Tuskar Rock Marine cope expertly with the elements on the Cork Tunnel in Ireland

The Cork Tunnel - entrance into the elements

At the beginning of August I paid my first visit to Ireland and despite three days of torrential rain, thoroughly enjoyed myself. I was made very welcome and was impressed by the professionalism of all I met on the Cork Tunnel project. I only just made it as the underwater part of the operations was completed exactly on schedule and the last of six elements had just been positioned.

The Cork tunnel is the third such project in Britain and Eire but the method ( of sinking large pre-fabricated units into the river bed ) has been used more extensively in Holland and is also being used on the tunnel between Sweden and Denmark. Symonds Travers Morgan are the designers. One of my first visits to a dive site was on the Conwy tunnel with SAR and although I did not dive then, I formed a clear impression of the problems of positioning and securing these huge structures underwater. It was good to be able to drive through the completed tunnel to Anglesey. The day before writing this article I drove through the Medway tunnel, shortly after a dive with the Historical Diving Society in standard gear at Chatham. The Medway tunnel consisted of three elements, each over l00 metres long, compared with six at Cork and Conwy .

Preparing to dive on the Cork Tunnel

I had dived on the tunnel with Askam in 1994 and I look forward to returning to Cork to drive through the tunnel under the River Lee, which is due to open in October 1998 and should greatly relieve the congestion in the centre of Cork.

Tuskar Rock Marine was set up in 1984 by Phil Dennis and is based in Rosslare; Phil was joined as a partner in 1988 by David Kinsella, an accountant. It has carried out a wide variety of diving and associated work throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. It also specialises in salvage work and the provision of vessels and equipment. I hope later to be invited to come back to Bantry Bay, where they do a lot of work for Bantry Terminals and I am told the water is gin-clear .

Tuskar is one of the few companies to take on young potential divers and pay for their courses, once satisfied they will become competent divers . They are taught a large number of out-of-the-water skills as well, such as fabricating and deck work. Judging from one of the two, William Wickham, whom I met doing his Part 1 at Bovisand, Tuskar have made an excellent investment in divers who are only now just 21. I am sure the other, Andrew Walsh, is just as good and I look forward to being invited to dive with them.

As I said in the last issue I had delayed my trip to Cork in the hope of being able to dive on a rig with DSND Oceantech and two days before I arrived the last element ,constructed nearby, had been floated out . Its placing was the most difficult as at low tide it is exposed. The operation had to be completed in 45 minutes with the divers making certain the river bed was flat and that it would fit onto the fifth element. Each of the six elements is 100 metres long and there are two further units at each end, one 120 metres long and the other 150 metres. They each weigh over 30,000 tonnes each. If the operation had not been completed in the allocated time, and the divers did so with about 15 minutes to spare, the element could have broken in two. It is ballasted down by water tanks until it is immersed in sand, which is pumped around it. Divers have to constantly check the level of the sand. I dived at the north end and had a small amount of visibility. I never cease to be amazed at the skills of divers working in cramped and black conditions. Here they were working from an excellent barge, the Marlin, and with an expert cranesman. The company responsible for the marine part of the operation was the largest Dutch construction group, Hollandesche Beton Waterbouw, who had worked on the two British tunnels. Everything seemed to work like clockwork and I particularly enjoyed the Irish boatman who took me around the site . I was able to go down one of the shafts and walk almost the entire length of the tunnel. I was able better to appreciate the huge dimensions of the project and the complexity of the task facing the constructors of the units and those who had to install them. I can see increasing demand for this method of crossing water, but, of course, not every site is suitable. One of the problems for the divers was working in the middle of the river where boats are constantly passing. The supervisor in overall charge of the divers was Alister Heelas ,whom I had last met when diving with Northern Divers in Hull docks in 1991. I had met a number of the other divers on previous dives. One of my problems is that I have become too well known and also (and this I welcome) have to meet those who are employing the dive firm and explain why I want to dive and write an article about the job. It is now getting a lot rarer for me to find in effect a battle going on constantly between the divers and the barge crew. It helps if they have worked with divers before and this was certainly the case here. Unlike in Dundee, where after waiting all day for a dive was only in the water for 30 seconds when the barge "had" to be moved. I have said it is sensible for a construction company to have on their staff a qualified diver, who can co-ordinate the under-water work and inspect it, using the diving company's equipment. Here I was pleased to see Tarmac employed Howard McDonagh, who did his Part 1 course at Fort William just after me. He was sponsored then by Trafalgar House. I am convinced it makes for a safer and more cost-effective dive operation where the building company has its own diver on its books. Not that the Dutchmen I spoke to had not a full understanding of the problems of working in such conditions. I particularly enjoyed my chat with Teus Gijzel, a marine operations consultant.

I am sure there have been problems and tensions on the job but arriving just before it finished there was an air of a job well done by all concerned . The divers had been on site since the middle of May and at a peak numbered 30. When I was there there was a day shift of 8 and a night shift of six. I try whenever possible to put across as a layman the complexities of even a simple diving job. I have long argued that supervisors should have a number of years of diving experience, that diving equipment should be expertly maintained. One of the things I look for on my dive is the excellence of the communications, the way I am dressed and in the purity of the air. I had no complaints on any of these scores and I hope the expert divers who look after me so carefully will put up with my non-stop banter and my not particularly well honed diving skills. I can see no justification at all for Irish diving companies having to pay

substantially higher insurance premiums when operating in Eire, which can only partly be justified by higher pay-outs for industrial injuries. Tuskar Rock Marine certainly compares well with the very best British companies I have dived with and I will welcome eagerly any invitation to return to Southern Ireland.

Tuskar Rock Marine can be contacted at
Rosslare Harbour,
Co. Wexford,
Ireland
Tel: 00353 53 33376
Mobile 088565271