THE WAIRARAPA ENQUIRY.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 148, 19 December 1894, Page 2

THE WAIRARAPA ENQUIRY.

TO THE EDITOR, OF THE STAR. Sir, I was pleased to note by your leader of yesterday, that you did not folly agree with ever rone of the judicial utter* anceß of the above Court of Enquiry. The judicial mind is apt to overleap itself at times in a too great effort to appear very wise ; the most wretched inanities have to pasß frequently as scintillations of majei* terial wisdom. There is a near approach to a specimen of the above in the remarks of Mr Northcroft anent the work of getting out the boats at the wreck of the Wairarapa. The following is given as an example of inefficiency on the part of the crew :~ " Evidently each member of the crew did not know what was required when called upon in an emergency, oecause one of the passengers was trying to knock away one of the chocks of No. 2 boat with a capstan bar. Had the boat's crew been in their places (were they supposed to sleep there ?) the boats would haye been lifted clear of the chocks before the passengers could have reached that deck." This is the onlj so-called reason advanced in support of the charge that the crew were not up to their work. It is a near approach to the most utter nonsense. Were the circumstances of the wreck forgotten ? Did not the catastrophe occur in the deadest hour of the night when the ship's company with a few exceptions would be, like the majority of the passengers, asleep in their berths ? When aroused by the vessels striking, what was to prevent any moderately athletic passenger from being the first at a particular boat ? Then there is no reference to or admission of the tremendous difficulties in the way of lowering the boats. The matter is treated as though the vessel were lying in harbor, instead of among breakers. I would not hesitate to believe it quite impossible to lower a single boat on the weather side with such a sea breaking over the ship, even though she were in an upright position. There has been much said about boat drill and the short time required by a smart crew to get the boats out. These fair weather shows are no criterion. They aw always performed during the day, in fine weather, and each man waiting to run to his post. But put the smartest crew at the task in the night time in a heavy 59a and from the weather side, especially when they have been aroused from their slumbers to the stern and awful reality that their ship is on the rocks, and how different would be the result ? No captain will lower a boat from the weather side even in a moderate sea if he can avoid it, and I am sure that every seaman will say that to do so with the ship among heavy breakers would be a forlorn hope. I repeat that the evidence does not war* rant the sweeping statements of the Court, and that any other set of men under similar circumstances might not have done any better than the unfortunate crew of the Wairarapa. I am, etc., T. Watson. Feilding, December 18th, 1894.