A SHIPPING CASE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 13, 7 September 1912, Page 6

A SHIPPING CASE.

A remarkable Board of Trade inquiry, lasting a full fortnight, ended in August, 1910, at Cardiff, amid considerable excitement, in a hading by the court that the new and over-insur-ed steamer British Standard foundered through human agency. The court suspended the master’s certificate for 18 months, and ordered him to pay a thousand guineas- towards the cost of the inquiry. The chief engineer was suspended for twelve months and ordered to pay £SO, and the third engineer was censured.

The ship was launched in Sunderland in March, 1910. She was built to like order of Messrs Brown, Son and Co., Cardiff, and the British Standard Steamship Company was formed to take over the vessel. Messrs Brown and Co. became the managing owners. Messrs Brown and Co. consisted of Mr Frederick Brown, of Penarth, and his son, Mr Thomas Brown, of Penarth. Tiiev had offices in Cardiff.

The captain of the vessel (Paul Braun), though Hue spoiled ’ his name differently, is the brother of Mr Frederick Brown. After his name had been submitter! to Lloyd’s for approval as master of the vessel, insurance was effected totalling £55,300. The vessel cost £33,267, and of this £26,500 remained on mortgage with the builders on acceptances over a period of fonr years.

The capital of the company formed to take over the vessel was £21,000, and the total paid-up capital at tPcc time she sailed was £9610, made up of 916 shares, of which Messrs Brown, Son, and Company and Captain Braun hold 675 between them.

The vessel was making her maiden voyage from Cardiff to Rio de Janeiro with a cargo of coal and patent fuel, and was only about 13 miles off Negro Point, Cape Fris, when she was said to have struck a ‘submerged rock not marked on the chart.

The captain and crew of 26 hands took to the boats and rowed away, the vessel foundering some hours later. The

crew was picked up by a Brazilian sdbooner and eventually landed at Rio do Janeiro. Members of the crew came up- at the inquiry to say that the ship was deliberately sunk. Alfred Page, the second mate, declared that the captain had offered him £IOO, wlliich he increased to £3OO at Southampton, to induce him to support the captain in l\is account of the loss of the vessel, and he also said that he had heard the captain offer two Greek sailors £3O a-piece if they made certain statements.

The crew was a very mixed one. The captain was a German, the chief officer a Norwegian, and others were Greeks, Austrians, Italians, and coloured men. Only the second officer and the first and second engineers were Englishmen. At the time the vessel was said to have struck the submerged rock, the master, the chief officer, and three seamen were on watdh, and in the ongme-roofh"’\Ve J e"”f h» v ' tl ire Engineer and two coloured firemen. It was stated by these that they felt a shock, and heard a grating sound that tlho engines refused to work for a time, and that the wheel jammed. Other members of the crew, however, (aid they felt no shock and hoard no grating sound. The President, in giving judgment, said that the propoctus of tike company showed that the position of the shareholders would he entirely different from and considerably better than that of shareholders in most other steamship companies. The promotion of the British Standard Steamship Company was not a financial succe.vs. The managing owner did not disclose to the underwriters his relationship to the master of the vessel, and the fact that the latter had lost other vessels. There was an over insurance on, the ship amounting to £8922. It left Caitiff in a seaworthy condition, and was navigated with reasonable care to Cape Negro. The court found that the ship did not strike a derelict, submerged wreckage nr a rock, hut was sunk by human agency.