GREYCLIFFE DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 30 December 1927, Page 1

GREYCLIFFE DISASTER

CAPTAIN’S EVIDENCE. (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.) SYDNEY, Dee. 29. The Judicial Inquiry into the Grovel iffe Disaster was continued to-day. Alexander AlePliee Greenlees, naval architect, gave evidence that ho examined the stern portion of the Grcycliffe, now beached in the Harbour, and the submerged portion of the wreck. The latter examination had been made with the aid of a powerful electric light. He found the ferry’s rudder to port slightly, with the pin in. The rudder cou.Ul not he turned to (starboard with the pin in the present position. The wire pull for lifting or dropping the pin had carried away, and the tube lead was bent. Witness said ho had hoarded the Tahiti when she entered the Harbour last Tuesday, and made a journey up the Harbour The Tahiti was travelling at eight knots, hut- there was no how wave; merely a disturbance of the surface of the water.

Greenlees then explained that the displacement wave of the Tahiti on the day of the collision would not have had any effect on the position of the Greyeliffe, nor would it have changed the course of the ferry. He added that lie did not think the oncoming vessel would exert any force ahead of it. Similarly, the greater the speed of the vessel, the. smaller the angle of displacement. A stationary vessel would

extort a force at right angles to the plates at that angle, which was gradually reduced in accordance with the power and speed with which the vessel was sent through the water.

COR.ONTAB INQUIRY. Tu the Coroner’s Court, the inquest on the GieyclitTe victims was continued to-day. Captain Aldwell. iu evidence, said the statement he made to the police in Wellington was not untrue, hut it was taken down wrongly. The currents in Sydney Harbour would have no appreciable effect on a steamer of the size of the Tahiti. There was nothing to indicate just prior to the collision that the GreyelitTe had got out of control. He thought the master of the ferry did not see tlie Tahiti.

Tn reply to a question by the Coroner, Captain Aldwell said the Tahiti left port after the collision under the instructions of the manager of the Union Steamship Company. It bad not struck him at the time, (lint in the interests of justice the ship should ho delayed in port until statements had been obtained from the passengers and crew. Person ally lie could not have given, any more definite information then than now. In reply to a further question by tho Coroner, who said it was not intended

to he offensive, Captain Aldwell said all flic officers and the pilot were sober at the time, and practically all the Tahiti’s officers were teetotallers.

"Witness continued: When the police hoarded his vessel in Wellington, they asked him to make a statement. He replied that lie did not feel like making one. They adopted a threatening attitude, and lie made a statement under compulsion. A) it ness was then taken through the statement, sentence by sentence, to Point, out what lie declared to be inaccuracies.

Captain Aldwell was questioned on several points, and then admitted that the greater part of the statement was more or less correct. SYDNEY. Dec. 30.

John Thompson, member of the institute of naval architects marine, engineers and mechanical engineers, London, said lie had given particular attention to forces exerted by moving vessels. He then illustrated to the Court by the aid of diagrams the premises upon which he proposed to base his technical' evidence. Counsel asked that the Court should examine the bows of Tahiti before the vessel departed for New Zealand. Justice Campbell said ho had already done so.

Thompson then produced a diagram showing certain patches of painting on the hoivs of the Tahiti. He said tho marks indicated they had been caused by the belting iron of the Greycliflo and wood of the sponson. AYjitness by aid of diagrams then sought, to reconstruct the disaster and relative circumstances immediately prior to it, jby a process of deduction. He showed that assuming the Tahiti commenced the voyage at 4.19 o’clock, th". average speed from the time she left the wharf was 8.1 knots an hour. By the same, process of deduction, witness showed that in his opinion at 4.37 o’clock the Greyeliffe was travelling about nine knots. Taking that speed, the relative positions of the ships at 4.37, he was of opinion, that assuming the Tahiti was doing only 8 knots, the how of the Tahiti must have been two hundred to three hundred feet ahead of the Greyeliffe and the latter instead of being an overtaken ship, lias an overtaking ship. Having regard to the actual positions of the vessels at the time of impact lie was compelled to conclude that the speed of fhe Tahiti at that moment was 13) knots.

Thompson in another series of calculations made, based primarily on the assumption that the. Tahiti at 4.20 o’clock was doing six knots and at or about 4.39 J o’clock, eight knots, this he said would bring the point of impact 1470 feet west from where it actually happened. Taking the statements of the two Captains, he could not corelate the position of the two vessels nor could he reconsider the statements with the position of the wreck. To do so the Tahiti would have been travelling not more than four knots. From the indents of the bow head he did not think the first blow had been struck at an angle exceeding ten degrees. Had the blow been a direct one. the iron hand on the ferry’s sponson would have been nit through. Instead it had been forced down by the first glancing ldow and then tbe second blow cut- into the sponson. Tbe oncoming Tahiti, in shallow water, would exert hydraulicpressure' ahead. 11l deep sea water the oncoming vessel exerts: pressure outward. downward and forward. In shalllow water the pressure is outward and forward only. It therefore was in,ire marked in shallow water, because the pressure which was lost in the depths in deep water is exerted more fully in shallow water. The forward pressure would have the effect of paralysing the helm action of the vessel being overtaken by the oncoming ship, especially a large one. The elfect of this forward pressure would he felt first at the stern of the overtaken vessel.