ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 2997, 11 February 1926, Page 3

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL.

VESSEL COLLIDES WITH HULK,

Auckland, February 10,

The fact that the master of a ferry steamer was asleep at the wheel was revealed to-day at the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the collision between the ferry steamer Kestrel and the hulk Wanganui in Auckland Harbour on December 12. Mr. Cutten, S.M., presided, and associated with him as assessors were Captains R. E. Smith and T. Braidwood.

Mr. Meredith, who appeared for the Marine Department, said the Kestrel was proceeding from Auckland' to Northcote at 9.30 p.m. on the day in question. The course was set, but the master found the vessel getting off her course, amongst the hulks between, Northcote and Stanley Point. After managing to clear two of them, he was unable to avoid a collision and struck the Wanganui’s port bow .with the starboard bow of the Kestrel. No damage was caused to the hulk, but there was considerable damage to the ferry boat. A serious feature was that the Kestrel had a large number of passengers aboard, and there were present all the elements of a possible tragedy. The master said he had gone to sleep, and that it was not until he was on top of the first hulk that he realised what had hapepned.

The question of the master being asleep at his. post raised a serious question, when, as in this case, he was in charge of a large number of passengers. It raised the further question of whether or not someone, possibly the mate, could not have been in the vicinity in order to have prevented the possibility of the master going to sleep unnoticed. The master’s excuse was that he was over-fatigued by illnes in his family, and had not been able to get his proper amount of sleep. Even assuming that his rest had been broken, it should have been open to the_master to have informed the mate of the position and to have got him to take charge, or to have reported the position to his employers. James Edward Douglas, master of the Kestrel, gave evidence on the lines outlined by Mr. Meredith. From the time he last saw the hulks until he woke up he estimated that from two to two and a-half minutes had elapsed. He accounted for having gone to sleep by being run down through loss of sleep, occasioned by illness in his family. He had a bottle of beer on the morning of the collision, but that was all he had. It was not the custom fort he mate to keep a look-out, unless the master told him to do so. He did not ask his employers to rerelieve him because it would have meant a double shift for someone else. He had since resigned his position of his own accord. He supposed he would have been relieved if he had asked. This was his first accident.

A medical certificate was put in by counsel for the master. Thomas Finely Leatharl, mate of the Kestrel, said that so far as he knew there was no obligation on the mate to keep a look-out, nor had mates any instructions to do so, except in fog or in thick weather. If anything happened to the master, there was no one to see if anything went wrong. After casting off he went to make a cup of tea in the mate’s cabin, and he was there when the collision occurred.

The Court held that the cause of the collision was that the master of the Kestrel, while in charge and steering, fell asleep owing to his tired condition arising from home circumstances, thus allowing the vessel to go off her course and collide with the "hulk. The Court considered the master at fault in not recognising that he was unfit for duty and reporting that fact to the owners. His certificate would be suspended for three months, and a fine of £5 imposed to help to cover the costs of the inquiry. The Court thought that during the night trips of ferry steamers the mate should he required to keep a look-out.