The Star: May 18, 2017
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24 Thursday <strong>May</strong> <strong>18</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Latest Christchurch news at www. .kiwi<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong><br />
News<br />
Restoration takes step forward<br />
SCULPTOR MARK Whyte<br />
has carefully carved a replica<br />
of the Robert Falcon Scott<br />
statue’s leg – only to have it<br />
deliberately broken.<br />
Mr Whyte is one of the<br />
experts involved in the<br />
restoration of the<br />
earthquake-damaged<br />
statue of that<br />
stood in Oxford<br />
Tce for 100 years,<br />
beofre it fell in the<br />
February 22, 2011,<br />
earthquake.<br />
It was carved in<br />
Carrara marble<br />
by Scott’s widow,<br />
Kathleen Scott,<br />
to commemorate<br />
his achievements in polar<br />
exploration and as a tribute<br />
to Scott and those who perished<br />
with him on the return<br />
journey from the South Pole<br />
in 1912.<br />
<strong>The</strong> statue is top-heavy<br />
and weighs in at 2.5 tonne.<br />
During the earthquake, it<br />
snapped at its weakest point,<br />
the ankles, in an uneven<br />
break.<br />
City council head of parks,<br />
Andrew Rutledge, says the<br />
Mark Whyte<br />
repair is “tricky” because the<br />
break is uneven.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>re’s been a lot of research<br />
into how to go about<br />
repairing it,” he says.<br />
Consultant engineer Grant<br />
Wilkinson, Mr Whyte and<br />
others decided the<br />
best method was<br />
to drill into the<br />
statue’s legs and<br />
plinth and thread<br />
carbon fibre rods<br />
through the legs<br />
to improve its<br />
resilience should<br />
there be future big<br />
earthquakes. A<br />
form of base isolation<br />
will also be<br />
installed on the plinth.<br />
Before doing anything to<br />
the statue, they needed to<br />
know the technique would<br />
work and that the work<br />
could be done without causing<br />
more damage.<br />
So Mr Whyte carved a<br />
replica of one of the statue’s<br />
broken legs, also in Carrara<br />
marble. He carefully<br />
replicated the angles of the<br />
break and, using the repair<br />
technique that will be used<br />
on the actual statue, joined<br />
the two parts together.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n he watched as his<br />
work was put under increasing<br />
pressure, to replicate the<br />
force of a large earthquake,<br />
until it broke.<br />
“It’s not often that I<br />
carve something just for<br />
someone to break,” said Mr<br />
Whyte.<br />
“But we can’t practise<br />
our technique on the actual<br />
statue. This is the next-best<br />
thing.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> testing was carried<br />
out at Holmes Solutions<br />
in Hornby this week. Mr<br />
Wilkinson says the testing<br />
met all expectations. <strong>The</strong> test<br />
involved rocking the replica<br />
leg back and forth on its base<br />
under incrementally increasing<br />
loading.<br />
“Our design target was to<br />
withstand a 1.5-tonne load,<br />
and we got to that with only<br />
a couple of hairline cracks,”<br />
he says. “That load can be<br />
correlated to a one in 1000-<br />
year earthquake event, and<br />
with the added protection<br />
of the base isolation in<br />
the plinth, the statue will<br />
survive a 1 in 2500-year<br />
event.<br />
After passing that test, the<br />
replica leg was pushed to<br />
breaking point.<br />
“It didn’t collapse until<br />
we got to a 3-tonne loading,<br />
and that’s fantastic,” he says.<br />
“A 3-tonne loading approximately<br />
equates to a one in<br />
2500-year event, and we got<br />
well past that.”<br />
Mr Wilkinson says the test<br />
result means the team can<br />
have confidence in its repair<br />
strategy.<br />
“That was our first big<br />
hurdle,” he says. “Now we<br />
can move on to the real<br />
thing and prepare to work<br />
on the statue.”<br />
Mr Rutledge says the<br />
Scott statue is more than<br />
a landmark statue for<br />
Christchurch.<br />
“It’s an internationally<br />
important statue,” he says.<br />
“It’s critical that we do<br />
everything possible to repair<br />
and strengthen it without it<br />
being damaged further.”<br />
All going well, the statue<br />
will be back on its plinth in<br />
September.<br />
UNDER REPAIR: Captain Robert Falcon Scott<br />
statue, Worcester St.<br />
Activists back on the anti-nuclear trail<br />
IMPORTANT:<br />
Robert Green<br />
and Kate<br />
Dewes will<br />
help negotiate<br />
a treaty to<br />
ban nuclear<br />
weapons at a<br />
United Nations<br />
conference next<br />
month.<br />
PHOTO: GEOFF<br />
SLOAN<br />
TWO Christchurch activists<br />
will be at a United Nations<br />
conference in New York next<br />
month to help negotiate a treaty<br />
to ban nuclear weapons.<br />
Kate Dewes ONZM and<br />
Robert Green will be among<br />
delegates from more than 130<br />
nations aimed to finalise a treaty<br />
that will stigmatise nuclear<br />
weapons.<br />
Unlike chemical and biological<br />
weapons, nuclear weapons<br />
have not yet been outlawed<br />
internationally.<br />
Lucy Stewart and Lyndon<br />
Burford, also from New Zealand,<br />
will also attend the conference<br />
that runs from June 15 to<br />
July 7.<br />
Dr Dewes has served on<br />
disarmament<br />
advisory boards of<br />
two UN Secretaries<br />
General. She has<br />
been active in the<br />
anti-nuclear movement<br />
for more than<br />
40 years.<br />
“I feel deeply<br />
honoured to be<br />
heading this team<br />
of New Zealand<br />
civil society delegates in the<br />
most exciting breakthrough<br />
towards a nuclear weapon-free<br />
world since the 1996 World<br />
Court judgement.”<br />
Commander Green, a former<br />
operator of British nuclear<br />
weapons spoke<br />
out against nuclear<br />
weapons before the<br />
first Gulf War in 1991.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> boycott of<br />
these negotiations by<br />
the nuclear weapon<br />
states shows how<br />
much they fear a<br />
prohibition treaty, not<br />
least because of the<br />
impact it will have on military<br />
operators of nuclear weapons,”<br />
he said.