CITY OF AUCKLAND INQUIRY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5509, 22 November 1878, Page 3

CITY OF AUCKLAND INQUIRY.

Mr. Manbford, R.M., delivered the following judgment yesterday relative to the stranding of the City of Auckland at Otaki: — This inquiry has been held under the Shipping and Seamen Act, 1877. The Act requires the magistrate to hold tho formal investigation with the assistance of a person or persons to act as an assessor or assessors of nautical skill, and that the said magistrate, when of ’ opinion that the investigation is likely to involve the cancellation or suspension of the certificate of a master or mate, shall, where practicable, appoint a person having experience in the merchant service to be one of the assessors, and at the conclusion of the case it is provided that the said magistrate shall state in open Court the decision he may have come to. The decision therefore is that of the magistrate. There can be no doubt that in arriving at a decision it is intended by the Act that the magistrate should be guided by the nautical assessors, and there would bo no difficulty in this were the assessors agreed as to the cause of the casualty necessitating the inquiry ; but where, as in the case under investigation, there is a difference of opinion, the magistrate must either be led by one or other of the assessors, or form an independent judgment, leaving it open to each assessor to express his concurrence in the judgment of the magistrate by signing the same, or to report to the Minister appointed for the purposes of the Act his reasons for dissenting therefrom. The Act further provides that the magistrate may, subject to confirmation by the Governor, cancel or suspend the certificate of a master or mate if upon any investigation made in pursuance of the Act it had been found that a shipping casualty was caused by his wrongful act or default, but that no such certificate should be cancelled or suspended unless at least one nautical assessor should concur in the judgment of the magistrate. Before proceeding to express my own views upon tho case of the City of Auckland I would like to notice the peculiar wording of that part of the 241st section of the Act requiring the magistrate in cases involving tho suspension or cancellation of the certificate of a master or mate to appoint as one of the assessors a person having experience in the merchant service. The term merchant service, as I understand it, must be read in contradistinction to the Royal Navy, and probably means that in such cases, viz., those involving the suspension or cancellation of a certificate, the magistrate should not be too much influenced by the more rigid rules of the Royal Navy, but rather be guided by the laser discipline and rules of the merchant service. Having carefully read the evidence adduced before myself and the assessors, and considered the entries in the official aud the ship’s logs, and having conferred with the nautical assessors, and gained as much information as possible from them, I am of opinion that the loss of the City of Auckland was caused by the master having laid off the position of the ship incorrectly on the chart, such error having arisen through his having inadvertently pricked his distance from the longitude instead of the latitude scale, making a variance of fourteen or fifteen miles, and having overrun his distance through underestimating the rate at which his vessel was going, arising not improbably from imperfect or incorrect information on the Admiralty chart, thereby causing him to mistake Kapiti for Stephens Island. I am further of opinion, and upon this point I naturally speak with hesitancy as a con-nautical man in such matters, that assuming the master to have been where he thought he was at the time he marked his false position on the chart, his courses were right aud such as would have been taken by the majority of masters in going through the Strait. The fact of not having used the deep-sea lead may, I think, be considered culpable on the part of the master, though at the same time from the soundings on the chart it appears to me that approximately the same depth of water would he found in the true and false position, and that the bare fact of sounding would not have enabled him to determine his actual position. The error in having used the longitude for the latitude scale, and the not having used the deep-sea lead, would very likely, according to the rules which govern the Royal Navy, be looked upon as very serious offences, and will I think explain the reason why in cases involving the loss or suspension of a certificate the Act requires that one of the assessors should be a person having experience in the merchant service. Such an error as the former could not have happened on board one of ber Majesty’s ships, because several officers would work out the observations taken day by day, and carefully check the results ; but in the merchant service, according to the evidence adduced in this case and confirmed by the expressed opinion of the assessor having experience in the merchant service, it would seem that a practice almost amounting to a custom exists for masters of merchant ships to work out their own observations irrespective of and without consultation with their officers. This in my opinion is very reprehensible, but when it is proved that such is the custom in the merchant service would it be right to punish a master for doing that which is done by every or nearly every master in the service ? It might be advisable that the attention of the Board of Trade should be called to this practice, when no doubt they would cause some regulation to be framed rendering it imperative on the master of every ship to work out bis observations with one of his officers, and to enter the results in the ship’s log, initialling the same day by day, or at such times as they were ascertained. While, therefore, I am of opinion that the master is culpable in having incorrectly laid off his position on the chart, and in not having used the deep sea lead ; yet taking into consideration the confidence fop so many years placed in him by his owners, the implicit reliance placed in him by his officers, and his praiseworthy and energetic conduct in successfully landing all his passengers and crew without the loss of a single life, —I am not prepared to say that he has acted in such a culpable manner as to justify me in suspending his certificate. I would prefer, if I am to err, erring on the side of leniency and mercy, and have therefore based my judgment upon the less stringent rules regulating the merchant service rather than by the more severe code of the Royal Navy. In other words, I have been, as I think it was intended X should be, according to my construction of the Act, more influenced by the assessor specially appointed as representing the merchant service than by the other assessor, who in this particular instance is an officer of the Royal Navy, There is nothing in the conduct of either of the officers of the ship requiring the slightest censure. All the certificates are. returned.