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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.

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