Uploaded July 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
I got the text from the following link:
nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Ogden_Point_Breakwater.php
In 1914 the Panama Canal was completed. The canal provided a much shorter route to the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic and promised to significantly increase shipping coming to Seattle, Washington, USA, Vancouver and Victoria BC, Canada. The City of Victoria wanted to take advantage of the increase in shipping but the entrance to the port is lashed by extremely powerful southeast gales. For shipping to consider stopping, the deep water piers needed to be protected from these vicious onslaughts of southeast winds and waves.
Harbour Engineer Louis Coste was commissioned in 1913 to make a survey of the proposed location for the new docks and breakwater at the mouth of Victoria's harbour. He proposed two breakwaters: one springing from Ogden Point and protruding West and the other starting at Macauley Point and jutting east. The Macauley Point breakwater was considered very expensive for the dubious protection it could provide. It was never built.
A 1914-1915 appropriation of $1,100,000 provided the initial funding for the construction by the Canada Department of Public Works for the breakwater and two concrete piers at Ogden Point. The two concrete piers were originally about 800 feet long and 250 feet wide with a clearance between them of 300 feet.
The Sir John Jackson Company won the contract to build the breakwater. They secured a quarry at Royal Bay to supply the materials for construction. The local engineering firm of A.J. Ratcliff &Co. were hired to design and build two derricks to handle the stone material. One was to work at Royal Bay and the other to work at Ogden Point.
Work began in 1913 on the Ogden Point breakwater by a contract issued by the Dominion Government of Canada. The broad design idea was to create a rip-rap mound on top of which a mass concrete wall would be built. Large blocks of granite would then be placed on the weather side of the wall in order to protect both the wall and the rubble. The rubble was to be transported by scow.
The derricks had to be huge machines. They had to handle heavy granite rubble and granite blocks, half of the granite blocks not less than six tonnes and the rest not less than eight tonnes. The lifting timbers were 14" x 16" and 70 feet long. The lifting was done by steam engines with double 8 1/4 by 12 inch cylinders. The depth of water to be worked in varied from about 4 feet near the shore and about 72 feet at the outer end.
Scow–full after scow–full was filled at Royal Bay and towed over to the Ogden Point site and dumped along the 2500 feet of surveyed line. Eventually 1,026,219 tonnes of quarried core stone and rubble were dumped to create the underwater rubble mound. The final works were capped with granite blocks and a concrete superstructure. Roughly 10,000 granite blocks, weighing together over a million tons, were quarried at Hardy Island and shipped to Victoria for use in the breakwater. The last granite block was placed in the breakwater on January 22 1917 by the Sir J.J. No. 10.
This film is a heritage item from Library and Archives Canada and is only available in English.
Source: Library and Archives Canada. British Columbia Archives and Records Service fonds, 1973-0174. IDC: 226738
I got the text from the following link:
nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Ogden_Point_Breakwater.php
In 1914 the Panama Canal was completed. The canal provided a much shorter route to the Pacific Ocean from the Atlantic and promised to significantly increase shipping coming to Seattle, Washington, USA, Vancouver and Victoria BC, Canada. The City of Victoria wanted to take advantage of the increase in shipping but the entrance to the port is lashed by extremely powerful southeast gales. For shipping to consider stopping, the deep water piers needed to be protected from these vicious onslaughts of southeast winds and waves.
Harbour Engineer Louis Coste was commissioned in 1913 to make a survey of the proposed location for the new docks and breakwater at the mouth of Victoria's harbour. He proposed two breakwaters: one springing from Ogden Point and protruding West and the other starting at Macauley Point and jutting east. The Macauley Point breakwater was considered very expensive for the dubious protection it could provide. It was never built.
A 1914-1915 appropriation of $1,100,000 provided the initial funding for the construction by the Canada Department of Public Works for the breakwater and two concrete piers at Ogden Point. The two concrete piers were originally about 800 feet long and 250 feet wide with a clearance between them of 300 feet.
The Sir John Jackson Company won the contract to build the breakwater. They secured a quarry at Royal Bay to supply the materials for construction. The local engineering firm of A.J. Ratcliff &Co. were hired to design and build two derricks to handle the stone material. One was to work at Royal Bay and the other to work at Ogden Point.
Work began in 1913 on the Ogden Point breakwater by a contract issued by the Dominion Government of Canada. The broad design idea was to create a rip-rap mound on top of which a mass concrete wall would be built. Large blocks of granite would then be placed on the weather side of the wall in order to protect both the wall and the rubble. The rubble was to be transported by scow.
The derricks had to be huge machines. They had to handle heavy granite rubble and granite blocks, half of the granite blocks not less than six tonnes and the rest not less than eight tonnes. The lifting timbers were 14" x 16" and 70 feet long. The lifting was done by steam engines with double 8 1/4 by 12 inch cylinders. The depth of water to be worked in varied from about 4 feet near the shore and about 72 feet at the outer end.
Scow–full after scow–full was filled at Royal Bay and towed over to the Ogden Point site and dumped along the 2500 feet of surveyed line. Eventually 1,026,219 tonnes of quarried core stone and rubble were dumped to create the underwater rubble mound. The final works were capped with granite blocks and a concrete superstructure. Roughly 10,000 granite blocks, weighing together over a million tons, were quarried at Hardy Island and shipped to Victoria for use in the breakwater. The last granite block was placed in the breakwater on January 22 1917 by the Sir J.J. No. 10.
This film is a heritage item from Library and Archives Canada and is only available in English.
Source: Library and Archives Canada. British Columbia Archives and Records Service fonds, 1973-0174. IDC: 226738
