THE WARATAH INQUIRY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 368, 20 April 1910, Page 5

THE WARATAH INQUIRY

FURTHER EVIDENCE. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Melbourne, April 19. An ex-seaman of the Waratah, in his evidence, stated that the vessel could not ride s'eas at all. She bumped her nose right down into the trough of the water, and seas broke right over the ship. The engines shook the vessel a great deal, and as a result some of the gear of the mizzenmast became loosened. . He assisted to repair it, but in twenty-four hours it was loose again. He heard the chief officer say to a passenger: "I will be glad when this vessel reaches London again, because 1 don't think she will be able to stand a heavy storm." The Waratah was the worst rigged ship in respect to ship's' apparel he ever sailed in, and the most ■unsteady boat lie had ever been in. Latimer, a shipping clerk at Sydney, stated that the second■ officer told him in January last year that he didn't like the vessel at all. He thought she had a dc»k too many, and lie got a scare when coming round in the vessel from the builders' yards' to London. He thought she was going over on her broadside in -heavy weather in the Channel. ißichardson, chief mechanical engineer to the Geelong Harbor Trust, who was a passenger to Durban on the illfated voyage, said he commented to tlip captain on the vessel's slow recovery when pitching, and Captain Ilbery replied: "She is a little that way, but it must be remembered that there is many thousand ton.-,' of dead weight to shift, and when it got in motion it took a power to stop it. and when it stopped it took a considerable force to start it in the opposite direction."