Vessel

Echometer Aids Phosphate Vessel

INTRODUCED recently to Australian shipping by Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd., a new radio instru ment known as the echometer, is now in use in the South Seas.

Primarily, it shows the depth of water under the ship’s keel, but an additional use has been found for it on the British Phosphate Commission’s steamer Triaster, which runs between Melbourne, Ocean Island, and Nauru. In the latter locali ties the water is extremely deep and, there being no anchorages, shipping has to attach to buoys. The echometer indi cates comparatively shallow spots where buoys can be anchored off shore with a minimum of mooring line.

In Australian waters the instrument is in constant use in thick weather when a bearing cannot be obtained off the sun or a star. Perhaps the most consistent use of it is made by the N.S.W. trawling fleet —five of the Cam Line, Sydney, being equipped with echometers.

Recently an Australian trawler was arrested in New Zealand on a charge of

fishing within the three miles limit. The skipper was able to exonerate himself because he had been using an echometer depth-sounding instrument and had re corded soundings which, when compared with those marked on the charts, showed that he was well outside territorial waters.

To acquire, w r ork and develop ore-bearing lands in the Pacific Islands (particularly Fiji and New Guinea), the Wai-Savura Development Syndicate Limited was regis tered in Sydney on November 27. Nominal capital is £1,500 in 150 shares of £lO. Sub scribers are Messrs. F. Bourke, F. E. S.

Brooks, E. A. Hurdis, J. C. Orr, P. J.

Penwill, D. E. Peters, and E. Scott.