New Zealand Listener – August 10, 2019

70 LISTENER AUGUST 10 2019

the boy carried on in the beer

business, eventually becom-

ing a founding director of DB

Breweries, where he pioneered

his continuous-fermentation

brewing process. This allowed

the beer to be made continu-

ously in steel tanks rather than

open vats, improving its taste

and consistency and speed-

ing up the process. Coutts

secured a patent for the

design in 1956 and soon after

licensed the design to brewers

internationally.

HAMILTON JET BOAT 1954

Farmer and engineer Charles

William Feilden (Bill) Ham-

ilton wanted to explore the

shallow rivers of the South

Island, but the propellers of

conventional outboard motors

soon hit the stony riverbed.

His solution was to do away

with underwater append-

ages on motorboats, using a

centrifugal-type pump to suck

through the water to propel

the boat forward. A trip up the

Waitaki River in 1954 proved

the concept, and further

refinements at Hamilton’s

Irishman Creek workshop

in Central Otago made the

jetboat ready for commercial

release in the 1960s. These

days, jetboats race

across shallow

water all over

the world and

Hamilton’s jet

boats are still

on sale.

DISPOSABLE HYPODERMIC

S YRINGE 1956

In the 1950s, millions of injec-

tions were being given and

blood samples taken every

day, but typically with

reusable glass syringes.

Inventor Colin Mur-

doch, a veterinarian

and pharmacist from

Timaru, wanted to

eliminate the cross

infection that some-

times came from

reusing needles that

weren’t properly

sterilised. In 1956, he

patented a plastic dis-

posable syringe. At the

time, the New Zealand

Health Department

declined to intro-

duce the syringes,

but overseas medical

companies soon saw

the patent documents

and ran with the idea.

Murdoch didn’t have the

resources to challenge

them, but he continued

with his inventions, also

coming up with the tranquil-

liser dart gun and childproof

bottle cap.

LEAD RUBBER BEARING 1974

William Henry (Bill)

Robinson was a seismic

scientist working for

the Department of Sci-

entific and Industrial

Research in 1974

when he came

up with the

design for the lead rubber bear-

ing that forms the core of the

seismic base isolators that now

protect buildings all over the

world from the worst effects

of earthquakes. Base isolators

work a bit like a car’s suspen-

sion, dampening the force

from earthquakes with lead,

rubber and steel devices placed

in a building’s foundations.

The patented technology sits

beneath iconic New Zealand

buildings such as Te Papa

and Parliament edifices, and

has proven popular in other

earthquake-prone countries,

such as the US and Japan.

BUNGY JUMPING 1986

Leaping off towers with

stretchy cords tied around

your legs isn’t a New Zealand

invention. The ancient ritual

of land diving, which saw men

leap from wooden platforms

with vines tied around their

ankles, had been practised in

Vanuatu for hundreds of years.

But it was AJ Hackett who saw

the potential in the late 1970s

to turn it into a safe adventure

sport. He sought the help of

University of Auckland scien-

tists to perfect the bungy-cord

technology and took his first

leap, off Auckland’s Green-

hithe bridge, in 1986. A bungy

jump is now an obligatory

activity for the more adventur-

ous visitor to New Zealand and

Hackett’s high-profile – and

occasionally illegal – jumps

around the world – includ-

ing from the Eiffel Tower

and the Macau Tower, have

helped spread bungy’s appeal

worldwide.

DISHDRAWER 1996

It seemed like a fairly straight-

Martin Jetpack. forward project for Fisher

80 YEARS

1

1. Jet boat. 2. Electron
   rocket. 3. Fisher & Paykel
   DishDrawer. 4. Disposable
   hypodermic syringe. Left,
   lead rubber bearing. Inset,
   Morton Coutts, top, and
   John Patrick Walsh.

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