Most beautiful race

Avalon, the Auckland champion 14-footer, registered her second victory in the 1926 Sanders Cup contest by winning the fourth race after a close and exciting contest with Betty, the Canterbury representative on the upper harbour yesterday afternoon.

The boats from the other four provinces had been eliminated. After Betty’s splendid performances in Monday’s races the hopes of Betty’s supporters rose high and great excitement prevailed while the race was in progress. The Auckland boat was most skilfully handled by Joe Patrick, and Avalon’s victory, in a large measure, was due to his clever seamanship. It was a case where brains were pitted against brains, and the Auckland skipper came out on top. The thousands of spectators who lined the wharves were provided with a spectacle seldom seen on any harbour as regards skill displayed in small boat sailing. The race was thrilling and claimed the close attention of the spectators from start to finish. 

It was by far the most beautiful and one of the closest races ever sailed in a Sanders Cup contest.

Highway or the highway

The Main Highways Board, in conjunction with the Public Works Department, has been busy since the beginning of the year in improving this portion of the highway.

About 20 men are widening and re-erecting the remaining bridges and also widening and removing the sharp bends in the gorges. In some places the creek has been diverted to lessen the flood danger to the road and the railway.

The new bridges will be reinforced with 40-pound iron rails and concrete slabs. The work will probably take until winter to complete, and when finished will obviate what was, for a long time, a subject of dispute between the various local bodies which were responsible for the upkeep and repair of this important portion of the main highway.

Mechanisation looms

Yesterday morning a demonstration was given at Hillside Workshops of the capabilities of a paint-spraying machine by the representative of an American firm which manufactures these articles. The apparatus is very simple, compact, and portable, and consists of a 10-gallon container fitted with an air-tight lid, three tubes, three pressure gauges, an air filter, and an adjustable delivery nozzle.

Filtered, purified air at a pressure of 10 pounds to the square inch is applied to the paint in the container, and the paint is driven along a tube to the delivery nozzle, where it is atomized by purified air at a pressure of 60 pounds. It is claimed that this machine will do as much painting as six good journeymen and certainly the quality of the work is excellent.

Plans for Kawarau bed

The Kawarau Gold-mining Company’s dam would be completed by next May or June. Thus, there would be perhaps two months during the low-level period in which claimholders would be able to investigate and fossick 12ft of the banks of their claims when the gates of the dam could be closed.

It would embrace 51 claims, scattered along the river, some in gorges, some in less-steep portions of the waterway and some with beaches. 

Its first operations might be carried out in the old-fashioned manner. Perhaps 100 fossickers could be employed.

— ODT, 24.2.1926