underwriters thought, there was one enterprising salvage
man who was prepared to match his skill against the strength of the
sea. Offering to salve the ship on the “no cure, no pay” principle, he
set his divers to work and little by little they blew away the rocks
that transfixed the ship. It was a ticklish operation. Too strong a
charge of dynamite would have injured the hull and made the case worse
than ever; too weak a charge would have failed to remove the rock, so
it was necessary to wed judgment with caution in this work. Bit by bit
the rocks were blasted away and in the end the _City of Paris_ was
patched and floated. She was taken into Falmouth harbour for repairs,
and when she again took the seas she was known as the _Philadelphia_.
That feat, performed a good many years ago, was equalled by Commander
Cunningham of the Salvage and Towage Company when the Furness Withy
steamer _Norton_ ran ashore on Zogria Island off the coast of Greece
a year or two ago. The rocks threatened to tear the whole bottom out
of the ship if an attempt were made to tow her off, so the salvage
expert, seeing there was no other way back to the sea, decided to blow
the age-old rocks from beneath the bilges of the steamer. He set to
work, and, using extraordinary judgment in placing the dynamite and
gauging the power of the charges, succeeded in eight strenuous days in
pulverizing the imprisoning rocks without doing any further injury to
the steamer. At the top of the tide the tugs and salvage craft towed
her into deep water and finally took her to port.
She was a rich prize, worth with her cargo some £330,000. The repairs
to the steamer cost about £20,000, and the salvors by their fine work
earned an award of £22,000. This seems a large sum for the salvors to
make in so short a time, but it must be borne in mind that such prizes
do not often come along, and the upkeep of a salvage steamer and her
trained crew may easily run to £150 or more a week, without reckoning
the cost of the steamer and plant, so it is plain that a big capital
is required to keep a salvage unit in continual commission. In other
words, although the award was good, taken in conjunction with the
capital employed and the risk run, it was not by any means excessive.