“A FORCED STATEMENT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 240, 30 December 1927, Page 1

“A FORCED STATEMENT”

Tahiti Captain and N.Z. Police

COLLISION WITH GREYCLIFFE

THAT his statement to the police in Wellington was not untrue, but was taken down wrongly—that the police adopted a threatening attitude, and he made a statement under compulsion; such was evidence given at the Greycliffe inquest at Sydney yesterday, by Captain Aldwell of the Tahiti,

By Cable. —Press Association. —Copyright SYDNEY, Thursday.

Captain B. M. Aldwell, captain of the Tahiti, said the statement he made to the police in Wellington, New Zealand, was not untrue, but it was taken down wrongly. The currents in Sydney harbour would have no appreciable effect on a steamer the size of the Tahiti. There was nothing to indicate just prior to the collision that the Greycliffe had got out of control. He thought the master of the ferry boat did not see the Tahiti. In 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 Steam Ship Company. It had not struck him at the time that, in the interests of justice, the ship should have been delayed in port until statements had been obtained from the passengers and crew. Personally he could not have given any more definite information then than now. “A THREATENING ATTITUDE" In reply to a further question by the coroner, Captain Aldwell said all the officers of the Tahiti and the pilot were sober at the time, and practically all the Tahiti’s officers were teetotallers. Witness added that when the police boarded his vessel in Wellington they asked him to make a statement. He replied that he did not feel like making one. The police adopted a threatening attitude and he made a statement under compulsion. Captain Aldwell was then taken through his statement sentence by sentence, to point out what he had declared to be inaccuracies. He was questioned on several points, and then he admitted that the greater part of the statement was more or less correct. EXAMINATION OF WRECK Alexander McPhee Greenlees, naval architect, gave evidence to the effect that he examined the stern portion of the Greycliffe, now beached in the harbour, and also the submerged portion of the wreck. The latter examination had been made with the aid of a powerful electric light. He found the ferry boat’s rudder to port slightly with the pin in. The rudder could not be turned to starboard with the pin in its present position. The wire pull for lifting or dropping the pin had carried away, and the tube lead was bent.

Witness said he boarded the Tahiti when she entered harbour last Tuesday and made the journey up the harbour. The Tahiti was travelling at eight knots, but there was no bow wave, merely a disturbance of the surface of the water. He then said the displacement wave of the Tahiti on the day of the collision would not have had any effect on the position of the Greycliffe, nor would it have changed the course of the ferry boat. He added that he 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 exert a force at right angles to the plates. That angle was gradually reduced in accordance with the power and speed with which a vessel was sent through the water. —A. and N.Z. OVER THIRTEEN KNOTS ESTIMATE OF SHIPS SPEED WITNESS’S DEDUCTIONS Reed. 9. 5 a.m. SYDNEY, To-day. The judicial inquiry into the disaster was also resumed. John Thompson, a member of the Institute of Naval Architects. Marine Engineers and Mechanical Engineers, London, said he had given particular attention to the 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 the Tahiti before the vessel departed for New Zealand. Mr. Justice Campbell said he had already done so. The witness then produced a diagram showing certain patches of painting on the bows of the Tahiti. He said the marks indicated that they had been caused by the belting iron of the Greycliffe, and the wood of the sponson. Witnesg, by the aid of diagrams, then sought to reconstruct the disaster and the relative circumstances immediately prior to it. SPEED OF MAIL-BOAT By a process of deduction he showed that, assuming the Tahiti commenced her voyage at 4.10 o’clock, the average speed from the time she left the wharf was 8.4 knots. By the same process of deduction, the witness showed that in his opinion, at 4.27 o’clock the GreyclifTe was travelling about nine knots. Taking that speed, and the relative positions of the ships at 4.27, he was of the opinion that, assuming the Tahiti was doing only eight knots, the bow of the Tahiti must have been from 200 to 300 feet ahead of the Greycliffe, and the latter, instead of being an overtaken ship, was an overtaking ship. Having regard to the actual positions of the vessels at the time of the impact, he was compelled to conclude that the speed of the Tahiti at that moment was 13J knots. Mr. Thompson, in another series of calculations, made deductions based primarily on the assumption that the Tahiti at 4.20 o’clock was doing six knots, and, at or about 4.29 i o’clock, eight knots. This, he said, would bring the point of impact 1,470 ft west from where it actually happened. Taking the statements of the two captains, he could not co-relate the position of the two vessels, nor could he reconcile the statements w-ith the position of the wreck. To do so, the Tahiti would have been travelling not more than four knots. From the indents on the bow of the Tahiti, 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 band round the ferry’s sponson would have been cut through. Instead, it had been forced down by the first glancing blow, and then the • second blow cut into the sponson. EXERTION OF PRESSURE The oncoming Tahiti, in the shallow ' water, would exert a hydraulic pressure ahead. In deep-sea water, an ! oncoming vessel exerts pressure out- ■ ward, downward and forward. In l | shallow water, the pressure is outi ward and forward only. It is therefore more marked in shallow water, ; because pressure which is lost in the ; depths in deep water is exerted more ’ fully in shallow water. Forward pressure would have the effect of paralys- ! i ing the helm action of the vessel be- ! ing overtaken by an oncoming ship, i j especially a large one. The effect of • j this forward pressure would be felt 1 first at the stern of the overtaken ! vessel.—A. and N.Z.