CITY OF AUCKLAND INQUIRY.
Mr, Mantford, 8.M., delivered the following judgment "n November 21st relative to the stranding of tho City of Auckland at Ofcaki: — This inquiry has been held under the Shipping and Seamen Act, 1877. The Act requires tho magistrate to hold tho formal investigation with tho assistance of a person or persons to act as an assessor or assesso *s of nautical skill, and that the said magistrate, when of opinion that the investigation is likely to involve tho cancellation or suspension of the certificate of a master or mate, shall, where practicable, appoint a person having experience in tho merchant service to bo one of the assessors, and at the conclusion of the case it is provided that tho said magistrate shall state in open Court the decision ho may have come to. Tho decision therefore is that of the magistrate. There can be no doubt that in arriving jit a decision it is intended by tho Act that the magistrate should bo guided by tho naulical assessors, and there would bo no difficulty in this wero tho assessors agreed as to the cause of tho casualty necessitating the inquiry ; but where, as in tho case under investigation, there is a difference of opinion, tho magistrate must either be led by ouo or other of tho assessors, or form an independent judgment, leaving it open to cadi assessor to express his concurrence in tho judgment of the magistrate by signing the same, or to report to the Minister appointed for tho purposes of tho Act his reasons for dissenting therefrom. Tho Act further provides that tho magistrate may, subject to confirmation by tho Governor, cancel or suspend the certificate of a or mate if upon any iu«
vesbigation 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 the c/v*e 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 the 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 laxer 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 and 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 Xapiti for Stephens Island. I am further of opinion, and upon this point I naturally-speak with hesitancy as a non-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 and 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 tho same time from the soundings on the chart it appears to me that approximately the same depth of water would be 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 tho merchant service. Such an error as the former could not have happened on board one of her 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 ; n 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 lo 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 ncf doubt they would cause some regulation to be framed rendering it imperative on tho master of every ship to work out his observations with one of bis 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 haring used the deep sea lead ; yet taking into consideration the confidence for to 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, —X am not prepared to say that he has acted in such a culpable manner as to justify me in suspending his certificate. X would prefer, if I am to err, ening 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. Xn other words, I have been, as I think it wai intended I 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 inslanc 3 is an officer of the Royal Navy. There is nothing in the conduct of either of the officers of the ship requiriog the slightest censure. All the certificates are returned.
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5521, 6 December 1878, Page 7
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1,229CITY OF AUCKLAND INQUIRY. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5521, 6 December 1878, Page 7
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